Tamaki Shun'ichi
Featured in the Deai resource, served as the students' guide on Izena island. Shun'ichi grew up on the island until his graduation from junior high school. After studying Okinawan history and performing arts at Haebaru High School near Naha on the main island of Okinawa, Shun'ichi attended Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, where he majored in Okinawan classical music (vocal music and sanshin). Since graduating, he has been active not only as a singer-songwriter but also as a performer of Okinawan classical music and a core member of the Izena Shoen drum troupe. His dream is to create music that is uniquely his own.
 
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First, I'd like to sing This Island I Love, a song also introduced in Deai that expresses my feelings for the island. I'm a bit nervous, and you all seem to be, too, so hopefully this song will help us all relax.

♪  This Island I Love（愛する島／あいするしま)

I wrote This Island I Love when I was in high school because I wanted to write something for the island. At the time, I was devastated by the gradual destruction of the island's beautiful landscape. It made me sad to see the island change, and I wrote this song as a way to leave something of the island for the future.

Q. Why is the island's natural landscape being destroyed?
Oh, that's a great question. It's a difficult problem. To survive on this island, we need to work. And one type of work we have is construction. In order to create more jobs on the island, we need to keep developing. In addition, global warming and other problems that all human beings have in common have also had an effect. We've had to cut down trees to create work, and as a result of global warming and the rising temperatures of the ocean, coral and other sea creatures are dying.
Q. Are there specific things that make you think that the island has changed?
The harbor where you first arrived used to be a long sandy beach. I grew up gazing at that beach from the second floor of my grandfather's house. Construction on the harbor began when I was a freshman in high school. By the time I entered my second year, the beach was completely gone and the view from my grandfather's house had changed. It made me very sad.
 
Since Deai

After that experience with Deai, I mulled a lot of things and decided to go on to study at the Okinawan Prefectural University of Arts. I thought about whether to become a singer right after graduation, but decided it wouldn't be too late to become a singer after taking some time to see and do other things. And if I was going to do that, I figured I'd go to the University to broaden my perspective on music. In college, in addition to majoring in Okinawan classical music, which I'd been involved with since high school, I also studied other types of music like piano and also took voice lessons, absorbing everything I learned. In my first year, I even gave ballet a shot in The Nutcracker! I wasn't very good, but I did my own makeup, wore a tuxedo, and played the role of a beer-drinking father. I danced around like this (poses ballet style, with his chest out).

I focused mainly on sanshin in college, particularly on accompaniment to kumiodori, a type of Ryukyu opera that was developed during the time of the Ryukyu kingdom. I'm going to play some classical music. The sanshin has three chords; the two on the ends are C, and middle one is F. There's a unique scale called the Ryukyu scale, which goes do-mi-fa-so-ti-do. I had a hard time deciding what to play, but I've chosen a love song that used to be sung in the court. It's entitled Fishibishi (The Seashore at Low Tide). The original song is about birds instead of the ocean, but I'll be singing the ocean version that was rearranged to accompany a dance.

♪  Fishibishi（ふぃしぶぃし）

This song is about a woman sewing a kimono—a finely woven, lightweight kimono (since it is hot in Okinawa, finely woven, lightweight kimono are highly valued)—that she will give her lover. In olden times, it was considered beautiful to conceal one's feelings, loving another person from afar. It's been great playing classical Okinawan music because the lyrics teach me how Okinawan people used to think. One song has affected me deeply; it made me realize that people today can relate to lyrics from classical music because what people value most has remained unchanged. These are the lyrics: "A beautiful flower cannot bloom beautifully until it has passed a cold, cold winter." I was moved and encouraged by these words, which I heard when I was experiencing a setback. I understood that some things never change. I think it's a wonderful thing to be able to look into the thoughts of people from the past.

What I want to do next

I graduated from college last year, and now I'm a singer and songwriter. I'd always wanted to sing songs that I wrote myself, and I hope to continue doing what I do now. I've felt lost in the past, but I feel happiest when I create my own work and express it. I think this is what suits me most, so I'd like to keep writing songs and singing, and hopefully to succeed in it. I'm going to be making a CD soon, so I hope you'll buy it. Please! (laughing)

Lastly, I'd like to sing my latest song. The title's a bit hard to understand, because I've made up an idiom myself. It's called Kassen soka, meaning "memories of summer." I'm only going to sing the first verse. Please listen to the rest on the CD (laughing).

♪  Kassen soka（夏鮮想歌）

Q. What do you think about when you write songs?
I take things from my own experiences (such as love), television dramas I've seen, stories I've heard from other people, and weave them together with things I've absorbed and thought about. But I guess I base my songs mostly on my own experiences. We all have our happy times and our tough times, right? I write my songs thinking about all that.
Q. Do you play the sanshin for all your songs?
That's the direction I'm heading in. So far, I've only used sanshin for This Island I Love, but I hope to continue using sanshin in a pop way. The song I sang earlier is still a bit orthodox, with a lot of Okinawan and traditional sanshin elements, but I'd like to adopt new techniques and be more pop. Since I'm Okinawan, anything I do is going to have an Okinawan flavor to it. So instead of emphasizing that Okinawan-ness all the way, I think it can be brought out more naturally and effectively by taking in other musical elements and doing it my own way.
Q. How did you start writing songs?
When I was in my third year of junior high school, our music teacher suggested we make a theme song for our graduation. Most of the other students were writing just lyrics for the fun of it. But I already played the guitar, and I told the teacher I wanted to write both the music and the lyrics. That was my first song. It's called My Friends, and it's on the Deai website.
Q. Have you ever wanted to leave the island, or had the desire to go somewhere else?
I've been living on the main island of Okinawa since graduating from junior high school. I've wanted to live outside of Okinawa, too. So far, I've remained in Okinawa because I need to be here to create the music that I do. Right now, I think that being in Okinawa allows me to make good music, and it works to my advantage. If, in the future, I feel that living elsewhere would allow me to flourish, then I'll probably go there. But I love Okinawa.
Q. You don't have any CDs out yet, so how do you make a living?
I create my music while earning money on part-time jobs.
Q. What do you think of other artists from Okinawa?
Well, I want to succeed as well as they have. The popular group D51 belongs to the same agency as I do, and the company is putting a lot of energy into selling them right now. I've got to make music that can compete with that!