This is the second of a series of three posts on Elif Karlidag's piece for Satsumabiwa, Amadera ya. You can read the first post here.
I enjoyed learning Amadera ya and I’m pleased that Elif was satisfied with the result.
However, there were two difficulties I encountered. The first was that the piece was written as a solo instrumental piece at a fixed pitch, specifically, for Satsumabiwa tuned to C3 or tenor C (the lowest C most men can sing). Secondly, it was written for a Satsumabiwa with a different number of frets and a different tuning system from the one I play.
Here, I hope to explain a little about these differences and in the next post ask a big “WHY?”
Two forms of Satsumabiwa
So where did the different forms of Satsumabiwa come from?
Satsumabiwa, as a name, points to many things - the instrument, its construction, the way it is played, the way songs are sung, and to some degree the text structure of songs themselves.
There is a continuous tradition to this day from the time the instrument was originally played exclusively by players hailing from the region of Satsuma. I use my own term "traditional Satsumabiwa" for this practice. Today, the number of players is very few. I guess at the very most around 50. This is the instrument I learned form Fumon.
There are many more players of the modern form of Satsumabiwa. This developed in the twentieth century. There are a number of factors that probably led to this.
One of them, possibly, was the movement, beginning in the late 1890s, to encourage women to play the original Satsumabiwa for the first time. In the face of opposition, this was led by Yoshimizu Keiwa (or Tsunekazu) 吉水経和 (1844-1910).
The main difficulty they faced arose because the Satsumabiwa is tuned to the voice of the player. Differences in vocal range for men and women meant that the instrument needed to be tuned higher for women. However, the higher the pitch of the instrument, the more difficult it is to play, particularly the left hand. Today, players with higher vocal ranges use thinner strings, and it is not uncommon to see them use smaller instruments, too, to mitigate these difficulties. Still, it remains difficult. I remember, on one occasion, Fumon commenting how his left arm pained him after teaching someone with a very high voice.
Perhaps in search of a different solution, other players began to make changes to the structure of the instrument. Whether this happened for ease of learning, to accommodate players with higher voices, to create a new, aesthetically appealing form of music as a musical art-form for Japan, or a combination of all three would be interesting to explore.
In any case, the result was an instrument with an extra fret added, another fret’s position changed, and three different possible tuning systems. These three changes made it easier to play the notes of the scale most commonly used in Japanese music.
The final change was to double the thinnest string, for greater sonority.
A new instrument
With these changes, the way of playing traditional Satsumabiwa was set aside. A new repertory of songs and instrumental interludes were adapted and composed. Among the leading exponents of this style was Suito Kinjo 水藤錦穣 (1911-1973). Her son continues her legacy today. The instrument, its new repertory, and style of playing took the name Nishikibiwa 錦琵琶 (implying "biwa of great beauty").
Its advantages were significant, including pitch accuracy, more stability with timbre, and a greater resonance.
Tsuruta Kinshi 鶴田錦史 (1911-1995) a student of Suito Kinjo's, further adapted Nishikibiwa. She performed Takemitsu Toru's November Steps in 1967 in New York, using an instrument with stepped frets. This change resulted in greater precision in pitch, because it compensated for different changes to pitch when sounding strings of differing thicknesses. This instrument is known as Tsurutabiwa 鶴田琵琶, or Tsurutaryu Satsumabiwa 鶴田流薩摩琵琶.
The modern Satsumabiwa in both its forms, Nishikibiwa and Tsurutaryu Satsumabiwa, has become the default instrument used in modern compositions using Biwa as in Amadera ya.
In the following post, I will explore the topic of the construction of the traditional instrument a little more through an aesthetic perspective, and explain some more what this meant for my approach to the performance of Amadera ya.
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