Rokyoku
Encyclopedia
Rōkyoku is a genre of traditional Japanese narrative singing. Generally accompanied by a shamisen
, rōkyoku became very popular in Japan during the first half of the 20th century.
Shamisen
The , also called is a three-stringed, Japanese musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bachi. The Japanese pronunciation is usually "shamisen" but sometimes "jamisen" when used as a suffix . -Construction:The shamisen is a plucked stringed instrument...
, rōkyoku became very popular in Japan during the first half of the 20th century.
Notable performers
- Takeharu KunimotoTakeharu Kunimotois a prominent Japanese shamisen player and rōkyoku singer.In addition to performing and recording traditional music, he is also the only prominent shamisen player to perform and record bluegrass music; he spent some time in the early 2000s in the bluegrass program of East Tennessee State...
- Kumoemon Tochuken
- Yoshida Naramaru
- Haruo MinamiHaruo MinamiHaruo Minami was an enka singer in postwar Japan.He was born Bunji Kitazume in Nagaoka, Niigata...
- Hideo MurataHideo Muratawas a Japanese rōkyoku and enka singer. He had taken part in the Kōhaku Uta Gassen 27 times.Murata was born as a son of rōkyoku singer and . However, he was immediately adopted by and became his stepfather. His real name was . He studied rōkyoku under one of Kumoemon Tochuken's disciples, Kumo...