Kuchi shōga
system of notation for traditional Japanese drums
Kuchi shōga (口唱歌), also known as kuchi showa or kuchi shoka, is an educational musical notation for traditional Japanese drums, particularly the taiko and the tsuzumi. Kuchi shōga phoneticizes (that is, phonetically articulates) drum strokes using Japanese sound symbolism. Each syllable conveys information about how the drummer is to play a particular note.
Kuchi shōga notation is written in katakana, a syllabary familiar to all literate Japanese language speakers. Kuchi shōga can be transliterated from katakana to a Latin alphabet using one of the various systems of rōmaji.
Common phoneticizations
Although kuchi shōga does not have a fixed vocabulary, some phoneticizations are ubiquitous. Don typically means a deep, sustained sound from the center of the taiko. Do sometimes represents a short beat that is not allowed to resonate (i.e., one with a short decay). Doko, dogo, or doro means two drum-beats played in rapid succession. Tsu represents a lightly struck note; tsuku implies two soft tsu beats in rapid succession—one on the right side of the drum, the other on the left.
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