Oriental Music

Mmmm, the music of Japan. I've been taking shakuhachi lessons for almost a year now and it's slowly changing the way I think about composition (the indefinite rhythms of honkyoku, the meditation music of the komuso, finally made their way into one of my pieces). It sounds like you have some good advice so far on writing in a pseudo-Japanese style. Some books you might want to check out:

Traditional Japanese Music and Musical Instruments by William Malm, A History of Japanese Music by Eta Harich-Schneider (hard to find and not an easy read, but well worth the time), Composing for Japanese Instruments by Minoru Miki

Learn about koto tunings and study koto music. You will find the Japanese flavor extremely obvious in solo koto music and the scalar idioms can be applied to your compositions. You may also find that, despite what was said in a previous post, rhythms are extremely complex. You could also listen to Noh, kabuki theatre, and the music of Kodo for inspiration.

The ehru, as mentioned before, is not a Japanese instrument but it is often found in so-called oriental music. Check out Joe Hisaishi's Oriental Wind (

Listen to the score for the video game Okami. I'm dead serious. It's fantastic and it takes its inspiration from Edo period Japan. Pay close attention to the percussion parts and note the roles of synthesized shakuhachi, shamisen, koto, and the sho.

You might also find the music of Marty Regan helpful. His website has score examples that make for fantastic study of contemporary notation for traditional instruments, particularly koto and shakuhachi. The scores of Takemitsu are often a great source for this sort of thing as well (try November Steps).