"We are not reviving the original music of over 1,000 years ago," says Sukeyasu Shiba, director of the leading independent gagaku (court music) group Reigakusha, which will present a concert March 23 of music from over 1,000 years ago.

Shiba has spent decades studying the oldest sheet music in the world, preserved in the cave temples of Dunhuang in western China and in Japanese archives, including the documents stored in the Shosoin in Nara since the 8th century.

His studies have yielded questions as well as answers, and in the end, he says, we still cannot be sure what the music of Tang China and its cultural satellite, Heian Period Japan, really sounded like.