Monday, September 15, 2014

Shamisen Performance at 2014 Memphis Japanese Festival

Today, I'd like to share a video of my performance from the Memphis Japanese festival on September 13. It's not a perfect performance but overall, I'm happy with how it all turned out. My husband had to hold my music down even though I had already weighted the pages because it was so windy! You'll also notice that a train comes by about half way through, so it may be harder to hear those parts. Nothing ever goes 100% as planned, but I'm coming to terms with that!

For this performance I played two songs: one traditional and one more modern. The first was Yachiyo Jishi, a celebratory song whose long tegoto (instrumental part) depicts a lion in a wild, frenzied dance. The second piece was Nihon Min'yoshu, an instrumental collection of folk songs from all over Japan.


I hope my performance makes you smile! m(_ _)m