The musics of India and Japan have a closer relationship to each other than either has to Western music. This at least is the theory of shakuhachi player Timothy M. Hoffman, who has divided his time between Japan and India for years in an effort to build a bridge between the two musical traditions.
As Hoffman sees it, both Japanese and Indian music have been inspired by and developed primarily in relation to the voice in spoken poetry or song. The musical instruments aspire to the flexible capabilities of the voice in intonation and ornamentation of melody, using such elements as microtonal intervals, tone-quality modulation, glides and shakes.
Hoffman is staging an upcoming concert demonstrating this theory. The program will include Indian and Japanese poetic texts set to Indian raga melodies and tala rhythms; classical Indian music on shakuhachi and tabla; Indo-Japanese music on koto and shakuhachi with tabla; and Japanese folk tunes on shinobue and tabla. Besides Hoffman, performers will be Kul Bhushan Bhargava on tabla, Mitsuko Nakabayashi on koto, Rie Nakabayashi on shinobue and percussion, and Sakiko Aruga on tamboura and swarmandal.