The Konami Ensemble: My Introduction to Ancient Japanese Music

Today I had my 118th piano lesson and officially began my fourth year studying this instrument and studying music. Thursdays have always been my traditional day for recording my musings on piano and music

 and since I am always learning new things, this will likely continue. These musings I’m hoping will provide the raw material for a book I’d like to eventually write about the journey of a man coming to piano at middle age, assuming of course that I stick with it long enough to become proficient. Many older adults take up piano but almost none stick with it, so I’m hoping this will be something unique. I’ve never seen a book like this and think it might be good. I’m thinking it might also make a terrific documentary film.

I’m currently on the 6th of the 20 levels of study in the National Piano Guild curriculum. Besides working towards mastery of the seven fairly difficult early intermediate pieces I must play at the auditions next spring in order to qualify to enter Intermediate studies, we’re going to be spending the next few months heavily concentrating on theory and trying to bring myself up to speed in this area. For when it comes to theory, I’m really just at the 3rd level right now. But reading a couple good books should correct this.

I will begin this year’s music musings by paying tribute to the performance I attended Tuesday of the Konami Ensemble, three women who have taken the trouble to master the ancient art of traditional Japanese music forms produced by the ancient Japanese instruments of the koto, the bamboo flute, and festival drums. The flute and drums, though impressive, were not that much different from modern flutes and drums, and are fairly self-explanatory. But the koto was something else and that’s what I’ll be focusing this posting on.

First some background. These three women are highly accomplished musicians, two graduates of U of M, one from Oakland University. And their degrees are not in Japanese music. Rather two were piano majors, and one a flutist. Their unique story began one day in the 1980s when they were walking the halls of U of M music school and got lassooed by Professor William Malm who persuaded them to come join his konami group, an ensemble that strove to keep alive an ancient form of Japanese music that isn’t particularly well known even in Japan anymore. They didn’t even know what it was, went out of curiosity, and then never left. Over twenty years later, they continue to study and practice and have become one of the few masters of this ancient art. For one thing, these instruments, or at least the koto, goes back to around the 5th century, which makes it one of the oldest instruments in world history. These women had to go to Japan to find a traditional master artisan in order to acquire one of these. At the performance Tuesday, they actually had two of them.



A koto



They’re quite unique. They look like xylophones but are played more like guitars. They are over 7 feet long and nearly two feet wide and have 13 strings, each with its own movable bridge. The instrument is laid across a platform same as a xylophone, then the musician plucks the strings while simultaneously moving the bridges to produce the desired sound, which is quite unique. We were treated to a 45 minute concert which really impressed me that even 1500 years ago there was some pretty sophisticated music out there. Keep in mind that this was centuries before any of our modern instruments were developed, certainly a full millenium before the harpsichord came on the scene, even centuries before the violin. In fact, the organ, guitar, drums and lyre, all instruments that go back at least 3,000 years, may be the only instruments that predate the koto.

So it was quite an educational experience. These women actually have day jobs performing and teaching piano, harpsichord and flute. The Konami Ensemble is something they do out of love. We can all be grateful that someone is preserving this ancient Japanese musical art form.