Saibara

Saibara (Japanese催马 楽, Saibara, to German "horse driver music " ) is a light-hearted genre of songs, mainly from the areas around Kyoto and Nara, which was edited in the Heian period at the imperial court in an artistic sense new and was part of the court music.

They consist of alternating four - and neunsilbigen verses and a chorus. Content they deal with the feelings of ordinary people, such as hunting, work, travel, and preferably with the love that is expressed unusually open. Saibara were happy recited on festive occasions, such as it is described at some places in the Genji Monogatari. They lost in the Kamakura period their popularity to the Imayô and were revived again in the Edo period.