From its origins in Ancient India and journey via the Silk Road to its arrival in Japan over 1000 years ago, immerse yourself the world’s oldest living vocal music.
Be it on a global or personal level, we can all agree that the world today is an incredibly stressful place. The nature of our hyper-connected society means that whether it’s work emails or the group chat, we can never truly ‘switch off’. Not to mention the current state of global affairs isn’t exactly helping any of us sleep at night.
So, if your meditation app subscription isn’t helping you find inner peace, have you tried Japanese liturgical chant?
The Japanese Buddhist chant is one of the world’s oldest living vocal music still performed by monks across Japan today. It has a calming power unlike anything else. One performer once described it as “a voice calling to the gods” because of the unique way the performer changes the vowel sounds all in the same breath.
So, plug in your noise-canceling earphones on the commute and tune into some shōmyō.
The roots of shōmyō, meaning ‘The Voice of Wisdom’ can be traced back to Ancient India. Buddhist chants traveled along the Silk Roads from India via China and the Korean Peninsula, eventually reaching the shores of Japan in the 6th and 7th centuries. As Buddhism flourished in the country during the Nara period, Japanese monks translated these chants into their native tongue and integrated them into their practice.
Meanwhile in Europe, churches hummed with their own religious music – Gregorian chant. Although both shōmyō and Gregorian are religious vocal music, that’s where the similarities end. Western liturgical chant was based on Roman notation and tonality, whereas the Japanese looked to Chinese and Indian music theory as the basis for shōmyō.
Makiko Sakurai (also quoted earlier), the first woman to ever be trained in shōmyō, succinctly summarised its unique and beguiling quality in an interview with the Japan Times in 2003. She said, “What is characteristic about shōmyō singing is that vowel sounds are elongated, say by about 20 seconds…A prolonged ‘a’ sound, for example, includes various pronunciations of ‘a.’ By changing the timbre of a vowel, you can produce a beautiful sound.”
The music is always monophonic with everyone singing the same note, but when an ensemble of monks sings together, a rich texture emerges from the intertwining overtones and different vowel sounds sung by each monk.
Shawn Tairyu Head, a professional shakuhachi player and teacher, suggests that the older form of Japanese used in shōmyō is most comparable to Ancient Greek and modern Greek, with much more differences and complexities than, say, Old English versus the English used today.
“Classical Japanese used to use a variety of conjugations that no longer exist in modern Japanese….There is also an extensive vocabulary that is no longer used in modern Japanese for example the word いみじ (imiji) means ‘wonderful’, or ‘great’; a very common word in classical Japanese rarely heard in today’s vernacular.”
Different temples and Buddhist sects in Japan follow their own traditions when practicing the chant. For example, Head tells me that shōmyō is nearly always performed without instruments. However, at the Hasedera temple in Kamakura it is often accompanied by the Taiko (drum) to keep a steady rhythm. Sometimes, the horagai (seashell horn) accompanies the performers as well.
Shōmyō is still performed today in Buddhist Shingon or Tendai temples in Japan as it was over a thousand years ago.
However, you no longer need to travel to the other side of the world to experience it. Once only heard by the quiet mountains and birds, monks now find innovative ways to introduce Buddhism to new ears. For example, shōmyō ensembles go on world tours, monks hold impromptu performances in local bars and even collaborate with psychedelic rock bands. In 2023, one of the most famous shōmyō performers, Junko Ueda, teamed up for a double album release with French outfit PoiL (listen to the extraordinary results here).
By soaking in this timeless ancient chanting we too can reach the same meditative state or even self-hypnosis experienced by the monks over a thousand years ago.
Head agrees, “There definitely is a sense of groundedness in certain notes when you sing them.” He explains that each note relates to a mode (key) just as in western music, so although there are no cadences (musical full stops), there are still moments of tension and release. “This in tandem with many of the intoxicating melismas that anchor the music creates a transcendental effect.”
In our high-pressure modern world, this is a rare and precious moment of peace.
With thanks to Shawn Tairyu Head for his invaluable advice and expert contributions on this piece.
Learn more on shawnheadmusic.com
Sources and further reading
The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music (SOAS Studies in Music) (Alison Tokita and David W. Hughes, 2008)
Tairyu Shakuhachi YouTube Channel [specifically the Japanese Music Theory Series]
Silk Roads Exhibition, British Museum (until 23 February 2025)*
(*Although the exhibition doesn’t cover much in terms of the cross-cultural influences on Japanese religious music, it’s a still worth a visit to contextualise the landscape in which these musical exchanges were taking place.)
