Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Welcome Eric!

Ah, the ancient dilemma: Bamboo or plastic

Non-traditional as it may be, a plastic shakuhachi is a humble but effective way to get your teeth (so to say) into the instrument.

A very useable flute can be made of PVC for pennies and a bit of sweat. Look here: http://www.fides.dti.ne.jp/~sogawa/englishpagepvc.html for a good start (also be sure to look at the maker's collection of bamboo shakuhachi here: http://www.fides.dti.ne.jp/~sogawa/englishpage3-1.html--click on the images for more details).

There is also a shakuhachi cast from plastic from a bamboo flute, and it works very well. It'll set you back 80-100 bucks US.
Take a look here: http://www.shakuhachiyuu.com/ This is a decent way to get started, without a big outlay. It is also
the 'standard' sized shakuhachi, the size mostly commonly used if taking lessons.

Thirdly, if you want a bona fide bamboo flute, but don't want to spend the big bucks, you might try here: http://www.shakuhachi.com/Q-Models-Student.html.
These are not the classic root-end flutes, but are student level flutes made with precision-shaped bores that perform as well as any modern shakuhachi. You can expect to spend about $350.00 for one of
these in the standard size (1.8 shaku).

Finally, the simplest, but not at all the least shakuhachi might be one from Ken Lacosse (originator of this forum known here as Mujitsu):
http://www.mujitsu.com/other.html. Mujitsu makes bamboo meditation flutes which will perform differently from the 'modern'
variety, but have their own inherent strengths and charm. One of these will cost between $220 and $270 depending on the length. Mujitsu
also makes a mean PVC flute (1.8) for $55.00 including shipping.

My own POV on this is that, even if you want to try your hand at making a flute, it makes sense to get at least a PVC flute, to have some-
thing to play and to have a model to work off of. BTW: You don't need to be a master to produce a workable, enjoyable shakuhachi.

eB

Last edited by edosan (2007-01-26 22:09:13)

Eric Innis wrote:

Greetings,

  It seems the price of flutes rivals the price of swords.  ...

What is your advice?

Hi Eric. First, did you check Ebay? Just do a search on "shakuhachi" and you'll find a number of very expensive instruments with a "buy it now" option, and a bunch that are very reasonably priced also with the "buy it now" option.
The inexpensive instruments (many less than $100) probably won't be suitable for formal study, but most likely would be good for learning to blow, and in my experience you won't even know the difference until you get a hold of a better instrument. The reason is that while it's difficult to make a stick of bamboo with holes drilled in it be suitable for whatever the better players are doing, it's really easy to make one play in tune, and while they won't have the same characteristics as the outrageously expensive instruments, they still sound nice. You could also take your chances and go for one of the used flutes on auction. I recently graduated to a better instrument by buying a broken one in an auction for less than $200 and making some admittedly shoddy home repairs, and it's dynamite. It's probably still not good for formal study (the note with all holes open is the seventh of a diatonic scale and I suspect that it's a 1.7 instead of a 1.8, aside from whatever stuff I don't know about), but it suits my purposes very well. The biggest difference aside from the tone quality, which is just "different" not really any better, is that it has a larger range being able to go into the 3rd octave and also a larger range as far as how quietly or loud you can blow along with a bunch of cool wind noises that just don't have the same kick on the cheaper instruments.

I have a pretty good background with transverse flutes, so learning to get decent sounds wasn't much of a chore. If you've never played any kind of flute before you may be inclined to find a teacher, That could possibly limit your options because with many teachers you may be required to get some kind of "standard" instrument. Almost everybody on this forum says that the plastic Shakahachi-Yuu fills this requirement. But, if you just want to blow, and aren't really interested into digging into learning a foreign music (no matter how much you like it, the fact that it's foreign is going to be a major hurdle), just picking up some tips from participants in a workshop would probably be enough. That is if you know how to practice. A lot of what most teachers of any instrument teach isn't just the technical and artistic apects, but how to practice. Basically it boils down to mental focus and exploration into getting a tone and holding it, but sometimes it takes a bit of hand-holding and assurance that your doing OK. Some people without previous exposure to instruments don't seem to realize that 45 minutes to an hour almost every day for a year or two probably won't bring you up to a level that will impress many people except maybe yourself.

Whatever you do, it would be a shame if you let the experience pass you by because of cost when there are so many low cost options available.

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I would beware the eBay route: You may get something decent for your C-note, but it's a crap-shoot.

Often the sellers don't even know what they've got, as they are not really able to properly evaluate them.

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eB

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Perry is, of course, decidedly an exception to the eBay warning, as he is one of the moderators of this forum, and beloved by all.

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eB