9th February – 如月

演歌　（Enka）

Japanese music genre. Familiar among older generation. this style of music generally gives nostalgic emotion to Japanese.

Have you ever seen a Japanese singer with Kimono and sing with particular vibrato?

Those people are singing one genre of music called ‘演歌 – Enka’. Contains unique Japanese emotions in the songs and some darkness, sentimental sounds.

In Enka music, there are emotions such as 義理と人情 (Giri to Ninjou = social duty and humanity), Love and regional specialty.

This type of music started from Meiji era; At that time, liberal rights movement was active so many people made speeches (演説 – Enzetsu) on the street. However, the government was afraid of losing its power so started to regulate the speeches. The activists did not give up and made songs with speech lyrics. This music expression was the origin of Enka. 演説歌(Enzetsu ka) to 演歌 (Enka)

Enka has typical way to sing:

-コブシ (Kobushi): this is similar to vibrato in English but different. shake the sounds ups and downs but with irregular tempo.

-Generally use the scale without 4 (F) and 7 (B)

-Make the sounds of vowels twice at some stage. For instance, saying 空にぃ Sora nii instead of 空に Sora ni(=To the sky), with another little i.

Famous Enka singers can be, 美空ひばり(Hibari Misora), 坂本冬美(Fuyumi Sakamoto), 北島三郎 (Saburou Kitajima) and 氷川きよし (Kiyoshi Hikawa) etc.

Hibari Misora – Kawan no Nagare no Youni

Kiyoshi Hikawa – Kiyoshi no Zundoko Bushi

If you have any Obaa chan (Grandma), Ojii chan (Grandpa) friends, ask them who is their favorite singer! Probably the singer can be Enka singer:)