Ingredients:

Tanka of Yosano Akiko, koto sonority and playing technique,  Japanese phonology.

All these poems are emotionally loaded. The feeling of confusion, sorrow, desperation, anger, anguish, longing and emptiness ask for a dynamic vocal range. Conveying all those emotions through speech, cries, screams and lamentation seemed appropriate. I have therefore used my voice not only as a tool for delivering the text in its most comprehensive way, but also as an instrument. The most exciting method of exploration was the improvisation and conversion of the first poem into a Sound Poem.

One of the greatest challenges was to surpass the limitation of not understanding the poem word by word and still performing the poem with vigour, stressing the right sounds. Listening to the example in Japanese did not provide a firm and recognizable emotional cadenza to follow. The reason for that is the non-modulating characteristic of the language itself.

“Japanese verse is generally based on the combination of syllables in five and seven. It takes no account of the question of stress, pitch, or length of syllable; nor is rhyme employed for poetic effect. This is inevitable consequence of the phonetic system of the Japanese language, in which (...) there is no clear distinction between accented and unaccented, or long and short syllables, thus rendering impossible a metrical system based upon rhyme or accent. Thus, the number of syllables, which serves usually as only one of the bases of metrical structure in other languages, has become the sole principle of Japanese prosody",  so I have chosen to take my understanding of the poem in its English translation, tracing the key words in the Japanese version and then proceeding with deconstructing the poem by breaking it down from the representational level to the abstraction of the pure sound. I did, however, keep in mind the message of the poet and the temperament of the writing. I have experimented with using:

- Japanese version on only vowels

- only consonants

- speaking the text backwards

- shifting from English to Japanese randomly within one sentence or even a word, reciting the words forward or backwards, the purpose being emphasis on the percussive aspect of the consonant, emotionality of a carried vowel (from whisper to groan.

Koto no ne ni - sound poem study, voice improvisation.

Koto no ne ni - original Japanese version, read.

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IV

Koto Laments

Amidst the notes

Of my koto is another

Deep mysterious tone,

A sound that comes from

Within my own breast.

“Tangled Hair” Yosano Akiko

Ingredients:

Tanka of Yosano Akiko, koto sonority and playing technique,  Japanese phonology.

All these poems are emotionally loaded. The feeling of confusion, sorrow, desperation, anger, anguish, longing and emptiness ask for a dynamic vocal range. Conveying all those emotions through speech, cries, screams and lamentation seemed appropriate. I have therefore used my voice not only as a tool for delivering the text in its most comprehensive way, but also as an instrument. The most exciting method of exploration was the improvisation and conversion of the first poem into a Sound Poem.

One of the greatest challenges was to surpass the limitation of not understanding the poem word by word and still performing the poem with vigour, stressing the right sounds. Listening to the example in Japanese did not provide a firm and recognizable emotional cadenza to follow. The reason for that is the non-modulating characteristic of the language itself.

“Japanese verse is generally based on the combination of syllables in five and seven. It takes no account of the question of stress, pitch, or length of syllable; nor is rhyme employed for poetic effect. This is inevitable consequence of the phonetic system of the Japanese language, in which (...) there is no clear distinction between accented and unaccented, or long and short syllables, thus rendering impossible a metrical system based upon rhyme or accent. Thus, the number of syllables, which serves usually as only one of the bases of metrical structure in other languages, has become the sole principle of Japanese prosody",  so I have chosen to take my understanding of the poem in its English translation, tracing the key words in the Japanese version and then proceeding with deconstructing the poem by breaking it down from the representational level to the abstraction of the pure sound. I did, however, keep in mind the message of the poet and the temperament of the writing. I have experimented with using:

- Japanese version on only vowels

- only consonants

- speaking the text backwards

- shifting from English to Japanese randomly within one sentence or even a word, reciting the words forward or backwards, the purpose being emphasis on the percussive aspect of the consonant, emotionality of a carried vowel (from whisper to groan).

Koto no ne ni - original Japanese version, read.

Koto no ne ni - sound poem study, voice improvisation.

 To translate the expression of the koto (which seemed a natural choice taking into account the tanka used) the instrumentation had to involve string instruments or strings as such. Because of the dynamism of the text I felt compelled to use the instruments in an unconventional way. That led to series of experiments with the grand piano’s keys and strings, piano pedal’s onsets and offsets, koto scale and melodic motives executed on the keys of the Steinway. I didn’t shy away from employing guitar plectrums and the great sacrifice of my own nails.

Koto – Steinway

Avalanches on strings.

The very contrasting character of the registers, the dynamic range of both the voice and the instruments used, the cascading melodies, express the dramatic emotional shifts of the poem and stay therefore within iki and kire sensitivity (see On Japanese aestetic code).

Arpeggios descending on keys.

Improvisation on grand piano strings.

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