In article <user-15AF2C.11540307082005@news.easynews.com>, skel
<user@host.com> wrote:

> I'm a university student who is volunteering in the Japanese department. 
> We just finished the voicework for a training CD for students ("Lesson 
> 1: New Words" - "atarashii" "new", etc.). Now, we're looking for small 
> (10-30 seconds) snippets of Japanese traditional music to insert between 
> tracks. If anyone on the net knows, it would be the people in these 
> groups, so I thought I would ask... 

Certainly you can get royalty-free recordings by musicians if you don't
cull them from commercial products.  It's an ancient concept: you hire
a musician!  You would record their improvisational koto or shamisen
fills and their is no need of royalty payment. 

For your needs you must additionally get somebody to record them to the
level of your needs (a vastly less expensive process than in years
past), 

Musicians, as professionals, should be paid.  But most of the time they
are so very eager for the opportunity to perform their vastly
underrated skills that they can usually be screwed out of that too via
the traditional methods: a free feed, the potentiality of meeting
interesting women, or by hints of a gig somewhere "if things work out".

Sad, of course, but true.

-- 
Learn More about Brazilian music:
  Slipcue: <http://www.slipcue.com/music/brazil/brazillist.html>
  All Brazilian Music: <http://www.allbrazilianmusic.com>
  Hell, buy some CD's or songbooks! <http://www.brazmus.com/>