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This is a Koten piece from the Kinko Ryű school .

History (from Singer, John)
The title "Akebono Sugagaki" means, 'the sugagaki of the piece "Akebono No Shirabe"'.

This piece was composed by Kinko Kurosawa. He also wrote the Sugagaki of "Kumoi Joshi" but is was not transmitted to the Kinko school.

This piece consists of a "Honte" (basic melody) and a "Kaete" (re-arranged melody to go with the "Honte"). However, this does not mean a duet in this case. Basically, two Shakuhachi are played in the same melodic line in a well balanced fashion; not being too similar or different from one another.

Akebono Sugagaki appears on the following albums:

Album	Shakuhachi	Koto	Shamisen
Complete Collection of Honkyoku from the Kinko School - Vol 2 - Disc 1  (Listen)	Aoki Reibo II
Kinko Ryu Honkyoku - 5  (Listen)	Aoki Reibo II
Shakuhachi no Shinzui-Shakuhachi Honkyoku - 11  (Listen)	Yamaguchi Goro
Traditional Music For Two Shakuhachi	Zurmuehle, Juerg Fuyuzui
Yamaguchi Goro no Sekai  (Listen)	Yamaguchi Goro
Zen Music - V  (Listen)	Matsumura Homei
'Sugagaki' originally denotes instrumental performances of string instruments not as accompaniment to the voice. For example, 'Rokudan', a Sokyoku (Koto music) piece, is also called 'Rokudan Sugagaki' because it is purely instrumental. Therefore, it is conjectured that the present piece must have been originated from a piece for strings. The word 'akebono' means a high tuning. This piece is among the ura repertoire, which should be learned after the whole omote repertoire is mastered, while a piece simply called 'Sugagaki' is included in omote. 'Akebono Sugagki' is not a piece in which the original 'Sugagaki' is simply transposed to higher tessitura, but it is designed so as to be possibly played as kaede (counterpart) to it. In this recording, 'Sugagaki' is played by H. Muramatsu and 'Akebono Sugagaki' by G. Yamaguchi, both instruments of theirs being the regular size (1 shaku 8 sun). The piece is unique among Fuke Shakuhachi in that it is regular in meter. This is probably due to its source of origin, string music.
Zen Shakuhachi Duets  (Listen)	Singer, John