Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Hello to all. Since I'm reading this forum, I thought I would stop to be a ghost and present myself as well, and be the 111th doing it!

Was glad to find this forum less than a year ago. I was working on creating a show with a musician, and my part was realising a 1hour 10' film synchro with a concert, mixing classical, contemporary and world music. Finally I was choosen as the one playing the world music part, as I played a quena and a bansuri flute, and some drums. Somehow I found my little quena was too limited to play in competition with grand piano, so I recall the shakuhachi that I heard play live few years ago during a trip to US in California, by a japanese. I went through the net to search how to get hand on this rare nstrument in Paris (France, not Texas), and found someone selling through ebay UK that in fact lived in Paris! Started with a PVC pipe, then he had a shakuhachi Yuu, and a Perry Yung 2.3 earth bamboo that I aquired promptly. I was so amazed by meeting this instrument. My question: How come now, why not 30 years before? But probably my appreciation and need wasn't as strong as now. I had no problem to play straight away, thanks to blowing other bamboo like the little quena. And I had six months to get ready to play on stage. By chance in Paris there a 4 or even 5 teachers, with a japanese Tozan Master. So it was a chance to get some great help. But passion and practice is what makes you take lips and bounds.

And the concert went well enough, thanks that it was not music alone, but part of an attracting multimedia scene. The emotion and nervousness playing live was more an issue than just being kind of new with the instrument, as rehearsals went better… But some people were touched nevertheless, and most heard it for the first time.

I found great people here on this forum, and had also chances to buy from some of them second hand shakuhachi, reasonnably priced, and with the pleasure of transmission, of friendship, not to name them, James Nyman and Jeff Martindale and get Mujitsu and Perry Yung wabi sabi great pieces of singing bamboos.

Playing  honchikku is part of my actual activity, having a preference for jinashi, and exploring the different sound qualities and allmost inifinite possibilities of this special instrument, trying to capture it subtleness in recordings. I feel joy likes this instrument, though some find it too introverted (to me no contradiction), I feel the deepness he can accompany you to, makes it appealing to most of the new listeners. I found it a nice medium to say things that words cannot convey. It has a way to play with silence, to interupt a state to bring you in another, gently or abruptly, and to be a reflection of the ephemeral, yet next to eternal, breath of life.
Joy makes everything sing. But I allways liked bamboo ; )
All the best
Dominique