various ways of singing exist within Japanese traditional culture, compared to Western culture. Japanese ethnomusicologist Koizumi’s study of rhythm in traditional Japanese music is commonly accepted in Japan. He said that the rhythm in traditional Japanese music has a ‘front beat’ [omote5-haku 表拍 in Japanese] and a ‘rear beat’ [ura6-haku 裏
拍](Koizumi, 1984, 1994), and that these cannot be separated. Therefore, most Japanese
music is in 2 or 4 metre. This conception of beat is different from Western music, which is commonly characterized as having strong- and weak-beats (Koizumi, 1984).
This difference matches the linguistic differences reported between moraic and syllabic languages, such as Japanese and English. Kubozono and Ohta (1998)
5 omote 表: front, surface, right side, outside, head (side of coin) 6 ura 裏: back, underside, wrong side, inside, reverse of a coin
defined the difference of prosodic structure and accent between Japanese and English as in the table below (Table 2. 1).
Japanese English
Mora language Syllable language Open syllable language Closed syllable language Pitch accent Stress accent
Word-pitch language Intonation language Syllable-timed rhythm (mora-timed rhythm) Stress-timed rhythm
Table 2.1 Comparison between Japanese and English (Kubozono & Ohta, 1998)
Koizumi (1984) explained that, as a mora language, Japanese has a pitch accent, but not a stress accent. He suggested that strong- or weak-beats hardly exist in traditional music. This theory developed from several linguistic studies (Bekku, 1977; Sugaya, 1975; Kindaichi, 1988).
The differences have been studied concerning the language by researchers in linguistics and ethnomusicology and defined as follows (Kindaichi, 1988; Bekku, 1977: Sugaya, 1975; Koizumi, 1984): In Japanese traditional music, (1) equally-timed beats are more commonly used, (2) there is limitation of the number of letters/morae on each musical note, (3) one or two letter(s)/mora(e) on one music note are common, (4) the second letter/mora should be weakened if there are two letters on one note.
In the late 90’s, after ‘mora’ became commonly used as a fundamental phonetic unit in Japanese linguistics studies by Kubozono (1998), some studies were undertaken for further research on the influence of language rhythm on music, and vice versa (Kubozono, 1999; Tanaka, 1999; Murao & Azechi, 1999; Azechi, 1998, 2001).
Murao (1988) introduced the ‘Tago-beat’ theory of Japanese musical
performance behaviour, which also accepted and extended Koizumi’s ‘front-/ back-beat’ theory (1984, 1994). Tago-beat refers to a rhythmic emphasis that is common in
Japanese music performance, and is how they report feeling the beat struck and stopped at a landing point. He discovered this Japanese rhythmic behaviour (Tago-beat) while he taught Western classical music to his university students. He considered the Tago- beat schemata as one that is disturbing for Japanese students in the acquisition of Western style musical rhythm. Since his report and definition of Tago-beat, Japanese rhythmic behaviour has been a focus of further studies (Murao, 2000; Minami, 2000; Shinzanoh, 1997, 2003). Shigeshita (1988) suggested dividing Tago-beat into two categories, such as suriashi [摺り足: a style of motion in traditional dancing and play,
which the performer’s feet slide along. A style of motion that is sublimated to be artistic
and extraordinary] and sticky rhythm [ベタつきのリズム: sticky rhythm, an less
experienced rhythm and rhythmic motion]. Shigeshita reported that Murao’s definition of Tago-beat mixed up two different forms of rhythmic behaviour, assuming that Murao meant Tago-beat as a rhythmic behaviour in Japanese music.
Shinzanoh’s studies (1997, 2003) reported on the process of acquiring Western music rhythmic behaviour among junior high school students. These were studies of school brass band players’ Westernization during the introduction of musical rhythm. In his study of 1997, 32 junior high school students were asked to match their foot tapping to metronome sounds which were presented in two tempo (MM=66 and 108). All the trials were recorded on video for analysis of any timing gap between the foot tapping and the metronome sound. From the results, Shinzanoh categorized the participants into five groups according to the level of tapping match skill: Group 1: performers who can perceive the tempo presented and the gap between
the foot-tapping, and can control their body motion to match them, Group 2: performers who can perceive the tempo presented and the gap between the foot-tapping, and almost all the time can tap in tempo, but sometimes lose control of their body motion, Group 3: performers in the process of gaining an accurate perception of the tempo presented and the gap between the foot-tapping, but who cannot control body motion, Group 4: performers who lack the skill to perceive the tempi presented and the gap between the foot-tapping, therefore cannot control their body motion, Group 5: performers who do not understand a concept of tempo. In the 2003 study, Shinzanoh picked the most advanced group (Group 1) of students to seek the difference between experienced marching band performers (28 students) and non-experienced performers (30 students). The performers were asked to keep stepping to mark the tempi in one place. The trials were video recorded for analysis. The results show different sequence patterns of stepping between the two groups. The experienced performers’ group showed stepping, which picked the foot up on the beat. It tended to start with the lifting leg motion timed to coincide with the beat. The non-experienced group showed a stepping pattern in which the beat and treading on the floor coincided. Therefore, members of the non- experienced performers’ group marching looked as if they were a little delayed to the sound of the beat. Shinzanoh also examined experienced and non-experienced
conductors motion in a 2004 study, and found a similar “delay” in non-experienced conductors. Overall, the data revealed the process of gaining a new (to the students) musical style of behaviour, and their struggles to acquire the new style. Shinzanoh suggested that the underlying rhythmic schemata, which developed through their musical lives from childhood, were disturbed by their Western music learning. His studies showed the difficulty that Japanese students/learners have to acquire rhythm in
Western cultures, which is caused by the different rhythmic schemata between cultures, especially between Japanese and Western culture.