Tsuki: A Japanese Folk Song
Learn this beautiful Japanese song with the steps below to develop your musicianship skills.
Tsuki Performance
Watch this beautiful performance of Tsuki:
Learn Tsuki
It’s such a beautiful song. It’s one of my favourites and the above video is such a gorgeous arrangement.
I’ll teach it to you now. Below is the Japanese version and my phonetic version after listening to different versions.
Next to that are the lyrics that are sung in the UK. It’s not a translation but I’ve put the actual translation at the bottom.
Going forwards you can decide whether to sing the first verse or repeat in the English version of the lyrics.
There are some differences in how Japanese and English words are sung. In English we don’t give “n” a separate pitch but use it to move from one vowel to another but here you’ll see that the pitch goes up on the “n” of manmaru-i :
The same happens at “bo-n” in the third line.
Play the video above phrase by phrase to see how the lyrics and melody fit together.
Here’s the song with the English words:
Tsuki Rhythm
For the next activities we’ll need to know the melody well so listen to the YouTube video above again and sing along my recordings to help you to get to know it really well before doing the next activities.
If you’re familiar with it, carry on. If not, keep singing and listening to until you’re familiar with the rhythm.
Create a beat pattern for the song
It’s in quadruple simple metre, so four ta beats in a bar. Make the first action stronger than the subsequent three. You could…
- Clap and tap your knees – clap tap tap tap
- Clap and click – clap click click click
- Clap shoulders click shoulders – see picture below
Then tap the rhythm
First just tap the rhythm, but then use these ideas to experience the beat AND rhythm together
- ask a friend to perform the beat while you tap the rhythm
- ask if they will tap the beat on your shoulders so you can feel as well as hear it
- or use a metronome for the beat
For an extra challenge
See if you can do both on your own
- tap the beat with your foot and clap the rhythm
- walk the beat and clap the rhythm
- tap the beat with one hand on your knee and the rhythm with the other hand and knee
- swap, to practise on both sides
Decode the rhythm
Once you’ve practised the rhythm and know how it feels against the beat you can try this decoding activity. This will be easier if you have memorised the song so pop back to the the earlier activities (above) if needed. You may need to use a pencil and paper to help.
Below you will see the frame of the song with bars (measures) labelled A to F, followed by five rhythms.
Task choices
- Match the rhythms to the bars. One of the rhythms is used twice.
- Challenge: See if you can notate the rhythm without using the rhythm choices
We have six bars in quadruple metre, so four beats in each bar and some blank bars which also have four beats. You’ll notice that you can beam four quavers together but you cannot beam them across the middle of the bars.
Sing the song again and point to your paper as you tap the beat. This is so that you can visualise where the beat is. Don’t write anything yet!
Repeat this again. We’re also practicing our memorisation skills.
Now try writing in the rhythms that you think are missing. Don’t scroll down yet or you’ll see the answers below. Here’s a picture of the moon to make sure you don’t accidentally scroll down too far:
Tsuki Rhythm Names
Here are the answers to the previous lesson:
How did you do? If it’s not right, don’t try to memorise my answers. Have another go at working it out as you did above first.
Can you say or sing the rhythm names by reading the stick notation from this image?
Remember for one long sound on a beat (crotchet or quarter note) we say ta.
For two short sounds on a beat (quavers or eighth notes) we say titi.
For a rest you can say sh or feel a silent beat
Ta ta ta ta | ta ta ta z
Titi titi titi titi | titi titi ta z
Titi titi ta ta | ta ta ta z
Challenge: Create body percussion to perform while you sing. For example clap for ta, tap each knee for titi and tap your shoulders for the rest.
Tsuki Ostinato
Coming soon…
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