Horagai

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Horagai (

, has been given a number of Japanese names depending on its function. Special schools still teach students to play the traditional music associated with the conch.

Instrument

Unlike most shell trumpets from other parts of the world which produce only one pitch, the Japanese hora or horagai can produce three or five different notes. The different pitches are achieved using a bronze or wooden mouthpiece attached to the apex of the shell's spire. At freezing temperatures (often encountered in the mountainous regions of Japan) the lips may freeze to the metal surface, so wooden or bamboo mouthpieces are used.

Historical usage

Religion

The conch is used by

. Each Shugendō school has his own conch shell melodies.

The hora is especially associated with the

.

Military

In war, the shell, called jinkai, or "war shell", was one of several signal devices used by Japanese feudal warriors known as samurai.^[1] A large conch would be used and fitted with a bronze (or wooden) mouthpiece. It would be held in an openwork basket and blown with a different combination of "notes" to signal troops to attack, withdraw, or change strategies, in the same way a bugle or flugelhorn was used in the west. The trumpeter was called a kai yaku (貝役).

The jinkai served a similar function to

daimyōs

(feudal lords) enlisted yamabushi to serve as kai yaku, due to their experience with the instrument.

The sound of jinkai is often used in motion pictures and television dramas as a symbolic sound effect indicating an impending battle, e.g., The Last Samurai or the 2007 Taiga drama Fūrinkazan, but both of these screen renditions use deep, resonating monotones, not the melodic tones that yamabushi used for relaying messages.

See also

• Conch (musical instrument)
• Nagak, a similar shell horn used in Korea
• Shankha

References

• Clark, Mitchell (2005). Sounds of the Silk Road: Musical Instruments of Asia. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts Publications.
• Turnbull, Stephen (2002). War in Japan: 1467–1615. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.

External links

• A video of a priest playing a horagai (YouTube)
• Examples of different Notes of Horagai from the Yamabushi Christian Grübl (Austria)