Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horagai

"The conch is perhaps most associated with its use by Buddhist monks for religious purposes. Its use goes back at least one thousand years, and it is still used today for some rituals, such as the omizutori (water drawing) portion of the Shuni-e rites at the Todaiji in Nara. Unlike most shell trumpets from other parts of the world which produce only one pitch, the Japanese hora or horagai can produce three or four different notes. The process of transforming a shell into an instrument is kept somewhat secret, but it involves the attachment of a bronze mouthpiece to the apex of the shell's spire."

I'd love to get me one of those.

thanks Kabato for the info
I remeber Tairaku playing one of those in a concert.
G

How do you play it? Does the mouthpiece work like a trumpet's or something?

Shugendo practitioners can often be seen using the Horagai.  When I was playing shakuhachi as an offering at some of Shikoku's 88 temples, from time-to-time there would also be shugendo people playing their shells as other practitioners chanted sutra.  You can hear it sometimes especially where pilgrimages are popular, Koya san and the Kumano pilgrimage (there are a lot of shugendo and yamabushi trails throughout the mountains there around Wakayama and Nara) and also around Hiei-zan in Kyoto.

Kinohachi is a great shakuhachi player and a student of Mitsuhashi Kifu, as well as another minyo teacher whose name I can't remember. His CDs usually heavily use synthesizer and sometimes techno-style music, but his concerts are often a little more creative and experimental, in my opinion. (You can find a few of them on youtube)  In Japan people have criticized him for relying too much on mura-iki, but everyone is entitled to their opinion I guess.

Josh