With the members of the Gidayu, Tokiwazu, and Kiyomoto companies it was different. Their patrons were the wealthy merchants and tradespeople. And because Tokiwazu and Kiyomoto were so closely related to shibai, they came to be considered as something low class and vulgar. In addition, as the whole world of popular songs and short dances that formed the accomplishment of the geisha were associated with the samisen, this instrument was never heard in the homes of persons of taste and breeding, or those who valued their position of respectability. One of the greatest defects of the samisen music is that it is divided into so many schools, each guarding jealously its traditions. When some new expression of the people’s will is necessary these separate elements may be concentrated to form a new musical force, just as Takemoto Gidayu recognised the value of the Joruri of his day and, combining them, established the balladry of the Doll-theatre on a firm foundation. Moreover, however much criticism may be levelled at the samisen for the trivial and superficial matter with which it is often related, it remains none the less the national music. The samisen differs so largely from Western instruments that comparisons are useless. This is because samisen music depends almost completely on rhythm, rather than melody, to interpret emotion. Sound is inexhaustible, and by groupings of sounds in changing rhythms the samisen musicians gain the effects they desire. Western ears are so accustomed to harmony, that a departure from its stereotyped combinations causes bewilderment and irritation. Any other use of sound and rhythm than that to which their ears have grown familiar fails to affect them. The music of shibai presents a whole world of uncharted music material. Ripple-clang-bang; smoothness, roughness, villainy, tranquillity; falling snow, a flight of birds, wind in the tree-tops; skirmish and fray, the peace of moonlight, the sorrow of parting, the rapture of spring; the infirmity of age, the gladness of lovers,—all these and much more the samisen expresses to those who are able to look beyond the curtain that shuts this musical world away from Western ears because of its baffling conventions of sound rather than melody. Symbol of the despised yakusha, and in use in the none-too-irreproachable geisha world, the samisen has been held in disfavour by the upper classes. Left to their own devices, the people created their own theatre, music, and art. There was no impetus from the aristocracy, who held themselves aloof from the mass of the people. The samurai had little to do with the creative spirit, the scholars steeped in Chinese philosophy and literature looked backward to the glorious past of Japan’s great continental neighbour,—it was the people of the three towns, unaided, without guide or inspiration from their betters, who produced the music of shibai, the plebeian legacy of the Tokugawa age.