Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Great question, Eddie's not the only one interested in this. My vibrato is really not refined at all and consequently I rarely employ it - which is a big gap in my playing.

Steven

What happened to Brian's post from last night?

-E

As Nyokai mentioned, breath vibrato and diaphragm vibrato are not part of the regular shakuhachi repertoire. In most cases neither is tongueing.

Shakuhachi is about breath control. People who have ANY kind of vibrato that is not under their control are losing the plot. Many people who started out on a western wind instrument are actually at a deficit compared to absolute beginners because they have to unlearn the vibrato they learned on flute or sax or whatever.

Thus the best thing to do is to practice as a beginner to make a pure tone with no vibrato. Especially in the beginning you will be learning simple songs that need not be interpreted with "passion" or "expression". Then learn the specific vibrato requested in the notation or associated with the school (such as Oshu, Nezasaha, etc).

To answer the question about how do you make vibrato, it is better to do it from side to side than up and down, because when you play up and down it's easy to cut off the note. Up and down vibrato sounds like a drunken sailor. None of the good players use it. Side to side vibrato gives more control. But it's not strictly side to side like shaking your head to say "no". It's an oval shape with the horizontal sides of the oval being longer. Sometimes you can use a figure eight pattern.

If you are using head vibrato a general rule is to start out a regular kari note straight and then introduce the vibrato midstream, starting out slow and speeding up a bit as the note goes on. With meri notes play the vibrato from the beginning of the note and keep it at a steady rate.

It goes without saying that there is almost an infinite range of vibrato available to the player. The ability to waver the pitch at any depth and speed at all times is one of the things that makes the shakuhachi such an expressive instrument. In addition the vibrato used by Kinko players, for example, is different than that used by Myoan players. There are a lot of regional variants. Even within the same school people use different vibratos. Yamaguchi Goro was known for his vibrato which went to the limit of what is acceptable. Actually some people criticised him for using too much. There is an interview with Yokoyama Katsuya where he says he has spent a lot of time thinking about vibrato and decided that it's best to play honkyoku without it. However when you listen to him he actually uses a lot.

Minyo music uses a very wide vibrato, especially on the slower tunes. Gaikyoku (sankyoku) has vibrato going most of the time. Honkyoku should be interpreted piece to piece. Some of the best pieces have no vibrato whatsoever. Others request specific vibrato, of which there are many. Some pieces start out with no vibrato and add it later.

If you are not playing traditional (Japanese) music, do whatever you want. A lot of the people who use it in new age or Native American music use western vibrato. Likewise shinkyoku uses the traditional vibratos (vibrati?) and other ones of western origin or adapted from the modern woodwind repertoire.

Vibrato is one of the most important things in playing the shakuhachi. Until you are sure of what kind of vibrato you want, it's best to proceed slowly in developing it. It's better to err on the side of caution. Not using vibrato may not be the best way to play a song, but it's a lot better than using the wrong vibrato.