Shamisen First Lesson; Part II

The san ito is to be struck with a downward motion of the bachi like I am hitting a drum. I mean it is a real Whack! But, it is not like Tsugaru style where you use the bachi to hit the dou to make an additional sound. You hit just the string, but like a drum instead of strumming it. You need to use your wrist in a straight downward motion, not strumming at an angle. The thumb should not be used to angle the bachi or to place pressure on the downward stroke of the plectrum. The thumb is to hold position of the bachi in your hand only.

The ni no ito is plucked or struck at a slight angle and with less force and more like strumming a guitar. Finally, the ichi no ito is struck as well, but with even less force than the ni no ito. Taking this all in is overwhelming—and this is just the positioning requirements of the two hands, wrist, bachi, sangen, and the amount of force to be used on the strings.

Now the fun part begins. I need to learn Japanese—at least enough of Japanese musical notation in the tablature format to read the music I want to learn to play. I don't know Japanese. Another thing to learn.

Japanese sangen tablature is like the language itself: it is read from back to front, right to left, top to bottom. That is, you begin at what Americans would consider the last page of the book, reading the top right of the page, move downward for each musical measure, then back to the top.

I am given a beginning music book--all in Japanese--that offers the first, basic musical notes of the sangen. It is like scale practice on piano (I think--can't play the piano so not sure). As illustrated immediately below, the beginning notes on the first page of the book (which, of course, in Japan, is our Last page) are Ichi—open strings without use of the left hand fingers to move down the sao. The symbol that looks like a “1” is San, the bottom string. The symbol that looks like a “1” on its side is Ni, the middle string. The final illustration shows the last string, top string, Ichi, as a symbol that looks like the Ni symbol but with a character that appears similar to a stylistic numeral “4" just in front of it.

I go through the first three lines of the note practice. It is in 4/4 time. The “O” represents a rest—no string is played. Again, this is using open strings only, no left hand going up or down on the sao to change the key of each string's basic tuning of D-G-D. After instructor correction and playing it several times, lesson 1 is over. I am exhausted.