is the music associated with the

Okinawa Islands The Okinawa Islands ( or ) are an island group in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan and are the principal island group of the prefecture. The Okinawa Islands are part of the larger Ryukyu Islands group and are located between the Amami Islands of Ka ...

of southwestern

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. In modern Japan, it may also refer to the musical traditions of

Okinawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city o ...

, which covers the Miyako and

Yaeyama Islands The Yaeyama Islands (八重山列島 ''Yaeyama-rettō'', also 八重山諸島 ''Yaeyama-shotō'', Yaeyama: ''Yaima'', Yonaguni: ''Daama'', Okinawan: ''Yeema'', Northern Ryukyuan: ''Yapema'') are an archipelago in the southwest of Okinawa ...

in addition to the Okinawa Islands. It has its roots in the larger musical traditions of the Southern Islands.

Genres

A dichotomy widely accepted by Okinawan people is the separation of musical traditions into ''koten'' (classical) and ''

min'yō , ''Nihon min'yō'', Japanese ''min'yō'' or Japanese folk music is a genre of traditional Japanese music. Characteristics Styles Many ''min'yō'' are connected to forms of work or to specific trades and were originally sung between work ...

'' (folk). Okinawa was once ruled by the highly centralized kingdom of Ryūkyū. The samurai class in the capital of Shuri developed its

high culture High culture is a subculture that emphasizes and encompasses the cultural objects of aesthetic value, which a society collectively esteem as exemplary art, and the intellectual works of philosophy, history, art, and literature that a society cons ...

while they frequently suppressed

folk culture Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, r ...

in rural areas. Musicologist Susumu Kumada added another category, "popular music", to describe songs that emerged after the kingdom was abolished in 1879.

Classical music

was the court music of Ryūkyū. was the traditional chamber music of the royal palace at

Shuri Castle was a Ryukyuan ''gusuku'' castle in Shuri, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Between 1429 and 1879, it was the palace of the Ryukyu Kingdom, before becoming largely neglected. In 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa, it was almost completely destroye ...

. It was performed by the bureaucrats as official duties. The texture is essentially

heterophonic In music, heterophony is a type of texture characterized by the simultaneous variation of a single melodic line. Such a texture can be regarded as a kind of complex monophony in which there is only one basic melody, but realized at the same time ...

using a single melodic line. Pitched accompaniment instruments each play a simultaneous variation on the vocal line.

Folk music

Traditionally seen as "low culture" by the samurai class, folk music gained positive evaluation with the rise of folkloristics led by

Yanagita Kunio Kunio Yanagita (柳田國男, Yanagita Kunio, July 31, 1875 – August 8, 1962) was a Japanese author, scholar, and folklorist. He began his career as a bureaucrat, but developed an interest in rural Japan and its folk traditions. This led to a ...

. Folk music is described by the Japanese term ''

''. Since the kingdom was abolished, some members of the former samurai class spread Shuri-based high culture to other areas of Okinawa. Some of such new elements are today seen as part of folk culture. Okinawa's folk songs are generally accompanied by one (or more)

sanshin The is an Okinawan and Amami Islands musical instrument and precursor of the mainland Japanese (). Often likened to a banjo, it consists of a snakeskin-covered body, neck and three strings. Origins Its close resemblance in both appearance a ...

. The suffixes '' -ondo'' and '' -bushi'' (both meaning "song" or "melody") may also be attached to the title of folk songs, however songs named without these clarifiers are more common. Eisā and

kachāshī , sometimes romanized as katcharsee, is a form of festive Okinawan folk dance. In Okinawa, it is often a feature of celebrations such as weddings and victory festivities after tegumi wrestling matches and public elections. It is traditionally ...

are Okinawan dances with specific music styles that accompany them. ;Warabi uta is a general term for nursery rhymes and children's songs.

Popular music

New folk songs

, composed in the style of traditional Okinawan min'yō, have been written by several contemporary Okinawan folk musicians such as

Rinshō Kadekaru was a Japanese-Okinawan singer who was known as a representative Okinawan folk, shimauta, singer of the post-war era. Early life Kadekaru was born in Goeku Village, Okinawa PrefectureGoeku was later renamed Koza city and is now called Okinawa ...

Sadao China (1945–) is a Japanese musician active in the Okinawan music and shima-uta scene, as a performer on the sanshin, min'yō folk singer, song-writer, and producer, having been responsible in 1990 for the formation of the Nēnēs. Biography Chi ...

Shoukichi Kina , is a Japanese rock musician and politician. He, along with his band Champloose, played a large role in the Okinawan home-grown "folk rock" scene in the 1970s and 1980s. His first big hit was " Haisai Ojisan" ("Hey, old man") in 1972, which he wr ...

Seijin Noborikawa , born in Uruma, Okinawa, was a master Okinawan musician and ''min'yō'' folk singer, and a headliner of the Utanohi music festival. Biography Noborikawa was born to a farming family in Misato Village (now Uruma) in the Nakagami District ...

, and

Tsuneo Fukuhara Tsuneo Fukuhara (; 14 November 1932 – 1 November 2022) was a Japanese composer and record producer. Life and career Born in Osaka, Fukuhara was the adoptive son of composer and record producer . He spent his early life in Okinawa, and stud ...

. These songs are often heard in contemporary pop music arrangements. , with music and lyrics by Shōkichi Kina, is typical of this genre. Okinawa's (new) folk songs are sometimes referred to as ''

shima-uta is a genre of songs originating from the Amami Islands, Kagoshima Prefecture of southwestern Japan. It became known nationwide in the 2000s with the success of young pop singers from Amami Ōshima such as Hajime Chitose and Atari Kōsuke. N ...

''. The term is not native to Okinawa but was borrowed from its northern neighbor, the

Amami Islands The The name ''Amami-guntō'' was standardized on February 15, 2010. Prior to that, another name, ''Amami shotō'' (奄美諸島), was also used. is an archipelago in the Satsunan Islands, which is part of the Ryukyu Islands, and is southwest o ...

, in the 1970s. The application of the term to Okinawan music is disfavored by people who see ''

'' as a regional brand of the Amami Islands.

Okinawa pop

The music of Okinawa came under the influence of

American rock American rock has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and country music, and also drew on folk music, jazz, blues, and classical music. American rock music was further influenced by the British Invasion of the American pop ...

music beginning with the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Many musicians began to blend the Okinawan folk music style and native instruments with those of American popular and rock music. This is called "Uchinaa pop". One example is Ryukyu Underground, who combine both classical and folk music with modern

Dub music Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style.Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican re ...

Instrumentation

The instrument that defines Okinawan music is the

(shamisen). It is a three-stringed

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...

, very similar to the Chinese

sanxian The (, literally "three strings") is a three-stringed traditional Chinese lute. It has a long fretless fingerboard, and the body is traditionally made from snake skin stretched over a rounded rectangular resonator. It is made in several sizes ...

and a precursor to the Japanese

shamisen The , also known as the or (all meaning "three strings"), is a three-stringed traditional Japanese musical instrument derived from the Chinese instrument . It is played with a plectrum called a bachi. The Japanese pronunciation is usual ...

. The body is covered in snake skin and it is plucked with a plectrum worn on the index finger. Okinawan folk music is often accompanied by various taiko drums such as , , and . Pārankū, a small hand-held drum about the size of a tambourine, is often used in eisā dancing. Other percussion instruments such as , and can often be heard in Okinawan music. ''Sanba'' are three small, flat pieces of wood or plastic that are used to make rapid clicking sounds, similar to

castanet Castanets, also known as ''clackers'' or ''palillos'', are a percussion instrument (idiophone), used in Spanish, Kalo, Moorish, Ottoman, Italian, Sephardic, Swiss, and Portuguese music. In ancient Greece and ancient Rome there was a similar ...

s. ''Yotsutake'' are two sets of rectangular

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

strips tied together, one set held in each hand, clapped together on the strong beat of the music. Traditionally they have been used in classical music, but recently they have been used in eisā dancing.Yotsutake: Okinawa Daihyakka 沖縄大百科
A group of singers called a often accompanies folk music, singing the chorus or interjecting shouts called . Also finger whistling called is common in

and eisā dance tunes. Additional instruments are often used in classical music, and sometimes incorporated in folk music: * – an Okinawan version of the

koto Koto may refer to: * Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group * Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument * Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana * Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women * K ...

; often called or * – an Okinawan version of the

kokyū The is a traditional Japanese string instrument, the only one played with a bow. A variant of the instrument also exists in Okinawa, called in Okinawan. The , like the , has its origins in Okinawa. Although it is similar to Chinese , it a ...

* – an Okinawan transverse flute; also called ''fansō'' (ファンソー) or

Tonality

''The following is described in terms used in Western disciplines of music.'' Music from Okinawa uses tonal structure that is different in music from mainland Japan and Amami in particular the intervalic content of the scales used. The chief

pentatonic scale A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancien ...

used in mainland Japan, for example, uses scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6, also known as Do, Re, Mi, So, and La in the Kodály system of solfeggio. This structure avoids

half step A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...

intervals by eliminating the fourth and seventh scale degrees. In contrast, music from Okinawa is abundant in the half steps. Common structures used in Okinawan music are a pentatonic scale utilizing scale degrees 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, or Do, Mi, Fa, So, Ti, or a

hexatonic scale In music and music theory, a hexatonic scale is a scale with six pitches or notes per octave. Famous examples include the whole-tone scale, C D E F G A C; the augmented scale, C D E G A B C; the Prometheus scale, C D E F A B C; and the blues sca ...

with the addition of the second scale degree, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, or Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, Ti. Half steps occur between the third and fourth (Mi and Fa), and also the seventh and first (Ti and Do) scale degrees. In particular, the interval from 7 to 1, or Ti to Do is very common. A folk tune can often be recognized as being Okinawan by noting the presence of this interval.

Notable Okinawan songs

Okinawan musicians and musical ensembles

Traditional (Classical/Koten Ongaku)

* Choichi Terukina -Living National Treasure * Kishun Nishie -Living National Treasure

Traditional (Folk/Min'yô)

* Misako Koja * Nēnēs *

* Misako Oshiro

Pop

The Boom ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

– rock band from

Yamanashi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Yamanashi Prefecture has a population of 817,192 (1 January 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,465 km2 (1,724 sq mi). Yamanashi Prefecture borders Saitama Prefecture to the no ...

, known for the song '' Shima Uta'' *

Cocco is a female Japanese pop / folk rock singer. Early life Cocco went to many ballet auditions, hoping to become a professional ballerina. She went to singing auditions to earn the traveling expenses for a ballet audition in Tokyo. She did not ...

High and Mighty Color High and Mighty Color (stylized as HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR) was a Japanese rock band active from 2003 to 2010. They had two vocalists; a male and a female. History Formation and Anti-Nobunaga The band started in Okinawa when Sassy and Meg left a ...

* HY *

Champloose , is a Japanese rock musician and politician. He, along with his band Champloose, played a large role in the Okinawan home-grown "folk rock" scene in the 1970s and 1980s. His first big hit was " Haisai Ojisan" ("Hey, old man") in 1972, which he wr ...

Mongol800 is a Japanese three-piece punk rock band from Urasoe, Okinawa, Japan formed in 1998. When the members were aged 19, the band released their first album. In 2001, despite low commercial attention, they sold over two-million records from the alb ...

Rimi Natsukawa is a Japanese singer. She is best known for her 2001 single "Nada Sōsō." Childhood Natsukawa was born in Ishigaki, the largest city in the Yaeyama Islands chain. From a young age she enjoyed singing, and wanted to be a singer after hearin ...

Orange Range are a 5-member Japanese rock band, based in Okinawa, Japan. Formed in 2001, the band began with Spice Music and later signed with Sony Music Japan's gr8! records division in 2003. The band left gr8! records in 2010 to start their own label, S ...

Rinken Band is an Okinawan band that helped popularize their homeland's musical forms and Okinawan music, traditional Okinawan music starting in 1985, when their first hit, "Arigatou", was released. Rinken Band was founded by , the son of well-known Okinawan ...

* Ryukyu Underground - A duo fusing traditional Okinawan music with

Electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

genres such as Dub. *

DA PUMP is a Japanese boy band made up of lead vocalist, Issa Hentona and MCs Ken Okumoto, Yukinari Tamaki and Shinobu Miyara. The band formed as students at Okinawa Actors School in 1996. They made their debut on the Avex Trax subsidiary avex tune un ...

Fuzzy Control A fuzzy control system is a control system based on fuzzy logic—a mathematical system that analyzes analog input values in terms of logical variables that take on continuous values between 0 and 1, in contrast to classical or digital logic, ...

* RYUU-unit * Ryukyudisko * Fujiko Shuri

Media

References

External links

Chicago Okinawa Kenjinkai: Okinawan Music
– audio selections {{DEFAULTSORT:Okinawan music