{"id":10420,"date":"2018-07-10T15:55:47","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T22:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=10420"},"modified":"2021-06-24T15:43:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T22:43:34","slug":"fretwork-a-look-at-vintage-japanese-classical-guitars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/fretwork-a-look-at-vintage-japanese-classical-guitars\/","title":{"rendered":"Fretwork: A Look at Vintage Japanese Classical Guitars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
BY MICHAEL WRIGHT | FROM THE SUMMER 2018 ISSUE OF CLASSICAL GUITAR<\/em><\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to classical guitars, Japanese luthiers were already building fine instruments and solving technical challenges that would soon make them major exporters well into the 1980s. Some of these vintage guitars now represent excellent value, whether you\u2019re looking for a concert-grade or very high-quality student guitar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those of you who grew up double-thumbing those marvelous Japanese inventions Nintendo or Sony PlayStation, it may come as a surprise that back in the 1960s and \u201970s, Japanese-made products\u2014including guitars\u2014were often viewed with disdain by many American consumers.\u00a0<\/span>A lot of that had more to do with Pearl Harbor than the items themselves, and in retrospect it was probably unfair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the somewhat jaundiced American view of Japanese classical guitars during the \u201960s and \u201970s was partly the legacy of World War II, its roots go much deeper in time. Japanese interest in Spanish guitars dates back at least to 1853, when U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo harbor with a dragon fleet of steam-powered gunships. Japan had been culturally isolated\u2014\u201csequestered\u201d\u2014since the early 1600s. In reaction to 16th century evangelism by Portuguese missionaries, Christianity was outlawed in Japan, European traders were confined to a tiny island in Nagasaki Bay, and death awaited anyone who left the islands without express permission. Commodore Perry\u2019s mission was to re-open Japan for business… with America!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perry\u2019s diplomatic \u201cnegotiations\u201d included staging several champagne-fueled blackface minstrel shows\u2014the popular American entertainment of the day\u2014performed by crewmembers who thereby introduced Japan to the guitar and 5-string fretless banjo. These instruments may have seemed familiar\u2014Japan already had a 4-string wooden biwa<\/i> (fretted lute) and the 3-string unfretted, skin-covered shamisen<\/i>. Plus, Japanese musical scales were similar to Western scales (although untempered).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Yusaku
1968 Yusaku Mokuharu, Katsura and the indigenous Japanese biwa and shamisen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The influence of Western music and instruments steadily increased through the popularity of military bands and Japanese laborers returning from Hawaiian sugar-cane fields after 1868. Japanese musicians began to study in America and Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morishige Takei (1890\u20131949) studied in Italy, started the first Japanese mandolin orchestra (1915), and began composing for classical guitar (1919). In 1929, Andr\u00e9s Segovia toured the islands and classical<\/i> guitar became a national obsession. Hoshino Gakki Ten began importing Spanish guitars from Salvador Ibanez in Valencia, and by the mid-1930s, Japanese acoustic guitar manufacturers included Hoshino, Kasuga Gakki, and possibly the Suzuki Violin Company, with at least two separate workshops run by brothers Giichi and Sada Yairi. Then came World War II. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the key objectives in Occupied Japan following the War (which ended in 1945) was to make Japanese industry\u2014including guitar making\u2014a part of the emerging global economy. Among the earliest known modern Japanese classical guitar makers were brothers Sakazo and Rokutaro Nakade, Kazuo Yairi (1932\u20132014), and Yamaha. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sakazo (1906\u20131993) and Rokutaro (d. c. 1973) Nakade were the sons of violin-maker Kinpachi Miyamoto (who actually measured Segovia\u2019s guitar back in \u201929). In the mid-1950s, the Nakades\u2014located in Tokyo\u2014were the first Japanese luthiers to make a pilgrimage to Spain to study traditional lutherie. Many other Japanese luthiers would follow in their footsteps. Sakazo\u2019s sons Teruaki, Toshihiko, and Yukio became famous luthiers, as did his apprentices Yuichi Imai, Hakusui Imai, Yoshimitsu Hoshino, and Hideo Ido. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kazuo Yairi was the son of Giichi Yairi, who worked for the Suzuki Violin Company in Kiso-Fukushima. Giichi left Suzuki in 1929 and opened his own shop in Kani, just north of Nagoya, where Kazuo apprenticed. Kazuo reportedly began making classical guitars perhaps as early as 1950, as a teenager. In 1965, Kazuo succeeded to his father\u2019s shop and agreed to provide St. Louis Music with Alvarez-Yairi guitars. Giichi\u2019s brother Sada (Kazuo\u2019s uncle) also left Suzuki and opened his first shop in Nagoya in 1932, beginning to produce classicals later, in 1960. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yamaha\u2019s luthiers are mostly unidentified, but they introduced their patented Dynamic Guitar line in 1952, built in Hamamatsu and designed to take either nylon or steel strings, tolerably good for their time. In 1966, Yamaha brought in Spanish luthier Eduardo Ferrer to advise its luthiers, resulting in their first Grand Concert guitars (GC-5, GC-7, GC-10). In 1973, they brought in Manuel Hernandez to refine the line further. Segovia once performed on a Yamaha GC-71 and used a GC-70 as a practice guitar.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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