This year’s summer kenkyukai will take place at Otsu dentogeino kaikan, a Noh theatre next to Miidera, on the Biwa lake. I will perform the maibayashi of the Noh
Kiyotsune, will serve in the chorus of the Noh Yashima and Ama, and finally play the taiko drum for the chu-no-mai dance from the Noh Shojo. This is my third attempt at taiko chu-no-mai and I feel I have improved a lot, though I still make mistakes. I realised that improving means being more and more aware of what the other instruments do, rather of how well you play your part. This form of music is collective, after all. Again I can see here an ethical value in an aesthetic context: an excess of concentration on one’s own role results in the lowering of the overall aesthetic result. Obviously this does apply to all forms of music, but for some odd reason I only realised it now…