日本民謡の音楽様式的分析

抄録

In Japan, the same single folk song is generally sung by people from various villages and communities within a certain specific region. In the majority of cases, it is possible to observe a substantial difference in melodic details between the actual realizations of each melody. Furthermore, even within a single village the realization of a single song by a number of different individuals usually results in differences in the melodic contour of the song. However, all of these versions of the same song are recognized as common realizations of a single song without a distinction being made between the variants. Accordingly, there should exist certain fundamental principles of musical recognition in the identification of musical styles, and the Japanese way of hearing music mentioned above must depend on them.
In an endeavour to clarify this, a large number of folk songs have been analysed, and this has led to the establishment of principles such as the following: (1) Melodic movement of Japanese folk song is always ruled by tone-systems and the action of nucleus-structures such as tertial nuclei, quartal nuclei, quintal nuclei and their various combinations. In the same way that a European melody can be analysed in harmonic terms, Japanese folk song melody can be analysed in terms of nuclei abstracted from each melody unit within the whole. (2) Two melodies which are recognized as the same song despite a sustantial difference in their melodic details share identical or largely similar nucleus-progressions which structure their melodic movement.
It has also been ascertained that certain kinds of embellishments, such as tsuki, yuri, mawashi etc., are used very often in the performance of folk song. Frequency in the use of ornamentation displays a certain tendency according to region. The function of ornamentation in this case appears to fall into one of two categories: either the ornamentation itself becomes an essential part of the musical motive; or otherwise it simply retains its nature as a temporary ornamental effect in the performance of the melody.
Thus analysis of Japanese folk song in terms of a synthesis of these musical characteristics, namely specific nucleus-structures attributed to a certain region, ornamentation-style, rhythmic patterns, position of vocal production etc., has shown that Japanese folk song can be roughly classified into three regional styles: Northern style; Central style; and Southern style. Furthermore, this method is applicable to analysis of the musical metamorphoses which a folk song undergoes during its circulation and transmission.