Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Copyrights in Japan last for 50 years after the death of the work's creator. For another eight years Jin Nyodo's son could take legal action if somebody else claimed to be the author of Mujushin or Daiwa Gaku (if you consider those honkyoku), and technically the statutory JASRAC mechanical rights fee (very small) would apply to recordings of those pieces. I suppose Kurahashi Yodo's piece (Jyaku-Shin) would fall into that category as well. I don't know of anything else where it would come close to being an issue. Watazumi, as far as I know, never claimed ownership of his unique versions of traditional pieces (and really couldn't without being philosophically inconsistent), and the authorship of just about anything else considered honkyoku is either unknown or goes back so far it doesn't matter (as in the case of Jinbo Masanasuke).

I don't know about the Tozan literature, though.

When I had Sparkling Beatnik records I had to pay mechanical fees to Jasrac fairly often, for modern composed pieces (never for honkyoku). It worked pretty much the same as it does here through Harry Fox: if a piece has never been recorded before you need to get permission from the publisher and negotiate a fee directly. If it's already been recorded by somebody else, you just pay the small statutory fee through Jasrac.

When it comes to really classic honkyoku music, where the creator is not identified or where the presumed creator has been dead for at least 50 years, record away!

Notation, however, is another story: scores, even of classical pieces, can certainly be copyrighted at any time. It is illegal, for instance, to duplicate and distribute copies of Chikuysha "green" notation, though it's a common crime since the stuff goes out of print so much -- there would be even fewer sankyoku performances in the US without this "criminal" activity. When it comes to honkyoku scores, though, I am a believer in buying the stuff if you can afford it rather than relying on a friend to send you a copy or a scan. Some of the people who publish these scores make very little money at it, if any, and they are providing a great service. Always the best way to get notation, of course, is through your own teacher.

Chris Moran wrote:

Then again, as it's been pointed out recently, some honkyoku scores can only be purchased in expensive sets (The Jin Nyodo box of scores) which is prohibitve for many students at $500+, particularly youthful adherents with lots of spare energy and much less spare cash.

Right, that's a major problem. $500 is ridiculous for the scores, though they are beautiful. I'm all for a broad interpretation of "fair use" when somebody can't afford the goods. Hell, I'm not opposed to outright stealing when there's a decent reason for it! I think, though, it's good to be conscious about this stuff rather than giving away something that somebody COULD really afford. For instance, if I were to duplicate one of Tokuyama's scores and send it to you free rather than directing you to Monty's site where you could buy it for $7.50, I'd really feel like I was ripping Monty off for the $2 or $3 he might make on the sale -- plus maybe Tokuyama himself or Barry Weiss or whoever actually made the scores.

Chris Moran wrote:

(And just as many times I've been approached with a solicitous email from an teacher trying to sell me lessons in order to procure a particular score ... that will go without further comment.)

That's kind of tacky -- hope it wasn't me! But I also understand that teachers want to protect the music from misinterpretation. The scores give a very incomplete sense of the music, and they often contain ambiguities and even outright mistakes. I have always maintained that with the exception of a few pieces, you CAN'T really learn honkyoku from the notation. The notation is a good reminder of what you learned from a teacher, but little more than that. If a lot of people started to try to learn honkyoku on their own from scores, the music would evolve much more quickly than it does in the current system of transmission, and some would see that quick evolution as a weakening of the music. Certainly the more interesting and subtle techniques would become endangered species. Beginners might be surprised to learn that often when a master in one lineage wants to learn a piece from another lineage, he or she does NOT just pick up the notation and a recording but instead goes to a master of the other lineage.

Chris Moran wrote:

P.S. to Nyokai: I love Sparkling Beatnik records. Is that no longer a going concern?

Glad you dug the beatnik. Alas, I semi-abandoned the project after losing a ton of money. For niche markets like that (Japanese free improv, esoteric avant-garde stuff, traditional Japanese) it's really hard to justify the cost of the discs, packaging, advertising, etc. -- and some of the key distributors went under, as well. But the beatnik is contemplating a return, with all the old tracks and more, in electronic-only format. More about that in a few months... Meanwhile, there are still pretty good sales of a few of the CDs we made, especially Yoshio Kurahashi's two, one of mine, one of Dwight Frizzell's...

Shakuhachi stuff is available most easily from Monty's site (CDs by Kurahashi, Ronnie Seldin, Phil Gelb, James Shlefer, who am I forgetting...)  A few distributors of interesting music, such as the Electronic Music Foundation, still carry some of the non-shakuhachi Sparkling Beatnik records. And everything else you can get from me, though I no longer publish a catalog or list of what I have, making that somewhat of a problem unless it's something you've already heard about...

But we should return to the copyright discussion, I feel like I've hijacked this topic a bit...

Jim Thompson wrote:

P.S. Are there any samples of Kurahashi's on the forum? I would love to hear him as I know he comes to the U.S. often. Maybe we could lure him to Los Angeles as well.

Not sure if there are any sound samples here, but his first CD Kyoto Spirit is easy to get. He'll be in the US again in the fall, but I think his schedule is already full then. After that, he's back in mid-winter. If you're interested in getting him to do something in LA you might want to email Ronnie Seldin, who handles the scheduling and travel arrangements.

Returning off-track for a moment ...

nyokai wrote:

Right, that's a major problem. $500 is ridiculous for the scores, though they are beautiful. I'm all for a broad interpretation of "fair use" when somebody can't afford the goods..

And the compound problem there is that the publisher of the Jin Nyodo scores didn't offer them or license them for individual sales like the Tokuyama and Yokoyama scores from Monty.