Soon after the saxophone has been invented, the instrument gained immense popularity due to its tenacity and unique timbre and has quickly spread across the world by being welcomed into various brass orchestras. Although the instrument was present in the 19th century across the whole continent of America and Europe, the saxophone still did not reach Japan till the end of the 19th century. When it finally did, it quickly found its place in several different kinds of orchestras and jazz groups, by which the instrument was probably most well known. While the saxophone was flourishing in jazz, the instrument was barely know by or even used in classical music all till the end of the Second World War. That changed towards the end of the 20th century, when Japanese composers started using the instrument for performing scores with traditional Japanese musical elements. One such composer was a saxophone player named Ryo Noda. In my thesis I will try to analyze and explain the various traditional Japanese musical elements of his score named »Mai«, where he tried to mimic the style and sound of a Japanese woodwind instrument called shakuhachi.
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