Canon in the Smelting Pot: Abe Keiko

I was lucky enough to go to a wealthy public school. One of the benefits to this was a very well funded music program - large music halls, instrument lockers, practice rooms... Now that I've taught in a number of different public schools, and even a couple of private schools, I've learned how extraordinary this is. But in the moment, it was just, you know, "normal." I didn't have anything to compare the experience against, so it didn't cross my mind to question it. That's just how it was.

One of those "just how it was" things was the school marimba. Marimbas? I think there were two, but they were in the band hall and there wasn't much reason for me to be over there. They did bring the marimbas out for full orchestra rehearsals from time to time, though. In another example of something weird that "just was how it was," the school had a full sized five-octave marimba.

Now, I know I have non-musician readers out there. They are probably thinking, "Oh, a marimba, it's that xylophone thingy, right?" Well, yes... but no. I won't get into it here. What I want to impress is, a 5-octave marimba is pretty darn big. A typical length is usually 107 inches, a bit longer than a grand piano, and can weigh around 380 pounds. It's the kind of thing that makes you appreciate whoever invented the wheel, and I remember it was always a hassle to move around. Average cost of a new 5-octave Yamaha marimba? $17,000. You know. About the limit before a really rich person notices someone has stolen their credit card number.

The point I'm trying to get at is, this is not a common instrument. But our school, being blessed with a combination of high property values, an appreciation for the arts, and riding the crest of good old Texan 5A high school football, had enough funds to purchase something extraordinary, and, crucially, house it in a facility which made it feel ordinary. It's just how it was.

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What am I going on about marimbas for? To be honest, I was going to write about Minoru Miki, and how he composed new music for traditional Japanese instruments, and how he repurposed the European orchestra to perform something akin to Japanese gagaku. But I couldn't find any recordings of his koto concerti on Youtube. I couldn't even find his koto ballades, collections of short works grouped by seasons. Instead, I found his koto ballades arranged for and played by marimba, and I couldn't help but think, "What the heck? Where are all of these Japanese marimba players coming from, and why are they playing koto music?" The answer lies in Abe Keiko (b.1937). For non-Japanese speakers, that 's "AH-bay," not Abe as in "Abe Lincoln."

Now, because Japanese leaders, in the wake of Admiral Perry, had come to the conclusion that European culture was the superior culture of the world, this came with a conscious shift to adopt European music. In 1879, the Meiji government created the Music Study Committee, devoted to the study and dissemination of Western music. This made fertile ground for Asabuki Eiichi (1909-1993) to fall in love with the xylophone, which subsequently filtered out to Japanese schools between the 1920's-30's. By the time Keiko went to elementary school in the 1940's, they were there for her to play. Pre-1920, no xylophones in Japan. Post-1940's, common enough for little Keiko to be playing in school. It's just how it was, for her.

Do you know what else Abe Keiko did? I mean, you don't, unless you're a marimba player, that's a hypothetical question. She worked with Yamaha Corporation to invent the 5-octave marimba. In the early 1960's, I guess Yamaha's higher ups went, "You know what we need? New marimba designs." So they gave Abe-san a ring and, over the next decade, worked with her to create the design of the 5-octave marimba that percussionists know and love today. Even smaller 4-octave models bear the stamp of this work, the rather uneven sound quality of the traditional instrument being polished and standardized over the length of its range. One could question if this homogenization of sound is a good thing, but, you know, too late now. Yamaha is currently one of the biggest sellers of marimbas in the world. Anyone else who wants to sell their own version has been pulled well into Yamaha's event horizon, so the modern marimba design looks like it's here to stay.

Hey, did I also mention Abe Keiko performed Minoru Miki's piece "Time" for her first professional recital? Yeah, that's how I fell down this rabbit hole of the marimba world. Unfortunately, I can't find a video of her playing the piece, so I'll post two videos today: the first is Abe performing her own work, "Prism," and the second is Taylor Davis performing Minoru's "Time." 

Abe Keiko, Prism Rhapsody

Minoru Miki, "Time"

Somewhat ironically, the marimba arrangements I found of Minoru's ballades for koto were not written by Abe, they were written by Brian Zator, who worked closely with koto player Yamada Akemi to create his transcriptions.