Japanese Songs

Japanese folk music is known traditionally as Minyo. Free download of rare old traditional cultural Japanese folk songs mp3 as well as new latest recent fresh Japanese folk songs mp3 is widely available. One can also download free Japanese songs lyrics, videos, and video clips etc.

Japanese folk music includes not only mainland Japan music but also Okinawan folk music. Traditionally Japanese folk songs are classified into work songs, children songs, religious songs and songs for gatherings and occasions like weddings festivals etc. The Okinawan folk music was classified into religious songs, dance songs and songs for celebration.

The Minyo uses instrumesnts like shamisen, taiko, drums, shakuhachi which is a bamboo flute while Okinawan uses sanshin and sanba.
Japanese folk music uses a pentatonic scale but while Minyo omits subdominant and leading tone which results in the formation of a scale with no half notes between the notes, the Okinawan folk music has these half notes between each note.

Some famous Japanese folk songs are:

1. Sakura which is a song sung on the arrival of the spring
2. Yagibushi which is a song sung at sports festivals

J pop is gaining popularity and is an integral part of modern Japanese culture. Latest recent release hot hit top new Japanese pop or J pop songs mp3 free download is available online. Japanese songs lyrics databases, videos, video clips, remix J pop songs mp3 etc are also downloadable for free.

J pop or japanese popular music has achieved a cult iconic status of its own. Its used in movies, tv shows, radio, commercials, games etc. its basically an amalgamation of western influnces on japanese traditional music. Thoguh now the western genres dominate over the classical japanese traits. The roots of j pop were laid down back in the early 20th century with the advent of genres like jazz into the japanese music.

With the world war 2 the jazz influence went down and genres like country music, mambo, boogie woogie and blues begin to influence the music. By the late 50’s and early 60’s rock and roll genre was introduced to the japanese people.the concept of Karaoke was alos born then and is popular to date. the 70’s and 80’s saw the groth of the New Music whose songs were based more on love unlike the earlier songs which dealt more with political issues. The term Wasei pop was then introdused to club both new age music and city pop. Finally by the 90’s wasei pop came to be known as J pop as we know it today.

The J pop stars over the years have been Ayumi Hamasaki, Chag and Aska, Namie Amuro, Wink, Utada Hikaru, Morning Musume, Speed, Zone, Ami Suzuki, Boa, Kumi Koda and many more.

Some of my favorite J pop songs are:

• Tennessee waltz by Eri Chiemi
• Omatsuri mambo by Misora Hibari
• the right combination by Seiko Matsuda
• Addicted to you by Utada Hikaru
• Taiyou no Komachi Angel by B’z

Free download of recent released latest fresh hot hit new Japanese songs mp3 are available online. Also provided with are Japanese songs lyrics, videos, video clips, remix Japanese songs mp3, J pop songs mp3 etc download for free.

Enka was a form of ballad music which was very popular in the 19th and 20th century. But since the 70’s the popularity of Enka has gone down considerably and made way for Japanese popular music or J pop. Famous Enka singers were Misora Hibabi and Ikuzo Yoshi. In the 50’s tango, Latin and Cuban music became very popular in Japan and the influenced music was now known as dodompa. In the 60’s many bands starting aping western popular bands like The Beatles, The rolling stones, etc and became popular. Other genres that influenced japanese music immensely were the jazz in the 30’s and 40’s, rock started during the late 60’s and 70’s and is growing strong even now, punk rock, heavy metal, Latin, ska etc.This gave way to the now teen sensation of J pop which is japanese popular music. The late 90’s saw many stars on the J- pop circuit famous ones being Morning Musume, Ayumi Hamasaki and Utada Hikaru.
Other genres
The famous new Japanese songs are:

• Kanashimi twilight by Morning Musume
• Taiyou no Komachi Angel by B’z
• Daite Hold on Me by Morning Musume
• Addicted to you by Utada Hikaru

Japanese music is as unique as its traditional name which is ongaku. Many sites provide recent release latest hot hit fresh new Japanese songs mp3 or rare cultural folk traditional old Japanese songs mp3 for free download. Japanese songs lyrics, Japanese pop / J- pop songs mp3, Japanese remix songs mp3, videos and video clips are also available for download free.

There are many forms of classical music in Japan which flourished during the Nara and Hein periods. The Shomyo is Buddhist chanting while Gagaku is orchestral court music. Music was an integral part of the theatre of the Japanese which had puppet theatricals called Bunraku accompanied by shamisen music. The musical theatricals were known as Noh. Kabuki is another form of theatre which would vary from being historical plays to dance plays. They included the Shamisen and Nagauta style of music.

The traditional Japanese instruments are biwa, hichiriki, hochhiku, kane, hyoshigi, okawa, niko, sho, shamisen, taiko etc.

The modern day music has taken a popular form which is known as J-pop. Like else where in the world it’s heavily influenced by American popular music and western classical genres as well. J-pop is creating quite a sensation in the South East Asia region.