著者

高桑 いづみ

雑誌

無形文化遺産研究報告 = Research and Reports on Intangible Cultural Heritage

巻号頁・発行日

no.10, pp.76-90, 2016-03-31

---

The theme of the 10th Open Lecture of the Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage was the relationship between the accent of the lyrics and the melody of traditional Japanese songs. In the lecture, the present author reproduced the melody of a noh chant in the Momoyama era and requested a noh player to sing the old melody in order to verify to what extent the melody of the chant reflects the accent of the Muromachi era. There are many music scores of "Matsukaze" dating to the Momoyama era that remain today. In Jinkaisho , a writing of the Momoyama era that was used as reference in making the reproduction, the melody of a noh chant is expressed by means of scale terminology used in gagaku in addition to the usual goma (sesame)-shaped marks placed on the side of the lyrics. A study of this example indicated that the direction of the goma and the transition in the scale correspond, that when the goma mark falls to the right the melody also falls. So, in order to reproduce "Matsukaze," the marks found in music scores of noh chants were studied. As a result, it was found that in comparatively many cases the melody follows the accent to a great extent. It was also found that in the case of homonyms, the melody is changed according to the accent so that it is possible to distinguish the meaning. For example, the word for "night" and that for "to approach" both have the same sound "yoru," but their accents differ. This difference in meaning was expressed by following the difference in accent. Such distinction, however, is not made today. The progression of notes in noh chant of the Momoyama era is also different from that of today. According to HIROSE Masaji, the supplementary mark イ attached to the goma mark indicates intermediary notes on a scale which were chanted then but are not today. But that theory, too, has been proven not correct in the process of reproducing "Matsukaze." The progression of notes in the reproduced melody became more detailed than that of noh chant today which do not necessarily follow the accent of spoken Japanese. However, the author thinks that by being released from the restrictions of the accent of a given time, noh has become a more universally accepted genre of performing arts.