Chin-don music Okinawan style
Posted by ampontan on Sunday, February 17, 2008
WHAT A LUCKY FIND! Long-time friends will know that I’m nuts about chin-don music, the urban Japanese street music that is more fun that the proverbial barrel of monkeys. (Try here, here, and here.) And I’ll stop anything I’m doing at any time to listen to the modern take on Okinawa minyo, a different style of music altogether. (Try here.)
Well, you can see where this is heading!
Yesterday I spotted an item on the web about a short segment broadcast on a Kansai television station featuring a chin-don band. I scouted around to see if a video clip was available, but unfortunately it was not.
But sometimes seeking allows you to find something better than what you were looking for to begin with, and boy, did I stumble on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The Ryukyu Chimdon Gakudan! They combine Okinawan music with chin-don orchestration, which is about as rare a pairing as the double-necked sanshin one of the band members plays. (Chimdon, the band explains, means to be excited, and was chosen because it sounds similar to the onomatopoetic chin-don.)
If you have anything approaching the blues, do not fail to click on this video! And you won’t even need that excuse. An eight-minute promo the band put together from tunes on their first CD, it is funkier than a five-legged horse and guaranteed to melt the snow on your roof. If viewing this clip does not bring a smile to your face and make the hills come alive to the sound of music, then your middle name is Grump!
And better yet, they have a website with English here!
Here’s another promotional video of the band’s more recent music. They’ve taken a step away from pure chin-don, but it’s easy to like the taste of Indonesian gamelan music in the first song.
Besides, come clean and admit that you’re dying to hear songs played by people with names like Bobzy, Yoda, and Yanba Run! (Yoda has a Mohawk and Yanba Run has a pigtail that stretches up vertically for what looks like 18 inches.)
They’ve even appeared on Okinawan TV providing the music for this short awamori (shochu) commercial.
For more bouncy takes from different bands of straight chin-don–if that adjective applies–try here, here, here, here, and here.
But brother, beware: you might bounce around so much you’ll have to pad your walls!
ponta said
Are you nuts about chindon music?
As a kid, I used to be attracted by Chindonya, when they play Chindon music around the store for discount sale in tokyo. Yeah, in a kid’s eyes, they looked like fairies or something that came into this orderly society from a mysterious land.
I still like them , but not to the extent to follow them to the store.
ampontan said
Ponta: There are many reasons why I like it.
Sometimes people like to talk about how Japan is a conformist society. Not true! There are plenty of non-conformists here. Chin-don is a great example.
I think it is fascinating how they combine Japanese music and instruments with Western music and instruments and play anything.
It is really a form of roots music, produced by the people of a specific place for the people of a specific place. There are a lot of people around the world who are fans of that kind of music. When it comes to pop music, I like that kind the best.
There is also a small movement among serious pop musicians in Japan to use the chin-don form to play good music. And it is!
When good musicians use the form, it can be very similar to New Orleans-style brass band music, which can be both very funky and very jazzy. (Such as the Dirty Dozen Brass Band).
Besides, it’s fun! Did you click on the first link, at least? I like that kind of stuff. Nothing wrong with having a good time.
It might be one of those things in which local people have too many other associations with a certain thing and they overlook the interesting parts.
Besides, I listen to classical music and jazz, too.
Right this minute, I’m listening to NHK FM and there is a woman singer with koto (I think), shamisen and shakuhachi. My wife came by and asked, “When did you start to be interested in geisha asobi?”
There used to be a TV program on once a week with minyo singers, amateurs I think. They used to have judges. I don’t know if it is still on, but I used to watch it a lot. I really like upbeat minyo music with the women singers in the background.
And you might think this is weird, but I also like gagaku! I have to listen to it a little at a time, however.
ponta said
Yeah.It was fun.
I might have given you an impression that I hold this kind of music in low esteem. I like it very much. It is just that Chindon reminds me of childhood, kind of nostalgia for the innocent times.
M&M said
I confirmed it.
This band is splendid & fantastic!
I thank for your reporting.