University of Virginia Library

The importance of the music is in its intervals
[he seems to mean intervals between beats, i.e.
rhythm intervals, not "intervals" of pitch]. It is
just like the dropping of rain from the eaves.

The musical bar is a sort of double bar made
up of five notes and seven notes, or of seven notes
and then seven more notes, the fourteen notes
being sung in the same time as the twelve first
ones.

The division of seven syllables is called "yo,"
that of five is called "in"; the big drum is called
"yo," and the small drum "in." The seven
syllables are the part of the big drum, the five
syllables are the part of the small drum—but if they
come in succession it is too regular; so sometimes
they reverse and the big drum takes the "in" part
and the small drum the "yo."

The head of the chorus naturally controls the
musicians. The chorus is called "kimi," or lord,
and the "cats," or musicians, are called "subjects."
When Minoru acts as head of the chorus, he says
he can manage the "cats" by a prolonging or
shortening of sounds. [This is obscure, but apparently
each musician has ideas of his own about
tempo.]

The "cats" must conform to him. The chorus

is subject to the shite, or chief actor. A certain
number of changes may have crept into the tradition.
The art consists in not being mechanical. The
"cats," the chorus, and the shite "feel out their
own originality," and render their own emotions.
Even during the last fifteen years some changes
may have crept in unconsciously. Even in Tokugawa
days there never was any general score bringing
all the parts under a single eye. There is not and
never has been any such score. There are independent
traditions. [Note.—The privileges of acting
as "cats" and as waki were hereditary privileges
of particular families, just as the privilege of
acting the chief parts pertained to the members
of the five hereditary schools.] Minoru and other
actors may know the parts [he means here the
musical air] instinctively or by memory; no
one has ever written them down. Some actors
know only the arias of the few pieces of which they
are masters.

Each "cat" of each school has his own traditions.
When he begins to learn, he writes down
in his note-book a note for each one of the twelve
syllables. Each man has his own notation, and he
has a more or less complete record to learn from.
These details are never told to any one. The
ordinary actors and chorus singers do not know
them.

In singing, everything depends on the most
minute distinction between "in" and "yo." Minoru
was surprised to hear that this was not so in

the West. In "yo" there must be "in," and in
"in," "yo." This adds breadth and softness,
"haba" he calls it.[4]