Enter a Japanese junior high school music classroom and you might wonder what country you're in. Pasted high along the walls of the classrooms are faded pictures of European composers, all looking very austere (and all very dead). In the middle of the room there is usually a Yamaha piano or Electone, and to the side are xylophones, tympani and various other Western instruments. A look in the storeroom will reveal shelves of recorders, sundry percussion instruments, batons and various works of Bach, Beethoven and Wagner scored for piano, chorus or brass bands.

Rarely, if you search carefully, you might find a koto gathering dust in the corner.

A look at the curriculum will confirm that the Japanese music education system has indeed little to do with Japanese music. To be fair, there are three or four pages in the textbook devoted to the "Appreciation of Japanese Traditional Performing Arts," with photos of kabuki plays, short descriptions of gagaku court music and a section on koto, shakuhachi and shamisen music, but in general, the treatment of hogaku in the Japanese music educational system is cursory. Rarely do the students get to hear live performances and almost never do they get to actually touch or play a Japanese instrument.