https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/items/7432
type: Item
type: MusicalInstrument
id: 7432
is public: true
owner: https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/users/4
resource class: https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/resource_classes/106
resource template: https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/resource_templates/5
title: horagai
created: 2019-10-14T01:46:11+00:00
modified: 2019-10-29T22:45:00+00:00
media: https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/media/7433
media: https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/media/7434
media: https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/media/7435
media: https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/media/7445
item set: https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/item_sets/7397
site: https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/sites/1
site: https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/sites/5
alternative: hora
alternative: gai
alternative: kai
instrument category: aerophone
subject: 423.111.2
spatial: Asia
source: East Asia
coverage: Japan
type: Japanese
medium: shell - conch
medium: wood
medium: lacquer
format: 11.5 in. length 4.5 width
description: Contextual Associations The horagai is the only surviving lip-reed aerophone instrument; of Japan. This end-blown conch shell natural trumpet is used in different contexts: as a ritual, signaling, and protective instrument for sects of esoteric Buddhism and Shugendo (mountain asceticism shamanism); by fishermen strictly for signaling; and as an off-stage musical resource to index battle scenes in present day Kabuki theatre (Johnson, p. 693). Breaking down ‘horagai’ to its components--‘ho’ means ‘Buddhist law’; ‘ra’ ‘large conch’; and ‘gai’ or ‘kai’, ‘shell’ (ibid.)--its association with Buddhism is clear. The horagai pictured and described here were most likely used by a yamabushi (Shugendo practitioner) in training while wandering in the forests of Japan in search of spiritual insight. Description The crown of a cleaned conch shell of the variety Charonia tritonis is removed and refined, producing an opening to the spiral-shaped cavity of the shell. A conical mouthpiece of lacquered wood (in the case of the instruments described here) or of metal is attached over the opening (detail #). The mesh bags in which these shells would be carried have been lost, although one of the shells includes a fragment of such mesh rope wrapped around the base of its mouthpiece. Player - Instrument Interface and Sound Production In Buddhist and Shugendo contexts, the horagai player carries the conch in a mesh bag slung over his shoulder. To sound the instrument, he lifts the shell up, still in its mesh, with both hands so that the mouthpiece end is pressed against his lips (either centered or to one side or the other of the emboucher). With diaphram pressure, an airstream is forced through the emboucher and the lip buzzing thus produced sets the enclosed air cavity of the shell into a mode of vibration. Various unstandardized and for the most part graphic notation systems (called kaifu, ‘shell notation’) have developed amongst sects of esoteric Buddhism and Shugendo in which the fund…
requires: one
is part of: Grinnell College Music Instrument Collection
bibliographic citation: de Ferranti, Hugh. 2000. Japanese Musical Instruments. New York: Oxford University Press. Fukui, Hajime. 1994. “The Hora (Conch Trumpet) of Japan,” Galpin Society Journal 47: 47-62. Johnson, Henry. 2014. “Horagai [hora, kai].” GDMI v.2: 693. Haags Gemeentemuseum, and Onno Mensink. 1979. Traditionele muziekinstrumenen van Japan. Den Haag Haags Gemeentemuseum: Buren, In samenwerking met F. Knuf. Montagu, Jeremy. 2018. The Conch Horn: Shell Trumpets of the World from Prehistory to Today. Hataf Segol Publications. Jeremy Montagu website, accessed August 23, 2019: http://www.jeremymontagu.co.uk/conch.pdf Schechter, Jon M., and Mervyn MacLean/Michael Cwach. 2014. “Conch horn [conch trumpet, shell trumpet].” GDMI v.1: 676-677. Yamabushi Ceremony - Ise, Japan. World Turtle Productions, LLC. YouTube video published on Apr 24, 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iArVJkI__us
contributor: Roger Vetter
air cavity design: tubular - conical with open distal end
source and direction of airstream: player exhalation through mouth into air cavity; unidirectional
energy transducer: lip reed (player’s lips) placed over open end of tube
means of modifying standing wave: none
overblowing utilization: overblowing at consecutive partials
pitch production: multiple pitches - selecting partials of a single cavity’s fundamental through overblowing

https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/users/4
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https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/resource_classes/106
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https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/media/7433
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https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/media/7434
id: 7434

https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/media/7435
id: 7435

https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/media/7445
id: 7445

https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/item_sets/7397
id: 7397

https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/api/sites/1
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