Ainu music
Ainu music is the musical tradition of the Ainu people of northern Japan.
Genres include the oldest, yukar (mimicry), which is a form of epic poetry, and upopo, in which "the second contrapuntal voice had to imitate the musical formula in the first contrapuntal voice (not heard until the last moment), at an interval much shorter than that in our western canons, since the second voice attacks the preceding musical formula before the first voice has finished it." (Nattiez 1990, p. 71)
The most famous contemporary performer of Ainu music appears to be the revivalist Oki.
The most useful English-language overview of Ainu music (with recordings and transcriptions) is by CHIBA Nobuhiko.
Traditional Ainu music
Ainu music carries spiritual resonance in almost all of its forms, and it has played an important role in both the cultural history and the cultural renaissance of the Ainu people. Almost every type of Ainu song is sacred, and even the musical instruments are said to be imbued with souls (Ohnuki-Tierney 53). Traditional Ainu music can be divided into two major groups — everyday songs and epic songs. Everyday songs in Ainu tradition were sung in many situations and on an impromptu basis. They were often accompanied by the two most prevalent Ainu musical instruments: the tonkori, a plucked zither, and the mukkuri, a jaw harp played by women.
