Shigin is a form of Japanese poetry

Japanese poetry

Japanese poets first encountered Chinese poetry during the Tang Dynasty. It took them several hundred years to digest the foreign impact, make it a part of their culture and merge it with their literary tradition in their mother tongue, and begin to develop the diversity of their native poetry. For...

, which is usually chanted, either individually or within a group.

Individual poems are termed gin (吟), and are usually composed of four or more lines of Chinese characters, or kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

 (漢字), each line having the same number of characters. Gin with four phrases, each seven characters long (the most common), are classified as shichigon-zekku

Shichigon-zekku

Qiyan jueju , known in Japan as isa type of jueju poetry form consisting of four phrases each seven Chinese characters in length....

 (七言絶句), literally seven-word quatrains.

There is strictly only one standard melody

Melody

A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

, although many poems will be distinguished by minor variations from this theme.

The example below illustrates a typical gin from Chinese poet Zhang Ji (8th century):

楓橋夜泊 月落烏啼霜満天 江楓漁火對愁眠 姑蘇城外寒山寺 夜半鐘声到客船

Night Mooring at the Maple Bridge The moon falls, crows call, frosty mists fill the heavens Looking out from maple bridge, distant fishing lamps pierce these lonely eyes Outside Suzhou City, from the Cold Mountain Temple The midnight gong rings out, as the boats return

(NB: Subject terms have been added to give a sense to the poem, but no such terms exist in the original Chinese.)

Performance

Members of a Shigin group will usually gather to train in a washitsu

Washitsu

, meaning "Japanese-style room", is a Japanese term used as an antonym for the term yōshitsu , meaning "Western-style room." Another term for washitsu is nihonma , and the comparative other term for yōshitsu is yōma ....

, or Japanese-style room with tatami

Tatami

A is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Traditionally made of rice straw to form the core , with a covering of woven soft rush straw, tatami are made in standard sizes, with the length exactly twice the width...

 matting. Participants kneel in the seiza

Seiza

Seiza is the Japanese term for the traditional formal way of sitting in Japan.- Form :To sit seiza-style, one first kneels on the floor, folding one's legs underneath one's thighs, while resting the buttocks on the heels...

 position, thought to be the optimum posture to allow strong and steady projection during chanting. They are encouraged to focus their energy in their gut (thought in Zen

Zen

Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...

 to be the locus of power) and sing by slowly expelling this energy. Conversely, singing from the chest, as would be encouraged in classical Western operatic

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 style, is deemed unauthentic.

During practice, members may refer to the written gin to aid memory. This is usually annotated, with marks to the right of each character denoting how the tone should vary through the length of its vocalisation.

Breathing intervals are indicated by right-angular strokes to the left of the character (a typical gin will last approximately one and a half minutes, in four breaths). Finally, because 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...

 and Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

 word orders differ, further (sino) numerical marks to the left of some characters indicate their correct sequence.


Gin are formally performed standing, and from memory

Memory

In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....

. Because of this, recital of longer gin is sometimes seen as more accomplished (being harder to remember, and more likely to vary from the standard melodic form). The vocal may be accompanied by traditional Japanese instruments such as the Koto

Koto (musical instrument)

The koto is a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument, similar to the Chinese guzheng, the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum and the Vietnamese đàn tranh. The koto is the national instrument of Japan. Koto are about length, and made from kiri wood...

 or Shakuhachi

Shakuhachi

The is a Japanese end-blown flute. It is traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist in ABS and hardwoods. It was used by the monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism in the practice of...

. Dress may be Western (suit) or traditional (kimono

Kimono

The is a Japanese traditional garment worn by men, women and children. The word "kimono", which literally means a "thing to wear" , has come to denote these full-length robes...

 or yukata

Yukata

A is a Japanese garment, a casual summer kimono usually made of cotton. People wearing yukata are a common sight in Japan at fireworks displays, bon-odori festivals, and other summer events. The yukata is also frequently worn after bathing at traditional Japanese inns...

).

Gin are also used in the performance of certain Japanese dances, such as kenshibu

Kenshibu

Kenshibu is a category of Japanese interpretive dances performed to traditional music accompanied by poetry known as shigin . Kenbu refers to dances performed with the aid of a sword, and shibu to dances performed with one or more fans...

. In such cases, gin may either be performed live or played from recordings.

History

Shigin are thought to have originated in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 early in the first millennium AD, and may have entered Japan amongst other texts brought back from China in the 5th century. They were most likely sung originally in Chinese, but were later given Japanese readings, which are used in their contemporary recital. New gin were written, often detailing particular Japanese concepts or events, but the standard written layout has remained.

Shigin are thus significantly older than other, more popular Japanese poetry forms, such as Haiku

Haiku

' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

. Their practice is now a minority art, mostly confined to the elderly and little known amongst younger generations. Nevertheless, several Shigin festivals are held throughout the year, including the Autumn Shigin Festival (秋吟会) in Shiogama

Shiogama, Miyagi

is a city located in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.As of 2005, the city has an estimated population of 59,429 and a population density of 3,329 persons per km², making it the most densely populated conurbation in Tōhoku...

, in the North-East (Tōhoku

Tohoku region

The is a geographical area of Japan. The region occupies the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region consists of six prefectures : Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi and Yamagata....

) region of Japan. Gin are also sung at Buddhist ceremonies and quasi-religious gatherings in Japan.

Moreover, although largely in anonymity, Shigin continue to have a significant influence on Japanese culture. Individual poems are often studied in Japanese textbooks, and are regularly displayed at exhibitions of Japanese calligraphy

Japanese calligraphy

is a form of calligraphy, or artistic writing, of the Japanese language. For a long time, the most esteemed calligrapher in Japan had been Wang Xizhi, a Chinese calligrapher in the 4th century but after the invention of Hiragana and Katakana, the Japanese unique syllabaries, the distinctive...

.

External links

• 2005 Hisho Shigin festival: audio (Japanese) - click on entries to hear recital (RealAudio
  RealAudio
  RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is...
  
  required)
• Chinese recital (in Chinese) - comparison: Chinese performance of Night mooring at the maple bridge (NB. not in Shigin form)