Communication: A Greater Analysis of Storytelling in Music Through Mayuzumi’s Bunraku

Abstract

Imaginational responses similar to Eugene Gendlin’s “felt sense” appear in both music and writing. By studying a single composition for cello, Toshiro Mayuzumi’s Bunraku, writers, performers, and other creatives can better understand the relationship between two different fine arts and where their imaginational responses come close to converging. This study was completed by using Lisa M. Cook’s Venerable Traditions, Modern Manifestations: Understanding Mayuzumi’s “Bunraku” for Cello and various other sources to learn the background of the composer, analyze the piece on a technically, perform the piece, and compose a short story correlating with Bunraku’s nuances. This specific method allows for a researcher to gain contextual, theoretical, tactile, and emotional comprehension of the piece and to develop a conclusion regarding the connection between the fine arts as a result. The purpose of this paper is to use a single composition to reveal the division between two separate fine arts and to provide methods of manipulating this boundary to integrate the human experience into two or more fine arts. It is also meant to provide a framework for future studies examining and testing the relationship between contrasting creative disciplines.