Rokudan no Shirabe

What it is

Rokudan no Shirabe means 'six-column tune', and the piece is usually shortened to Rokudan, or 'six columns'. It was written as sōkyoku, koto music: chamber music in which the koto carries the leading part. Today that koto line is better known than the original setting. The title describes the shape. The music is built from six columns, and each one holds fifty-two beats. The first column is longer than the rest by four beats.

Structure and tempo

The six columns follow the same arc. A column begins slowly, grows faster and faster, and then returns to the tempo it opened with before the next column begins. Every column carries fifty-two beats, apart from the first, which has four beats more. So the piece keeps a steady frame of six parts while the pace shifts inside each one. Rokudan is sōkyoku, koto music, and it is played using the insen scale. Its koto part is the version heard most often now.

Origins and history

Rokudan no Shirabe is named as one of the famous pieces of Yatsuhashi Kengyō, who lived from 1614 to 1685, in the Tokugawa period. It came out of sōkyoku, chamber music for the koto in which the koto takes the leading part. In time the work's koto line became better known than the setting it was first written for. That is the version most people meet now, and the piece belongs to the same Japanese koto repertoire that produced its first form.

Place in the repertoire

Rokudan is often named together with Midare, whose longer name is midare rinzetsu, as one of the most popular pieces in the sōkyoku repertoire. Both belong to Japanese koto music, and both are works that listeners meet through the koto part. Rokudan began as chamber music with the koto leading, and today that koto line is the form in which the piece is best known. It is not tied to one city or one feast day, but to the koto repertoire as a whole.

How Rokudan no Shirabe is kept

A performance rests on the koto, which holds the leading part in sōkyoku, the chamber music the piece comes from. The player moves through the six columns in order. Each one opens slowly, quickens, and settles back to the tempo it began with before the next starts. The first column runs four beats past the fifty-two of the others. The koto part is the version most often heard now, and Midare is the other piece usually named beside it.

When and where

Rokudan is not kept on a fixed date. It belongs to the sōkyoku repertoire and is heard when koto music is played, with no season or feast attached to it. Its name comes from its shape rather than the calendar: six columns, fifty-two beats in each, and four more beats in the first.

The piece belongs to Japan, where sōkyoku took shape and where the koto part is now best known. It is tied to no city in the sources. What the sources name is a period, the Tokugawa shogunate, in which Yatsuhashi Kengyō lived and worked, rather than a town, a temple or a hall.

What Rokudan no Shirabe means

The name carries the design: roku means six and dan means column, so Rokudan is a tune of six columns. Each column holds fifty-two beats, and the first holds four more. Inside that frame the pace rises and then falls away again. The piece is played on the koto in the insen scale. In the repertoire it is paired with Midare, whose full name is midare rinzetsu, and the two are the titles most often named together in sōkyoku.

Questions people ask about Rokudan no Shirabe

See also

RakugoJapanese solo comic storytelling told from a cushion using a fan and a clothIkebanaThe Japanese art of arranging cut branches and flowers in a vesselDragon danceA long dragon puppet on poles, danced by a team at Chinese New Year and other festivalsKyōgenA traditional Japanese comic theatre of short farces, spoken dialogue and satire

Good reading and sources

• Rokudan no shirabe on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-10.