Shamisen player Hiromitsu Agatsuma appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on May 15th. He talked about his experience performing with his 18-year-old son in New York City, and his thoughts on passing on the shamisen to the next generation.
His 18-year-old son started playing the shamisen about three years ago. He says he still has a lot to learn before he can become a professional, but last year they performed together at a concert in New York. He said that when he went on stage, the cheers and whistling from the audience made it feel like a rock concert, and he added, "That helped me relax, so I invited my son to join me, and we played one song together as an impromptu performance."
"I was playing a solo, and he came out to play with me, when suddenly he slipped his drumstick. He was about to drop it, so I was surprised too," he revealed. He continued playing, setting a rhythm that allowed his son time to prepare, and "he calmly started playing again." It would be unnerving to slip your drumstick on such a big stage, but "he didn't get flustered and calmly started playing again. I thought it was amazing to see his growth, even though he's my own child," he said with a smile.
Tsugaru shamisen, which often involves improvisation, has been passed down by ear and oral tradition, so there are no musical scores. He says he wants to create music that can be reproduced even 100 years from now, and is transcribing his own original compositions into sheet music. He says he wants the next generation to experience what he has experienced, so he invites young musicians, about 20 years younger than him, as guest performers at his concerts and has them observe everything from what he does before the performance, to his warm-up routine, to how he decides where to sit. He hopes that they will gain some hints from this and, once they have mastered it, pass it on to the next generation.
