Old, New, Borrowed … : Hybridity in the Okinawan Guitarscape

Abstract

Japan has a variety of ‘guitars’ (using a wide definition of the term) and other types of lute. There are instruments that are considered traditional, or old in the Japanese historio-cultural context, many of which actually have acknowledged roots from outside Japan; there are instruments with a form that was clearly transplanted as a result of the impact of western culture on Japan and the Japanisation of western music after around the middle of the nineteenth century; and there are new instruments that are the product of contemporary global flows and found in various spheres of Japanese society, culture, technology and media. Each of these helps to show the importance of guitars and other lutes in historical and present-day Japan, as well as offering the fields of ethnomusicology and organology topics for study that contribute to understanding local guitarscapes in a global context, as well as the impact these instruments have had on the lives of people connected to and associated with them. This article offers an analysis of two relatively new Japanese guitars, both of which emanate from Okinawa: the ichigo ichie (four strings) and the sanrere (three strings). This discussion is built around historical, ethnographic and critical approaches with the objective of showing both the breadth of the Japanese guitarscape, as well as providing two case studies through which to comprehend one sphere of the guitar phenomenon in Japan, and more specifically Okinawa as a peripheral region, as a global consumer and producer of the instrument.

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