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''Uzagaku'' was primarily an oral tradition, passed on from masters to students through direct in-person instruction without the use of any written notation. The only written records of ''uzagaku'' music - that is, the melodies and not just the lyrics - come from a [[1913]] interview of [[Kokuba Koken|Kokuba Kôken]], at that time one of the last surviving court musicians from the time of the kingdom, conducted by scholar [[Yamauchi Seihin]].<ref>Kina Moriaki and Okazaki Ikuko, ''Okinawa to Chûgoku geinô'', Naha: Hirugi-sha (1984), 52.</ref>
''Uzagaku'' was primarily an oral tradition, passed on from masters to students through direct in-person instruction without the use of any written notation. The only written records of ''uzagaku'' music - that is, the melodies and not just the lyrics - come from a [[1913]] interview of [[Kokuba Koken|Kokuba Kôken]], at that time one of the last surviving court musicians from the time of the kingdom, conducted by scholar [[Yamauchi Seihin]].<ref>Kina Moriaki and Okazaki Ikuko, ''Okinawa to Chûgoku geinô'', Naha: Hirugi-sha (1984), 52.</ref>
===Restoration===
The restoration of the central structures of the palace complex at Shuri castle, following their destruction in 1945, was completed in 1992. Though efforts to reconstruct and revive ''uzagaku'' are generally said to have only just begun at that time, an ''uzagaku'' performance accompanied the first ''kaimon shiki'' (gate-opening ceremony) at the newly-restored castle on November 3, 1992.<ref>Advertisement for Shuri Bunka Sai (Shuri Culture Festival), ''Ryukyu Shimpo'', 2 Nov 1992.</ref> The piece performed at that time, ''Taiheika'' 太平歌, is the only one for which Yamauchi documented the melodies (musical notation) and lyrics based on direct interviews with surviving court musicians, and which therefore did not need to be reconstructed as extensively as other pieces.<ref>Yeh, 40.</ref>
Prof. Higa Etsuko of the Okinawa Prefectural University of the Arts, with government funding and the help of Prof. Wang Yaohua and others, began in 1993 to visit museums and other collections across Japan to investigate historical musical instruments and other materials held at such institutions. Yamauchi Seihin passed away in 1986 and was never able to witness the restoration of Shuri castle, or of ''uzagaku''; his work, however, was published in a "collected works" in 1993.<ref>Yamauchi Seihin, ''Yamauchi Seihin chosaku shû'' 山内盛彬著作集, 3 vols., Naha: Okinawa Times, 1993.</ref> Following continued research in [[Nagasaki]], [[Fujian province]], and [[Taiwan]] in the late 1990s, they worked with a Chinese luthier to have new sets of ''uzagaku'' instruments made.<ref>Yeh, 38-40.</ref> They also formed the Uzagaku Fukugen Ensô Kenkyûkai ("Uzagaku Restoration and Performance Research Association") in 1997.<ref>Yeh, 43.</ref>
Though there were many pieces in the court repertoire, only ten pieces have been reconstructed and revived (they are known by the [[Japanese language]] readings of their titles today): ''Gaseichou'' 賀聖朝, ''Taiheika'' 太平歌, ''Shidaikei'' 四大景,
''Renkaraku'' 蓮花落, ''Suitaihei'' 酔太平, ''Sasougai'' 紗窓外, ''Dogenshou'' 閙元宵, ''Ichikouri'' 一更裡, ''Soushibyo'' 相思病, and ''Kujiseikasan'' 孔子世家贊.<ref>Yeh, 44.</ref> While some of these songs (e.g. ''Taiheika'' and ''Gaseichou'') have lyrics that evoke an auspicious or ritual mood, e.g. praising the emperor, celebrating a safe return journey from paying [[tribute]], and hoping for long life ("ten thousand years," C: ''wansui'', J: ''banzai'') for the king/emperor and prosperity for the kingdom, other songs such as ''Shidaikai'', ''Renkaraku'', and ''Sasougai'' speak of the beauty of nature, romantic love, and other less ritually-oriented, less court-centered, content; while the former may have been the centerpieces of formal court rituals, the latter may have been played more heavily in banquets and other entertainment contexts.<ref>Yeh, 106-107.</ref>
Since the 1990s or so, the Uzagaku Fukugen Ensô Kenkyûkai has regularly performed as part of Shurijô Matsuri (Shuri Castle Festival), held around the first week of November each year, and for other regular and special events, as well as performing ''uzagaku'' for the filming in 2011 of a TV drama series ''Tempest'', set in 1850s Shuri. The group also participated in 2011 in performances reenacting or inspired by the 17th-19th century [[Ryukyuan embassies to Edo]], in which embassy members would perform ''uzagaku'' at [[Edo castle]] before the shogun, as well as at the [[Satsuma Edo mansion|Shimazu family's Edo mansions]] and elsewhere. In the early 2010s, this involved a number of performances in Okinawa and Tokyo, with various aspects of the preparations and performances being filmed for a documentary film, ''Yomigaeru Ryûkyû geinô Edo nobori'' よみがえる琉球芸能 江戸上り.[http://cinemaokinawashop.com/?pid=97255984] Meanwhile, a separate group of musicians, the ''Rojigaku hozonkai'', has come to perform regularly for the New Year's celebrations and certain other events at Shuri castle; trained in ''[[minshingaku]]'' (a tradition of Ming/Qing music that has developed since the 17th or 18th century in [[Nagasaki]] into its own particular genre of Chinese-style Japanese music), they perform in a rather different style and have been critiqued by members of the Uzagaku Kenkyûkai.<ref>Yeh, 72-73.</ref>
While the Uzagaku Kenkyûkai has had several sets of ''uzagaku'' instruments made for the purposes of performance, the Churashima Foundation which oversees the operations of Shuri castle and several other sites in Okinawa had a separate set of instruments - some 20 instruments, plus a ''[[nagamochi]]'' box for storing some of them - produced, based on those held by the [[Tokugawa Art Museum]] in [[Nagoya]]. These replicas of the instruments from the collection of the [[Owari Tokugawa clan]], produced over the course of some five years from 2002-2007, were produced primarily for display and not for performance. Extensive efforts were made to reproduce the instruments as faithfully as possible; some materials, including [[cassia]] wood, whale baleen, elephant ivory, and tortoiseshell, were difficult to obtain due to environmental regulations, but in the end the Foundation was able to obtain sufficient amounts of most of these materials, and to avoid having to substitute more modern materials. The Foundation then had a second set produced for performance purposes.<ref>"Ryûkyû gakki no fukugen ni tsuite" 琉球楽器の復元について, ''Fee nu kaji'' 南ぬ風 3 (2007/4-6), 14-15.; Yeh, 276.</ref>
==Instrumentation==
==Instrumentation==
Instruments employed in ''uzagaku'' include:
Instruments employed in ''uzagaku'' include (most given by their Chinese names):
*Strings: ''[[pipa|pípa]]'', ''[[sanxian|sānxián]]'', ''[[erhu|èrhú]]'', ''[[yueqin|yuèqín]]'', ''[[sixian|sìxiàn]]'', ''[[changxian|chángxiàn]]''
*Strings: ''[[pipa|pípa]]'', ''[[sanxian|sānxián]]'', ''[[erxian|èrxiàn]]'', ''[[sixian|sìxiàn]]'', ''[[changxian|chángxiàn]]'', ''[[huqin|húqín]]'', ''[[sihu|sìhú]]'', ''[[yueqin|yuèqín]]'',
*Dulcimers and zithers: ''[[yangqin|yángqín]]'', ''[[tizheng|tízhēng]]''
*Dulcimers and zithers: ''[[yangqin|yángqín]]'', ''[[tizheng|tízhēng]]''
*Winds and reeds: [[Qing flute|transverse flute]] (横笛 or 橫簫, ''héng xiāo''), endblown flute (''[[dongxiao|dòngxiāo]]'', 洞簫; or ''kan''/''kwan'', 管), ''[[suona|suǒnà]]'' (嗩吶, an oboe/clarinet-like reed instrument),
*Winds and reeds: [[Qing flute|transverse flute]] (横笛 or 橫簫, ''héng xiāo''), endblown flute (''[[dongxiao|dòngxiāo]]'', 洞簫; or ''kan''/''kwan'', 管), ''[[suona|suǒnà]]'' (嗩吶, an oboe/clarinet-like reed instrument),
*Percussion: various drums, chimes, gongs, bells
*Percussion: various drums (鼓, O: ''ku''), cymbals (新心, ''xīnxīn''), gongs (銅鑼, ''tóngluó'', 小銅鑼, ''xiǎotóngluó''), gong-trees (三金, ''sānjīn''), five-slat wooden clappers (両班, O: ''ryanhan''), three-slat wooden clappers (三班, O: ''sanban'').
==References==
==References==