Enka is a style of Japanese music that has a unique sound. It was especially popular in the 1970s and therefore most young Japanese today associate the sound with their parents or grandparents and don't like it. While it has been making a bit of a comeback, it still is nowhere near as popular as it used to be. Foreigners, however, who have never been exposed to its unique sound before and who don't have the negative bias from hearing their parents play it tend to enjoy it a lot. Myself included.
It pops up in English media sometimes to give a Japanese flavor, so you actually may have heard it before.
Modern Enka didn't develop until the 1950s and didn't become super popular until the late 60s and 70s, but it is based on traditional music. It uses a scale that is somewhat similar to the blues scale, giving it a similar sound. And the topics often include loneliness, love, and hardship, further increasing the similarity to blues.
It features a style of singing where a single syllable is sung while fluctuating between many different notes. It also features a combination of western instruments and melodies with Japanese traditional instruments.
Anyway, I want to look at one Enka song today as kind of an introduction to the genre to all of you. Let's look at Jonkara Onna Bushi sung by the gorgeous Yoko Nagayama. Jonkara is the sound of strumming the shamisen, Onna is woman, and Bushi is melody, making it something like From the Sound of Strumming, a Woman's Song. Jonkara bushi is a popular traditional song in northern Japan.
She is singing about a lonely Tsugaru musician, wandering around, playing her shamisen. She is chasing someone she loves, but the feeling is unreturned. She sings that spring is far away for her, telling us that she hasn't known love (physical or emotional) in some time.
I know what you're thinking—whoever she is chasing is crazy to ignore her! Ah well, that's the genre. She wants the one she is chasing, and every man watching her sing wants her. That's usually how it goes, eh?
The Tsugaru shamisen is type of shamisen that is a bit larger and uses thicker strings enabling it to be played harder and faster. It is actually the most popular kind of shamisen, so is probably the one you are familiar with. The popular Yoshida Brothers use Tsugaru shamisens.
Tsugaru is up in Aomori Prefecture, so it immediately conjures an image of cold (hence the snow in the background of the video). The setting of this cold area in Northern Japan has a lonely feeling and is a not uncommon location for Enka songs.
Anyway, without further ado, here you go.
You can find other performances of the song on youtube, including a cool one with a lot of shamisen players backing her up. She has been invited to Kōhaku Uta Gassen (a big year-end music contest) many times and usually picks this song, so there are many different recordings of it. I like this one best because the microphones are well balanced and you can her her singing clearly.
| David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |
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