Ornamentation: how much is too much?

Recently in the final Monthly Practice Workshop for 2025, a participant asked a question that we have probably all wondered about: “How much is too much ornamentation?”

One way to approach that question is to put some data on the table: show the ranges, look at distributions, and see what patterns emerge. Watazumi, for example, shows very different counts of ornamental variations across three recordings of San’an, which is enough to tell us that a single recording does not provide a reliable picture of his approach.

To search beyond piece-specific tendencies, we could gain another perspective by examining how he plays a number of different pieces. Even though those pieces may be different or even entirely unrelated, it could nonetheless reveal a broader view of his personal tendencies for variation.

Consistently high numbers of ornaments and variations may indicate a taste for technical detail, established performative habits, or a preference for floridness, among other possibilities. Consistently low numbers may reflect adherence to a score, an aesthetic of restraint, or a desire for simplicity. These are not conclusions that data alone can determine; rather, numerical patterns constrain what kinds of statements about musical interpretations are plausible.

Nor can we make reliable conclusions based on our feelings alone. Making statements about ‘musical style’ is notoriously difficult (as ethnomusicologists have long noted). While the words ‘musical style’ feel easy to use, we may be at a total loss when it comes to describing precisely what we mean. However, when concrete data is combined with close listening and performance experience, it becomes possible to make useful statements about musical style. For example, with data, we can point to where ornamental variations tend to be inserted, deleted, or substituted, and where they tend to occur. At that point, qualitative statements about musical style are no longer unsupported opinions or appeals to authority. They become accountable interpretations, grounded in actual performances, and open to discussion and critique rather than mystification and gatekeeping.

Informed critical thinking, in this sense, stands in opposition to the grand-poobah-ism of authority.

Following from this, we might also consider the degree of inconsistency between performances by a single performer. Large differences in variation counts may indicate their responsiveness to the character of individual pieces, flexibility rather than reliance on habit, or shifts in their sensibilities over time. Low differences in variation counts between recordings may indicate stability of approach - which can be intentional and stylistically appropriate - but can also suggest rigidity if it appears across contrasting musical contexts. The point is not to rank these outcomes in advance, but to make them tangible and examinable.

It is practically impossible that anyone plays a honkyoku piece exactly the same way twice, and even if they could, it’s not obvious that it would be a good thing. Would Dave Chappelle tell a joke exactly the same way night after night? Does the joke remain unchanged over years? The person changes. The context changes. Change can reflect maturation, learning, refinement of sensibility, and shifts in technical capacity.

Understanding what counts as too much or too little ornamentation ultimately comes through practice and experience. Yokoyama said the most important things for a shakuhachi player are knowledge and experience (over numerous lessons he told me a number of things were most important though, so I guess they all must be important!) Experiment. Overshoot. Undershoot. Record yourself and listen back. Compare and contrast. Beg, borrow, and steal.

The answer does not arrive as a rule so much as a sensibility that emerges through doing:

“Wanderer, there is no road; the road is made by walking.” - Antonio Machado