かくべ (Kakube)
They say when you move, you have to touch every single thing you own. Twice. (At least.) Colleen and I have moved three times in the last 11 months and are finally settling in to our permanent home. The thing about that axiom of moving your stuff is sometimes things get packed in a hurry and they can remain in a box, forlorn somewhere and only moving again brings them back into the light.
The past 7 years of our lives have seen a lot of shifting; from coast to coast, and in and out of various careers. One of the brightest spots in that time for me has been retracing my shakuhachi steps, and the perspective a bit more age has brought with it. With moving, packing, unpacking, packing and moving again on repeat, it started to feel like an archaeological expedition, discovering things left and right I had either forgotten about or had no idea existed in the first place. Case in point today. (I’m writing this a scant few hours after posting last week’s brog.)
I have precious few recordings of myself with my father. I’m grateful for the ones I do have, but time isn’t kind to old forms of media like cassette tape. My dad would record me on an old Sony tape deck and then we’d listen back while he critiqued me. For the most part we’d use the same tape again and again until it wore out, thus the lack of any kind of library of recordings.
besides the actual shakuhachi, this was our most constant companion…
…until my dad finally upgraded to one of these.
One recording survived—a duet with my dad—and thankfully I had the wherewithal to transfer it to MP3. I didn’t have a name for it and no real recollection of even playing it, despite evidence to the contrary. It’s beautiful, complex and fairly traditional sounding, but with modern flourishes that make it lean contemporary. The opening phrase is especially unusual in that it starts in the third octave, notes shakuhachi traditionally do not use. I burnt a copy of it to a CD and sent it to my dad who, after listening to it, said I have no recollection of this piece at all.
A search to identify this piece went on for over a decade. I asked around to others in the know, like Elliot Kanshin Kallen in California who runs the International Shakuhachi Society page, but it never rang a bell for anyone. I wasn’t comfortable declaring it a lost composition of my father’s and instead just labeled it as Mystery Duet for years.
I’m getting there, don’t judge.
I spent this morning continuing the slow process of organizing my office/music room. In a stack I’d been meaning to get to were some odds and ends; various workbooks and scores like Sanya Sugagaki, Sagariha no Kyoku, and Sakae Jishi, all arranged for two (or even three) shakuhachi. None of them were printed in the traditional way, but I was glad to find them. I then came across a piece I didn’t recognize.
Every time I find some cache of scores, I wonder if I’m finally going to discover my Mystery Duet. Here was a score written in pencil on plain white paper, and I could tell at first glance it was my in my dad’s handwriting. As I read through it, the notes playing in my head, there was no mistaking it: I had finally found it.
It’s a composition not of my father’s, but of my grandfather, Araki Kodo IV, and it’s called Kakube, which is an Edo period term for solo or a small group of street entertainers. At the end is a note to me from my dad, telling me which part I’m playing and to add more “folk flute flavor.”
say “Folk Flute Flavor” five times fast
This answered so many questions. I have a photo of my father and me on stage. In addition to the flute I’m playing is one placed in front of me. I could not for the life of me figure out what it was doing there. Kakube calls for the second player (me, in this case) to switch between a nanasun (1.7 flute) and a kyuusun (1.9).
mystery solved.
Still, the most important part of identifying this piece is that it gives me another connection to my grandfather who I never got a chance to meet. Previously, I had only been aware of his arrangements of certain gagaku pieces. He died at such a young age it’s not surprising to find him omitted from the history books. To find a previously unknown contribution of his to this music is as poignant as it is significant.
my grandfather, striking a pose, during the End of Year Party with the Showa Kai: The New Traditional Music Group with Nakanoshima Kinichi among others.
I am so wildly excited to have this score and to share the music with everyone someday. I had planned to transpose it from the recording, but like I said, it’s a fairly complex piece and adding to the challenge, my dad and I sound so much alike that parsing out which line is which would’ve been a nightmare. I played through it and it came right back to me.
For now, I’ll post the scratch recording my dad and I made (see below). I look forward to teaching someone the second part, because a recording is by definition only a simulacrum; a freeze-dried moment in time. To truly live on, music must be played and heard in person.
More anon,
Hanz