August 28th (Thu) 239/365 Nagauta, Kimono, and...

Today is my Nagauta practice day. August has been a month of music, with recitals for Shinnai and Kotsuzumi, and even a trip in between, but for me, the Nagauta Kaiyu examination next month is the big event of the year.

I started Nagauta as a university club activity, participated for four years, and after graduation, I "ran away with all my might." While I liked playing the shamisen and singing, I gradually grew tired of the human relationships with my master, advisors, and alumni, so
I decided not to get involved after graduation. In fact, I was working hard at my job, not minding overtime, so I didn't have the time anyway.

However, about 10 years after graduation, my daily routine of just going between work and home became boring, and I started thinking about taking up some kind of lesson. Suddenly, I felt like, "Maybe I'll try the shamisen again." I considered shamisen music other than Nagauta, but...
At the time, Tsugaru-jamisen was booming, and I had many opportunities to hear it. It's true that fast playing is cool. However, and this is just my opinion, when I thought of it as an accompaniment instrument for Tsugaru folk songs, I felt that its scope as music was a bit narrow.

On the other hand, I thought Kouta was stylish and nice, but... Kouta is, so to speak, the height of refinement. With just one singer and one shamisen player (called "ito" in Kouta) at a banquet, the world they sing about is the "world of a four-and-a-half mat waiting room"... I felt that most of the works dealt with the subtleties of romance, and as someone in my early 30s with a low romantic aptitude, I felt, "...it's still too early for me." Also, Kouta is played by plucking with the fingernails instead of using a bachi, and I concluded back then that "I can wait until I'm older for that."

Just then, I heard that a senior from my club was learning Nagauta from an even more senior member of the same club. I went to observe a practice session and ended up joining on the spot. Although I had once hated Nagauta and stopped being involved, it covers a wide range of worlds, and there are parts where you play vigorously with a bachi. I had pragmatic motives, thinking, "If I do Nagauta, it might come in handy later," and my master was a senior eight years older than me, which was just the right distance in terms of generation.

Since then, I have continued to go every month, even when I had to skip because I couldn't finish work... for 20 years. I am basically someone who gets bored easily, and while I tended to change jobs and places to live every three or four years, the longest thing I've done is my 21-year career as a company employee. Now that I have retired, it is certain that Nagauta will become my longest-running project. I wanted to mark that milestone, so I decided to take the Kaiyu examination. It is what is called a "Natori examination" in other schools.

I seem like someone who is very obsessed with kimono now, but the influence of Nagauta is huge. Since I participate in concerts in kimono, I wanted to be able to dress myself no matter what, and thinking about colors and patterns to match the repertoire became a pleasure all my own. There was a kimono I wanted to wear, but I didn't have a good obi for it, and while I was looking for secondhand ones, I found an obi fabric with a pattern close to what I had imagined at a very low price. The joy I felt when I tailored it myself can be traced back to Nagauta, and I truly feel the mystery of what we call "fate."

The examination says "clothing optional," and it seems like Western clothes would be fine, but I've decided to go in a kimono, and I'm worried about what to wear. It's mid-September, so considering the schedule, should I wear a thin garment or an unlined one? What will the temperature be like around then? Should I go for something bright or something subdued? It's a more difficult problem than practicing the actual performance!