How to Protect Japanese Traditional Arts and Music

 Do you know Japanese four-character compounds “onko-chishin”? This means to discover new things by taking lessons from the past. This proverb represents Japanese traditional way of studying, but this is changing now. Today children do not study Japanese tradition much.

Nowadays, Japanese traditional arts and music are suffering from decreasing of successors. the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) says that the number of creators of Japanese traditional crafts decreased to 32 percent of 30 years ago. To be concrete, there were 290,000 creators in 1979, but this number decreased to only 93,000 by 2006 (METI). There are several reasons why the population of creators is decreasing, for instance, the current change of Japanese life-style or an increase of imports, but the largest reason is declining of the successors of Japanese traditional arts (METI). Moreover, traditional arts are not known to Japanese people well. According to the survey of METI, traditional arts known by not less than 50% of Japanese people of 307 were only 21. This shows how few Japanese people know about their own culture. 

There is the law to promote Japanese traditional arts industry, but this is not enough because this law is only about industrial protection. In order to protect traditional arts as culture, it is important to make people be interested in them. Especially, education of children is significantly crucial, because by being educated from early childhood, it becomes easy to be familiar with such arts and music. In order to do this, Japanese elementary school should spend more time to study about Japanese traditional arts and music in class because children can be interested in it by knowing about it.
              In Japanese elementary school, many teachers tend to mainly teach western music and arts or Japanese music or arts which are strongly influenced western culture. Koji Matsunobu, who is the philosophiae doctor of University of Illinois, draws on Imada and Ogawa that this situation is due to westernization (Bresler 89). Moreover, these traditional arts and music are treated as a part of history, and they are taught in history classes, even though they are kind of art. Children study and remember these traditional arts as terms of history, and this is one reason why they cannot be interested in these traditional arts and music. In addition, according to the Benesse, the corporation which is focusing on many things concerning education, 77.3 percent of students like arts class and 70.8 percent like music class, while only 51.9 percent like sociology class. This statistics shows that students are interested in doing actually than only listening to (Benesse).

In other countries, the situation is much different from Japan. For example, elementary school in Australia, students learn about Aborigine in class (Sherrard). In this class, students not only listen to the lectures about Aborigine, but they also experiment some traditional arts and music. Students experiment traditional Aboriginal body painting, stenciled hand print (the record of people’s presence), and Storytelling Telephone Lesson (to tell the stories or songs which tell how the world is made) (Sherrard).  Like this, many countries have practical classes of their own traditional arts and music. It enables students to be interested in their culture.

In contrast, in Japanese elementary school, western cultures are taught in many music and arts class. I examined three elementary school music textbooks (Miyama, Yuyama and Ohara). In music classes, many western instruments appear in textbooks from lower classes. For example, children practice the recorder from second grade. However, Japanese traditional instruments do not appear in textbook until sixth grade, and children do not play these instruments in many cases. There are only the names of famous instruments, such as koto or shakuhachi, and the very brief explanation of how to play. The curriculum says that teachers have to select some instruments which have come down in Japan or other countries and which suit to students (MEXT 71). Accordingly, there is no rule how much children have to study Japanese traditional music. The same thing can be said about arts class. I examined three elementary art textbooks, too (Nihon Jidou Bijutsu Kenkyuukai, Nihon Zoukei Kyouiku Kenkyuukai and Kurita), but there is little information about Japanese traditional arts. There are some columns about traditional crafts, but only hanga and sumie are for actual work. The rest of the textbooks are mainly about western arts. This seems imbalance.

Another reason why students cannot be interested in Japanese traditional culture is that they are not familiar enough. There is little opportunity to see, listen or experiment traditional arts and music. Furthermore, even if there are some opportunities, people are overwhelmed by too high an obligation. So, it is important to be familiar with such Japanese traditional culture from early childhood.

How to teach traditional culture in elementary school is the most important problem. There are some model classes for each grade students which are developed by Matsumoto Tooru, who is the member of Hiroshima Prefectural Education Center. First, for the students in the first and second grades, to teach warabeuta is good way to know traditional music (Matsumoto 126). Students in these grades tend to move their body in time to the music in order to familiarize themselves with it (Matsumoto 126). Second, for the students in the third and fourth grades, to introduce “ma (silence)” is good way to make them interested in traditional music, because these students can perceive music not only sensibly but also intellectually (Matsumoto 127). Third, for the students in the fifth and sixth grades, teachers should teach some traditional instruments (Matsumoto 128). According to Matsumoto, many students practice the wadaiko actually (128). Students make some rhythm pattern and familiarize themselves with such traditional rhythms. Furthermore, some students learn shinobue, koto or shakuhachi in elementary schools.Whereas, Kato Hagiko, who is the member of the Traditional Arts and Music Education Supporting Network, says that these classes are only single classes in many cases and there are very few offers from teachers. Nevertheless, these classes enable students to be interested in Japanese traditional instruments. According to Kato, there is no difference between recorders and shinobue for students, because they have no preconceptions. In addition, the notation for shinobue is very different from ones for western instruments. Thus, every student can learn the notation from zero and students who cannot read western notation and who dislike music class become to be able to enjoy music (Kato).

It is also important to bring up good teachers. In many case, schools invite professional player or artist in order to have special class today. However, if teachers can tell those things to students, they can learn in daily class. This is why it is important to bring up teachers who can teach Japanese traditional culture. There are courses for successors of traditional music in Japan, and in these courses people can learn many traditional performing arts, such as nagauta and yosebayashi (Takase 1). It is almost impossible that every teacher learn all these courses, but they should learn these at least to some extent. Or, as is written before, in Australia, teachers tell students about Aborigine in classes. In these classes, teachers introduce some painting or crafts made by ancient Aboriginal artists, show several symbolic things and make students experiment some of these arts (Stevens). Japanese teachers have to learn from them.

    Some western people like Japanese music (Pillai), but even if Japanese are asked about their culture, many of them cannot answer well because they are not educated about their traditions well. Japanese traditional arts and music exists only in Japan, and they can never be seen in any other countries. Japanese should be proud of their culture, but actually they do not know even though they are their original culture. By teaching them in elementary school, many children can familiarize themselves with these traditions, and as a result, the number of successor will increase. To know about Japanese own culture is equal to know about Japanese themselves. In conclusion, Japanese elementary students should learn more about Japanese traditional arts and music in class in order to familiarize themselves with these traditions by knowing about them.