Songs from the Edge of Japan
Music-making in Yaeyama and Okinawa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7536656 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hugh De Ferranti (Tokyo Institute of Technology, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 204-206 |
| Publication date | 2013-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Science Japan Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-1465 • E-ISSN: 1468-2680 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ssjj/jys034 |
| OpenAlex | W2030506215 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
The matter of Okinawa impresses itself upon any researcher concerned with Japan’s historical and contemporary musical culture. The southern island region’s traditional music is immediately aurally identifiable through its melodic resources, singing styles and instrumental accompaniment, and this distinctiveness is itself a constant reminder of the ambiguity of the music’s status as ‘Japanese’, given that Okinawa was created as a prefecture in the modern nation only after the Meiji government dismantled the Kingdom of Ryūkyū in 1879. In the past 20 years, moreover, a succession of bands, singers and dancers from Japan’s ‘deep south’ has had a presence in the popular music market completely disproportionate to Okinawa Prefecture’s population, roughly 1% of the national total. In 2004, the establishment of the National Theatre Okinawa in Urasoe marked central governmental legitimation of Okinawan traditional music and dance on a truly grand scale. Today, in every major city of the Japanese archipelago’s four main islands, moreover, there are substantial groups of (non-Okinawan) Japanese learning to play sanshin and sing songs in Okinawan dialect. Yet, despite the well-established prominence of Okinawa’s music and musicians, the text under review is the first research monograph in English to deal with any aspect of this rich and complex sphere of study
Ancient history · Art · Dance · Geography · Literature · Population · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Demography · History · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Japanese History and Culture
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,46 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2021 (9) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |