When I was young I lived with my parents and my father’s parents, that is my grandparents.
My grandfather was a fishmonger and owned a shop at Tsukiji central market. He bought a tuna from fishermen as a whole, cut it into chunks and sold them to prestigious sushi restaurants and retailers.
He used to work from around five o’clock in the morning till noon. The good thing was he had free afternoon.
My grandfather spent his free afternoon singing Japanese songs called kouta. He also loved to see Japanese performing arts and watched TV program on them. His wife, my grandmother, always sit beside him and enjoyed with him.
About once or twice a month, his teacher, a geisha woman, came to my house and played shamisen, a three strings instrument.
I grew up listening Japanese music every day, though, I got no interest in Japanese music.
Instead, I came to play old Western music.
I like recorder, Irish tin-whistle and Irish flute, and in particular, I love to play the flauto traverso, a transverse woodwind instrument made of wood.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, I took personal lesson for flauto traverso.
But as the route of the infection being elucidated, I have given up taking lesson for fear of spreading the virus unintentionally. Now I play it by myself every evening.
After the pandemic subside, I would like to play it with accompaniment of the harpsichord or viola da gamba, or I would like to join recorder ensemble.
The tone of old music is soft and encouraging but never too aggressive.
My grandfather would have had the same feeling on singing old Japanese songs.
