Feb
24th
Tue
24th
Mensoure （めんそーれ）
(I dictated the notes and a friend wrote it down for me, so sorry for the messy handwriting.)
This song was composed by one of the National Living Treasures of the sanshin—master Choichi Terukina. It came into my possession in a rather interesting way. A student of Terukina sensei was a classmate of mine at RyuDai, and he was more than willing to teach me to sing and play the sanshin after class. Mensoure was one of the first ones he taught me, and since he never learned to read kunkunshi—he always learned songs by eye and ear—the only way he could teach me was by getting me watch and listen. Kinda like the old Ryukyu days, no? Anyways, since then I’ve gone on to teach the song in the same way, but for some, kunkunshi was just easier. (Hence, the piece of music you see before you.)
Also, being a nikkeijin, he able to speak Japanese, but not write it so well. He ended up writing down the lyrics for me in romanji. Good luck for us I suppose. =D
For those who don’t know, “mensoure” is Uchinaguchi for “welcome,” and that’s pretty much what the song is. A welcoming song.
