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Marobashi Sugagaki

転菅垣

Marobashi Sugagaki appears on the following albums

Album Artist

Art of the Shakuhachi Vol II Shakuhachi : Mitsuhashi Kifu
This piece is based on the composition "Koto sugagaki" of the Nagoya-based Seien school of shakuhachi playing and was probably composed with the sound of the koto in mind. In fact until around 1700, "Sugagaki" was most commonly a koto composition. Like the compositions "Shishi" and "Taki ochi," however, "Sugagaki" gradually became a shakuhachi piece.

An alternate title title, "Koro sugagaki", stems from Higuchi Taizan (1856-1914), the founder of the Myoan-taizan school, who probably followed the example of the Kinko-school piece "Koro sugagaki" (an otherwise unrelated composition). The Sino-Japanese ideograph used to write the word "koro," meaning to turn or rotate, can be read in a number of different ways in Japanese, including "marobashi," a term which also refers to the deepest principle of the Yagyu-shin-kage school of swordsmanship, in which body, spirit, and sword are imagined as constituting one large sphere that rotates and moves about with perfect freedom. Because of this connection, Okamoto Chikugai called the piece "Marobashi sugagaki." In fact, this composition is crisp and compact, perhaps inspired by an image of traditional swordsmanship.

The ideograph "koro" can also be read "Utata." For this reason the piece is sometimes called "Utata sugagaki", referring to the famous komuso Kamiya Utata (1794-1843).
Play ButtonSound of Japan Shakuhachi : Mitsuhashi Kifu