Waves of Harmony: A Folk Ballad Across Worlds
Although shamisen is my main instrument now, my family and I started out in Folk and Bluegrass. From that background, I fell in love with Appalachian folk music in my early teens (around the time I picked up shamisen), which led to a love of world folk music (including Japanese traditional musics, which I later pursued more intently). In any case, one of my favorite folk songs was St. James Hospital, a haunting ballad I heard from Doc Watson.
With Waves of Harmony, we reimagined the song with an original arrangement, staying faithful to the song’s feeling but with intense traditional instrumentation ranging from harmonium to Kokyu (the Japanese violin). In this video, I record the Tuvan Igil for St. James Hospital. (Fun fact, I built this Igil when I was 18)
