The musical sense of the Japanese

By examining the relevance of nature, religion, Eastern philosophies and Nō theatre, Kikkawa surveys the cultural context of Japanese traditional music and shows its effects on musical perception and performance. This is a translation of a slightly-reworked version of the article “Nihonjin no onkan — matsukaze, mushi no ne, ashirai — ” , which first appeared in the magazine Ongaku Geijutsu (Vol. 36 No. 4, April 1978) and which was later included in the author's book Nihon Ongaku no Biteki Kenkyī (“Aesthetic Research on Japanese Music”), published in 1984 by Ongaku no Tomo-sha. This English translation first appeared in: Aesthetics (Journal of the Japanese Society for Aesthetics) No 2, March 1986, pp. 1–9. Reprinted with permission.