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When we walk around any contemporary city, we can hear a mixture of sounds, including background music, human voices and alarms from mobile phones. This paper is an attempt to organize the linage of the studies and works on "soundscape" better enable our ability to analyze the confusing sound environment in a large, contemporary city. The concept of "soundscape" was presented by R. Murray SCHAFER, a composer and educator. But how do we distinguish "soundscape" from "sound environment"? Firstly, these notions are examined in landscape studies by comparing them with the viewpoint of visual sense. In this paper, "sound environment" means an objective environment; we can read some "soundscape" from the "sound environment" with our subjective viewpoint. And the heart of SCHAFER'S work was his view of "soundscape design". It was not only to add sounds but also to leave or even reduce sounds accordingly. In this design, the desirable soundscape is "Hi-fi (fidelity) soundscape", which is less noisy and has a clear primary signal. Other 1960s anthropologists paid attention to the functions of loud sounds and noises in different cultures. Claude LEVI-STRAUSS pointed out the functions of noise, which open the door to the numinous world. It separates sacred from secular time and space. These notions were very important devices of intermediate extraordinary time and place. However, SCHAFER'S "soundscape design" concept was widely accepted in Japan and it was quite different from its Western counterpart. TORIGOE Keiko diffused Soundscape in Japan. She and her colleagues connected the notion of soundscape with "Japaneseness". Here it led to some efforts to select the best place and surroundings for political events on local government and national level. The largest project was "the 100 best soundscapes that need to be preserved in Japan". However, their work on Soundscape design could not a high level of great dependence on primarily subjective criteria in defining "any good soundscape". Technologically advanced countries have had many mechanical devices and media connecting the environment and the human body. In landscape studies, SATO Kenji wrote that contemporary people share "common sense" in these societies. He claims that we must not exclude these mechanical and electric features of the environment. In order to subjectively verify this "common sense", I refer to a project in 2004-2007. In view of landscape studies, some Japanese intellectuals formed "The Association to make beautiful Landscape", aimed at critiquing the chaotic landscapes of Japanese cities. They developed a website presenting "the 100 worst landscapes in Japan". However, many people made objections. In particular, IGARASHI Taro, an architect, claims that the Tokyo landscapes they criticize are attractive for many young people, especially those who like cyber movies. Such an argument shows that in this contemporary age, opinions about cities may vary considerably, especially when one factors in generational considerations. What is more, this example shows that SCHAFER'S "soundscape design" notion is insufficient as an instrument for sound environment analysis because it omits a very important aspect of environment perception - the actor's criteria. We have to seek new notions as devices to research these new soundscapes from more relative points of view. To overcome this problem and make use of soundscape as a means of analysis in the sound environment of cities, I examine anthropological and ethno-musicological theories in ethnography. NAKAGAWA Shin speculated on the sounds of the Gion Festival in Japan. He claims that SCHAFER'S narrative of "Hi-fi to Low-fi" is not suitable for non-Western societies and that fieldwork is needed in Non-Western, especially Asian areas. And his field of research, Kyoto, is also a contemporary city. There is also much noise coming from traffic, public television, mobile phones, etc. This means that in modern cities our sound environment is dominated by multi-flow powers. How can we analyze this case? A solution to this problem may be sought in the works of ethnomusicologists. Firstly, I refer to some pieces by Steven FELD, who carried out his fieldwork among the Kaluli people in Papua New Guinea. In his first study, he presented Kaluli's ethno-theory of music. He discussed his book with Kaluli people, and concluded that the sounds in their environment are no less important for them than their songs. This finding motivated him to study the environmental sounds in a tropical forest. In his subsequent research in the forest he focused his attention on the Kaluli's concept "dulugu ganalan", which comprises songs, animal noises and environmental sounds, especially those coming from water. He translated this as "lift-up-over-sounding", and established it as an important concept which expresses their system of society and sound theory. In his studies he was influenced by SCHAFER, referring to SCHAFER'S works and holding a critical view towards the so called objective "soundscape approaches" and taking a more subjective approach. From such a point of view, he insisted that there is a close interaction among sounds in environment, society and this human body and named it "acoustemology". FELD's colleague YAMADA Youichi, who conducted research among the Waxei people in Papua New Guinea, placed more emphasis on the interaction between sound and body. He updated FELD'S acoustemology to "acoustic body theory" claiming that musicking body must feel pleasure. All these theories are products of the analysis of traditional society environment. However, I would like to examine how they work in the confusing sound environment of a contemporary city. The sources of such sound are very close and integral parts of people's lives, causing both pleasure and discomfort according to the subjective responses of the listeners. SUWA Jun'ichiro carried out research in Papua New Guinea, doing his fieldwork on the local song of the city, claiming that in the city's sound-environment, their auditory sense is fragmented. He connected this fragmented auditory sense with their ideology and identity. Returning to NAKAGAWA, he claimed that we need research in Asia. If the field is in Asia, it will be more Low-fi than that of SUWA. In addition to that, people are individuals with their own tastes and preferences for different sounds, as evidenced by the widespread use of portable audio players. This means that we cannot carry out research with both the natural body and individualized devices. We do not share one unified sound or ethno-theory. Rather, we have a cluster, different layers of sounds. This is a common feature of contemporary cities and it resembles FELD'S "Lift-up-over-sounding". We may read this sound-environment as "fragmented" soundscape. Use of these concepts may contribute to the development of acoustic field research in contemporary cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at examining the status of the hoiku-shoka (nursery song), usually understood as the origin of modern Japanese musical composition, in the historical context of Japanese music. With its main focus on composition, performance, and venue of performance in the Imperial Court, the paper will discuss mainly the following topic, on what occasion compositions which took over the hoiku-shoka were composed. It has conventionally been maintained that the hoiku-shoka rapidly declined in school education and was completely forgotten after 1885-87, when the Music Study Committee compiled Shogaku Shoka-shu (A Collection of Songs for Elementary School). However, in fact, hoiku-shoka and its style did not completely disappear. This paper tries to prove that hoiku-shoka maintained its own tradition as a new genre (newly composed shoka) in court music with the same position as gagaku (Imperial Court music) or European music. Musical compositions by the court musicians during the 1870s led to their activities thereafter. Thus shoka (song), which originated from hoiku-shoka, has kept its position in the court music partly as a result of the musicians' connections with the Emperor and the Royal Family and also due to the role they had played in large-scale events such as the 1100th Anniversary of the Transfer of the Capital to Kyoto. Meanwhile, music composed by the court musicians was appreciated as an integral part of the musical activity in the Imperial Court. Although gagaku and shoka coexisted in earlier Imperial Court performances, this has not been the case in the gakubu (Imperial Court Music Division) after 1910-1915. While the compositional activities continued till pre-war, the newly composed shoka has completely been excluded from the musical tradition of the Imperial Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Shokyō-yōmon Kada-shū," a collection of various pieces of kada kept at Kanagawa Prefectural Kanazawa Bunko Museum, consists of three volumes of notations of Tendai shōmyō (Buddhist chants) of Myōon-in School, a no longer existing branch of Tendai shōmyō, that were written from the 13th to the 14th centuries. They were designated important cultural properties of Japan in 2006. This paper analyzes the musical structure of kada, a kind of shōmyō. The purpose of the analysis is to elucidate the differences in the musical structure according to various verse forms (for example: shikada, verses written in Chinese style with 4 lines of 7 or 5 Chinese characters per line, and kunkada, verses written in Japanese style with 4 lines of a combination of Chinese characters and Japanese letters to transcribe a total of 7+5 syllables per line) and what characterizes melody that is particular to kada regardless of verse forms. More than 250 kada compiled in these volumes were studied by examining hakase notations (neumatic way of indicating melody) written around each character or letter. At the end of the last volume (Chū) of 'Shokyō-yōmon Kada-shū" is a template of annotations of kada melody for shikada expressed with □, ○ and △ which is important in understanding the musical structure of kada. □ indicates melody which changes according to the intonation or pronunciation of the characters or letters; ○ indicates a fixed melody that is not influenced by the intonation/pronunciation of the characters or letters; △ indicates melody which is more or less fixed but may change depending on the pronunciation/intonation of the character after. A study of the lyrics reveals the characteristic verse form of kada compiled in 'Shokyō-yomōn Kada-shū" - that most of the kada are composed of 4 lines, in that case there is a · mark is written in red in the middle of each line and that each line is composed of 2 parts, I and II. For example, in the case of a typical verse form in which there are 7 characters to each line (shikada), the first, second and fourth lines have 1234 · 567([ I = 1234] · [II = 567]), whereas I of the third line alone is divided into two parts, 12 · 34 · 567 ([I =12 · 34] · [II = 567]) . Thus, even if the number of characters of each line decreases - for example, if there are 5 characters to a line then it can be divided into 2+3, the · mark of I of the third line is omitted. In the case of kunkada, although the number of Japanese letters increase, the position and number of · marks follow those of shikada. This is because the Japanese letters of kunkada are partially linked, 2 or 3 letters together, with red lines to make 7 blocks per line. This principle implies that in the case of shikada priority is given to rhythm rather than to the meaning of words, whereas in the case of kunkada · marks are written in units of phrases and that the meaning of words are respected. As a result it was found that there is a special, fixed melody just before the pauses between the characters and the last 1 or 2 characters of each line and that it is this fixed melody, which does not change regardless of the changes in verse forms, that characterizes the melody of kada the most. Furthermore, the position of the character that is expressed with □ on the template, which should be influenced by pronunciation, is also more or less fixed, appearing at a specific position in each line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]