, also known as kuchi showa or kuchi shoka, is an educational

musical notation Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proce ...

for traditional Japanese

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...

s, particularly the

taiko are a broad range of Traditional Japanese musical instruments, Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese language, Japanese, the term refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various J ...

and the tsuzumi. ''Kuchi shōga'' phoneticizes (that is, phonetically articulates) drum strokes using

Japanese sound symbolism The Japanese language has a large inventory of sound symbolic or mimetic words, known in linguistics as ideophones. Such words are found in written as well as spoken Japanese. Known popularly as ''onomatopoeia'', these words do not just imitat ...

. Each

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

conveys information about how the

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums. Most contemporary western music ensemble, bands that play Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, or Contemporary R&B, R&B music include a drummer for purposes including timekeepi ...

is to play a particular

note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...

. Kuchi shōga notation is written in

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

, a

syllabary In the Linguistics, linguistic study of Written language, written languages, a syllabary is a set of grapheme, written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) mora (linguistics), morae which make up words. A symbol in a syllaba ...

familiar to all literate

Japanese language is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese dia ...

speakers. Kuchi shōga can be

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...

from katakana to a

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

using one of the various systems of ''

rōmaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logogram, logographic characters borrowe ...

''.

Common phoneticizations

Although kuchi shōga does not have a fixed vocabulary, some phoneticizations are ubiquitous. ''Don'' typically means a deep, sustained sound from the center of the taiko. ''Do'' sometimes represents a short beat that is not allowed to resonate (i.e., one with a short decay). ''Doko'', ''dogo'', or ''doro'' means two drum-beats played in rapid succession. ''Tsu'' represents a lightly struck note; ''tsuku'' implies two soft ''tsu'' beats in rapid succession—one on the right side of the drum, the other on the left. ''Ka'' means a sharp tap on the rim of the taiko, and ''kara'' describes alternate right and left taps. Taiko players commonly phoneticize a right-handed bachi stroke with ''don'', ''do'', ''tsu'', or ''ka'', respectively; and a reserve ''kon'', ''ko'', ''ku'', and ''ra'' for left-handed strokes. Two syllables are reserved for strokes on the tsuzumi, a drum that is much smaller than the taiko: ''Ta'' describes a tap on the side of the drum; ''pon'' refers to a stroke on the center of the

drumhead A drumhead or drum skin is a membrane stretched over one or both of the open ends of a drum. The drumhead is struck with sticks, mallets, or hands, so that it vibrates and the sound resonates through the drum. Additionally outside of percus ...

Rests

Rests are variously indicated with

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...

syllables, such as ''sa'' and ''ho''; or with

semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are ''y ...

s, such as ''iya''. A polysyllable, such as ''sore'' and ''dokkoi'', indicates a two-beat rest. This is called "

kakegoe ''Kakegoe'' () usually refers to shouts and calls used in performances of traditional Japanese music, Kabuki theatre, and in martial arts such as kendo. Kabuki In the kabuki theatre, the term is used to refer to melodramatic calls from an audien ...

." If the rest is not sung, the space is often filled with unscripted sounds called

kiai In Japanese martial arts a is a short shout uttered when performing an assault. Traditional Japanese dojo generally uses single syllables beginning with a vowel. The practice has become a part of Asian martial arts in popular culture, esp ...

s. Explicitly assigning words to represent the periods of silence in a song is likely linked to the Japanese concept of '' ma'', where the space between notes is as important as the notes themselves in a performance.

Sample notation

The following is an example of kuchi shōga

notation In linguistics and semiotics, a notation system is a system of graphics or symbols, Character_(symbol), characters and abbreviated Expression (language), expressions, used (for example) in Artistic disciplines, artistic and scientific disciplines ...

transliterated in ''rōmaji'': Don (tsu) doko don, don (tsu) don kon, doko don (tsu) don When played in

common time A time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, and measure signature) is an indication in music notation that specifies how many note values of a particular type fit into each measure ( bar). The time signature indicates the ...

, this sequence constitutes three measures: 1 . 3&4, 1 . 3 4, 1&2 . 4. The sticking, describing which hand the note is played with (R= Right, L=Left), is: R . RLR, R . R L, RLR . R

Common phoneticizations

Rests

Sample notation

See also