Cherry blossom season comes to Southwestern College

Silk Wind Trio treats campus to intimate recital of traditional Japanese music

Traditional Japanese music is designed to evoke an image of nature in the listener’s mind, like cherry blossoms flowing through a river and down a waterfall.

With the right technique, plucking the string of a koto creates visible waves. Skilled hands gliding up and down from one pitch to another, known as glissandos, emulates waterfalls.

Silk Wind Trio recently performed traditional Japanese music at Southwestern College in an educational and interactive performance. Trio members Reiko Obata, Masazumi Mizuno and Jonathan Crick showcased their skills with five arrangements, incorporating the unique tones of Japanese woodwind shakuhachi and string instruments koto and sangen.

These instruments date back as far as the seventh century. Mizuno and Crick started playing them in the 1970s, when Mizuno formed San Diego’s first koto ensemble. They continue to perform to this day. Crick studied in Japan with music educator Shinichi Suzuki in the 1970s. Obata is a California native and studied koto in the U.S. and Japan.

Dressed in ornate kimonos, Obata and Mizuno opened the show by playing a koto duet called “Hana Ikada.” The koto is a large hollow thirteen-stringed instrument commonly called a Japanese zither.

Listening to the music was intriguing, but watching how the musicians played the instrument made the experience more enjoyable. The large size of the koto required a lot of motion from the performers, who sit adjacent to the instrument and place bridges on it prior to each song. The manual placement of the bridges allowed the musicians to adjust the pitch as they played. They reached around to the left side of the bridge and pushed down the string to create more tension and increase the pitch.

Crick played a shakuhachi solo called “Shika no Tone,” which depicted two deer calling to each other in a meadow. It was different, but hard to follow because there was a lack of beat, rhythm and melody. Crick played the Japanese bamboo flute using a method of shaking his head left and right while blowing air to create vibrato. Its deep inhales were at first distracting. An occasional intense breath caused a sharp squeak of the instrument that resembled someone learning how to play the recorder. But as the piece continued, it improved.

The shakuhachi blended nicely with the kotos in the remaining songs. The trio played a medley of four Japanese songs called “Shiki Nihon.” It is a combination of an iconic Japanese song about cherry blossoms, a song about fireflies typically sung by children while playing, a song celebrating of the full moon, and a New Year’s celebration song. Although pleasing to the ear, it was difficult for the uninitiated to distinguish when one song transitioned to the next.

Mizuno played and sang during the fourth song of the night. Singing added variety to the show and again displayed a difference in the cultures of western and eastern music. She sang offbeat, which gave contrast. Her singing style was heterophonic, meaning there was variation of melody with embellishments.

The final arrangement of the night was a medley of three songs. The three-stringed sangen, a Japanese guitar, was also introduced to the audience. The pick used to play it was huge in comparison to a guitar pick.

Silk Wind Trio’s showcase was a show that was not only entertaining, but informational about Japanese culture.