E-Paper
The flautist
The bandana around his head, the music on his lips, the twinkle in his eyes... Nope! Am not talking of the Blue God two days after Janmashtami. It?s about Timothy Hoffman. Another matter though, this American-born, Japanese citizen, who has spent years studying at Lucknow?s Bhatkhande, plays his shakuhachi like a god.
Of music, memories and cultural metamorphosis by the Gomti
The bandana around his head, the music on his lips, the twinkle in his eyes... Nope! Am not talking of the Blue God two days after Janmashtami. It’s about Timothy Hoffman. Another matter though, this American-born, Japanese citizen, who has spent years studying at Lucknow’s Bhatkhande, plays his shakuhachi like a god.
Having spent more than two decades exploring the Indo-Japanese musical link, the 54-year-old ethnomusicologist remains unsatiated.
Hoffman explains, the Indo-Japanese classical communion is not mere chance.
While Western music and its instruments are built around harmony, both Indian and Japanese music traditions and instruments feature careful attention to melody and rhythm. In both India and Japan, vocal music is central, microtones (shruti) are important elements of melody, and performance progresses from slow to medium to fast (vilambit-madhya-drut, or jo-ha-kyu in Japan).
Furthermore, the Japanese language is closer to Indian languages in phonetic, grammatical and poetic structure than it is to Chinese or Western languages.
“I set up the Indo-Japanese Music Exchange Association in Tokyo in June, 1989 for the purpose of promoting opportunities for Japanese and Indian musicians to observe, study and appreciate our classical music bonding both as a performing art and subject for theoretical and historical study, and to interactively share perceptions and technique.”
Hoffman has devoted himself to what he calls ‘Asian music crossover’ by conducting lecture-demonstrations, writing research papers, teaching music at universities.
But he did not envision such a life before coming to Japan.
Born in York, Pa., Hoffman grew up in a musical environment with his father being a gospel singer and his mother a self-taught pianist. At age 4, he started studying the piano under a renowned piano master and often played it at church in his youth. In 1976, he decided to come to Japan. While attending International Christian University in Tokyo, Hoffman learned the Japanese bamboo flute under the tutelage of Living National Treasure Goro Yamaguchi.
In 1985, he entered Bhatkhande Music College in Lucknow to study Hindustani classical vocal music and flute. Significantly, Hoffman obtained special permission from the then State Government to use the shakuhachi, instead of the Indian bansuri, to complete a degree programme.
Hoffman, who lives in Shimonitamachi, Gunma Prefecture—the hometown of his wife, Sakiko—has performed with several Indian musicians and received several awards including one from the Governor of Uttar Pradesh the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan for his Indo-Japanese music exchanges.
Back in Lucknow, for his usual pre-winter stay, Hoffman says, the East-East encounter in music provides a prime example of two Asian traditions positively interacting without losing their original features. He continues, "Cross-cultural sharing between related artistic traditions can help stave off what author Natsume Soseki described as the ‘inevitable disarray of Japanese civilization should the forced cultivation of imported Western culture go unchecked’.”
For the lecturer-researcher, writer-musician Hoffman, the melodious moments flowing through his Japanese bansuri are murmurs of sweet memories too-remembrances of a Lucknow with its garbharjhala of cultural motifs, of the six-year visharad with his guru Ganesh Prasad Mishra in the hallowed portals of Bhatkhande and a universal spirit that binds the world. (Oh... and we were talking of the Blue God—keeper of the world!)
