Unlikely Stars.(traditional shamisen music popular)(Brief Article)

From the time the Yoshida brothers were young, they had to live out their father's frustrated musical ambitions. He forced them to kneel, for five or six hours at a stretch, and play an ancient, banjolike instrument with a body of dog skin, neck of hardwood and strings of silk. Papa fervently hoped that one of them would become the professional musician he had never been, but their classmates asked "why we wasted our time on something so old-fashioned," recalls Ryoichiro, 24. But thanks to their father's insistence, Ryoichiro and Kenichi, 22, mastered the heavy tsugaru shamisen, the largest of the Japanese shamisen (three-stringed) instruments, popularized by blind minstrels in the snow country of 17th-century Tsugaru. After high- school graduation, Ryoichiro moved to Tokyo to perform in a bar. Kenichi stayed in Hokkaido and played in a sweet shop. "We always dreamed of playing original music in concert," says Ryoichiro, "but not many shamisen players end up doing that."

No wonder: the tsugaru shamisen is an archaic instrument that blends shrill, woeful melodies with relentless percussion. Players pluck out one rhythm at the neck while beating another on the instrument's body. But Victor Entertainment saw potential in the good-looking duo and pegged them as niche artists for their traditional-music division. Two CDs and more than 300 concerts later, the Yoshida brothers are leading a revival of classical Japanese music that has made them major pop icons. Onstage, they exude "rock star" sex appeal, holding their instruments not in the traditional way, with the neck vertical, but at their hips, almost like electric guitars. They dress in silk kimonos but wear makeup and dyed hair. Their shows attract everyone from kids to grandparents, but their biggest fans are young women. "They're so cool!" gushes Chihiro Suzuki, 17.

Move over, Backstreet Boys. After a century of borrowing Western traditions from the likes of Bach and the Beatles, such music has lost its exoticism. "People want to access what it means to be Japanese now," says Motoya Izumi, 27, a performer in the 600-year-old comic musical art known as kyogen. Since taking the lead in Japan's most- watched TV drama, Izumi has become a household name. And kyogen, once studied as an ancient art, is gaining new and younger fans around the country. Music shops across Japan are filled with books on how to play not just the shamisen but also the koto (Japanese zither) and shakuhachi (bamboo flute). A Live House for traditional music has opened up in ...