ABSTRACT
Japanese are exposed to music on television in educational programming, anime, and commercials. They learn to sing Western-style songs at school, some dating back to the late nineteenth century, and they play piano and violin from a young age. With its complex history of intercultural exchange, flexibility, and hybridity, music is a particularly rich and complicated practice through which to explore Japanese cultural identity. There is little early written history of Japan, with the exception of the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki (or Nihongi), the two oldest chronicles, both believed to be completed in the eighth century. Buddhism exerts a strong presence both in the cultural history of Japan, evidenced by the number of Buddhist-inspired artworks and sculptures, as well as in contemporary society. Early components of Japanese music theory, including scale types ryo and ritsu, came from China to Japan through shomyo, which is both meditative and incredibly musical.
