The label kouta (which roughly translates as, ¡°little song¡°) has been applied to any number of popular Japanese music forms over the centuries. But these days, the word usually refers to a specific genre of shamisen music that evolved in 19th-century Edo (present-day Tokyo) from existing popular styles, particularly hauta (roughly, ¡°short songs¡°). The first kouta is traditionally said to have been ¡°Chiru wa Uki¡± (¡°Those that fall float¡°), composed in 1855 by ¡°Joruri¡± puppet theater singer Kiyomoto Oyo (1840-1901), and by the early 20th century kouta was a lively and varied form ¡ª and a vital part of a geisha¡¯s repertoire of light entertainment.
Little Songs of the Geisha, Translated and edited by Liza Dalby
100 pages
Tuttle, Nonfiction.
Liza Dalby¡¯s ¡°Little Songs of the Geisha¡± is a collection of 25 kouta translated with commentary.
Dalby, an anthropologist, famously spent over a year studying with the geisha of Kyoto, and began learning about nagauta (¡°long songs¡°) ¡ª another shamisen genre ¡ª in her teens. Her translations are admirable renderings of some extremely ambiguous and slippery originals, with only a few odd missteps (¡±hyoko hyoko¡± is translated as onomatopoeia for a frog croaking rather than a frog jumping, for example), and her comments range from historical notes on authors and composers to musings on romance.
A pleasant introduction to a once-thriving genre that is rapidly dwindling to a very niche interest.
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