The Yoshida Brothers, Tsugaru shamisen players, appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on July 8th. The brothers, who hail from Hokkaido, talked about their encounter with the Tsugaru shamisen, their "Gokusei" concert, and their dreams for the future.
His older brother, Ryoichiro, started playing the Tsugaru shamisen when he was five years old. A friend in the neighborhood was playing the electronic organ, so when he told his parents he wanted to do something, his father suggested the shamisen. Apparently, his father had been moved by a Tsugaru shamisen performance when he was young and wanted to become a professional. "We didn't have a shamisen at home, so my father made one for me," he reveals.
They are currently on a nationwide tour titled "Gokusei" (meaning "ultimate raw"). "It's live sound, without using any microphones, truly live," they say, adding, "The sound of live music sounds completely different depending on where you are sitting." "There's a unique vibrato in the sound of the Tsugaru shamisen. It's not that using microphones is bad, but we wanted people to feel the vibrato of the Tsugaru shamisen that we feel, the uniquely Japanese sound, and that's why we titled it 'Gokusei' (meaning "ultimate raw")."
When asked about their dreams for the future, Kenichi, the younger brother, said, "The Tsugaru shamisen genre is still relatively young, with a history of only about 150 years in the 600-year history of the shamisen," and added, "We want to make it something that can be passed on to the future, not just overseas and around the world." Ryoichiro said, "We believe we can still pass on the cool Tsugaru shamisen that we have experienced, so we want to do our best."
