continues to be based on a master-disciple (one-on-one) system. During lessons students follow the teacher's every movement through visual, kinesthetic, tactile, oral/aural means of transmission.2 Though research on the oral transmission of music has been strong through the history of ethnomusicology, few in-depth investigations of how students learn to and navigate within the musical soundscape exist. This paper focuses on one mode of teaching: oral transmission. I supply case studies from my fieldwork in Tokyo at the central Tachibana school where headmasters (iemoto, Tachibana Yoshie and (soke original or previous headmaster) Tachibana Hiroyo teach.3 I have studied nihon buyo since the age of four. Throughout this article I include my personal experiences observing and taking lessons in an attempt to provide readers with a glimpse of the intimate, physical nature of the transmission process. The Japanese performing arts remain fully integrated in their artistic disciplines-a combined expressivity of music, literary narrative, visual arts (costume, props, scenery), and movement. Sonic and visual artistry must be completely coordinated for the expressive richness of the narrative to come alive. How do dancers learn to move with, or inside, a musical structure? In many cases dancers become part of the musical landscape, by producing elements of the soundworld in which they (claps, stamps, or vocal parts, for example). Through an examination of the oral transmission of dance, this article unravels the process of how dancers learn to comprehend their path through the complexity of nihon buyo musical sounds. I offer musical transcriptions and case studies of lessons as examples of specific teaching techniques used to teach music and dance. Oral instructions during nihon buyo lessons impart a wide range of directions to a student, both general and specific: fundamental movements, choreography, narrative story line, emotional content, and music. Comprehending the dance, from basic movements and choreography to musical and emotional considerations, is a complex coordination. I found that teachers' articulations in lessons form a metalanguage, a unique instructional language reflecting a varied and deeply complex matrix of information. This dance speak is comprised of a fragmented, yet completely fluid combination of the musical vocal line, instrumental vocables, emotive exclamations, and instructive speech. A closer inspection of the oral transmission process reveals that the metalanguage created during
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Dec 1, 2001
Ralph Z Newmark 
