Nagauta

• Japanese: 長唄 (nagauta)

Nagauta (lit. "long song") is one of the most prominent styles or genres of shamisen music in both the traditions of geisha/courtesan entertainments, and the kabuki theatre.

Nagauta is the most standard or typical form of kabuki music, being performed in roughly half of all scenes or pieces in the kabuki repertoire; the remaining half of the repertoire is divided among tokiwazu, kiyomoto, and other shamisen genres. Nagauta is as a result the dominant style of music employed in Nihon buyô ("Japanese dance") as well.

It is described as a "lyrical" style, a more purely musical style in contrast to the more "narrative" form of the tokiwazu and kiyomoto styles. Its distinctive character is said to derive not from any core, essential identity of its own, but rather from a synthesis of influences and borrowings from other styles, yielding in the end, nevertheless, something quite unique and distinctive, in its vocal style, melodies, and mode of shamisen instrumentation.

References

• McQueen Tokita, Alison. "Music in kabuki: more than meets the eye." The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. pp242-245.