Some Westerners might be surprised to learn to what extent Japanese people have little or no interest in traditional Japanese music. Many young people simply prefer to listen to contemporary pop music, but it is also not uncommon to come across those who are not even sure what traditional Japanese music is.

Makoto Nishimura is doing what she can to change this. Nishimura is a conservative-looking woman who uses unconventional methods to expose Japanese people to their traditional music. She takes what she calls "an ironic way" -- teaching and performing with foreigners.

About six years ago, when she was studying English, her American teacher, a piano player, became curious about her student's musical activities. So Nishimura brought a shamisen to her English school and used one of the spare classrooms to start teaching her to play.

The shamisen is a square-bodied, three-stringed, banjolike instrument with long tuning pegs. Foreigners have come to associate its unique, twangy sound with Japan, while Japanese have come to associate it with something that grandpa used to be into.

On the day that she brought a shamisen to her English school, Nishimura realized that while many young Japanese have a blase attitude toward the music, foreigners seem to consider it exotic and worth their attention. As she played in the classroom she created a stir among the other foreign teachers in the school, who heard the music and had to see what was going on. Since that time she has been teaching foreigners to play.

When Nishimura told other shamisen teachers that she was teaching foreigners, at first they didn't believe her. They thought it couldn't be done, that foreigners would never have the interest or discipline to stick it out long enough to learn to really play anything.

They may have underestimated her skills as a teacher and her ability to motivate people. She now has a group of students who have performed in public in front of large audiences, both at traditional venues for this type of music, such as the Edo Shiryokan concert hall, and at small community centers and bars where you would normally expect to see rock bands.

One weekend recently, she and four students performed to a capacity crowd of both Japanese and foreigners at a bar in Shimokitazawa. Flute and drums were also used during the performance, which lasted about an hour and a half. More conservative shamisen teachers probably would have frowned on the idea of playing in a bar, but it gave people who would normally never listen to shamisen the chance to experience the music. Non-Japanese people playing shamisen is a novelty to some, so performances like these attract attention and young Japanese are enticed to see what's going on.

This is Nishimura's "ironic way" of stimulating Japanese interest in their traditional music. She and her group have also come to the attention of local media, being written up in several newspapers and appearing in an NHK news piece.

Conventional shamisen teachers charge high tuition fees, and there are many additional costs, making it restrictively expensive. Usually when a student plays in public he or she must pay expenses, often totaling over 1 million yen. If an amateur plays a 15-minute song, about 10 professional musicians to accompany her, the concert hall, the leader of the guild and other assorted people must all be paid.

Nishimura finds this system disturbing because she thinks that it has turned the music into a hobby for wealthy housewives who consider it a symbol of prestige, while at the same time pushing it out of reach of those who are sincerely interested.

Her belief is that music should be fun, for all people to enjoy, and that people should not have to spend so much money -- so she doesn't charge for her lessons. She also bypasses the system which makes public performances just too expensive to get involved with. When asked why she gives free lessons she responded by saying that music is her pleasure. Her teacher gave her a gift and now she wants to give it back to others.