Nakasi
Encyclopedia
Nakasi is an essential traditional popular music form in Taiwan
, most stereotypically associated with elements of working-class culture such as the old tea parlors and drinking bars. The term is borrowed from the Japanese
word nagashi (流し), which means "flow", but also means accompaniment. One explanation supposes that the word describes the migratory lifestyle of Nakasi musicians, who traditionally travelled from one tea parlor to another.
Lin Sheng-hsiang of Labor Exchange Band has described the style as "a very rustic and urban-rooty form of music, normally with a keyboard, which has replaced the accordion
, and drums accompanying the singers." http://www.farsidemusic.com/laborexchange.html As such, the form is a favorite of pro-labor bands and musical groups. One of the most prominent groups, Blackhand Nakasi, is named after it.
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, most stereotypically associated with elements of working-class culture such as the old tea parlors and drinking bars. The term is borrowed from the Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
word nagashi (流し), which means "flow", but also means accompaniment. One explanation supposes that the word describes the migratory lifestyle of Nakasi musicians, who traditionally travelled from one tea parlor to another.
Lin Sheng-hsiang of Labor Exchange Band has described the style as "a very rustic and urban-rooty form of music, normally with a keyboard, which has replaced the accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
, and drums accompanying the singers." http://www.farsidemusic.com/laborexchange.html As such, the form is a favorite of pro-labor bands and musical groups. One of the most prominent groups, Blackhand Nakasi, is named after it.