Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Sounds like fun.

I was playing on a boat cruising the Amazon and picked up the flute to play "Kumoijishi"..........no sound. Then I realized there was an overhead fan interrupting my air flow. Unobtrusively I moved away from the fan and things were OK after that. Still, made me nervous at the time.

I once had to play solo shakuhachi in mid-afternoon in a sleazy bar, standing in front of a giant blown up image of a dollar bill. The sound guy was clearly on crack and kept yelling out "Yeah, love that kung fu stuff!" as he kept adding more and more reverb.

Tairaku wrote:

Sounds like fun.

I was playing on a boat cruising the Amazon and picked up the flute to play "Kumoijishi"..........no sound. Then I realized there was an overhead fan interrupting my air flow. Unobtrusively I moved away from the fan and things were OK after that. Still, made me nervous at the time.

I often get no notes at first in performances. It's totally nerves, and it doesn't matter if I warm up or not. Last weekend I couldn't play the first few notes of two separate pieces. Both times it was more than obvious to the audience, and the second time I had been playing a warm up during the introduction just a few seconds before (as an apparently worthless emotional balm).

Actually, that second piece was a duet where I played the two-measure intro solo. My partner seemed to take it with equanimity; we just cracked jokes about it. Also, this was on Sunday, and I had played the same pieces just fine the day before. Luckily, I'm starting to get to the point that I don't care whether it happens, at which point I'm sure it will stop happening!

One beneficial aspect of playing honkyoku: the audience has no idea what to expect (and it barely sounds like music), so you can play off mistakes like non-notes as just being some traditional Japanese thing. Mu notes, as it were, emptiness as a performance aspect.

My absolute worst performance experience was on the 8th March 2007. I was going to premiere 3 of the 5 pieces I commissioned for my PhD. The 3 composers promised to finish the pieces month before... but I got all 3 pieces about 2 1/2 ~ 3 weeks before the concert date. All 3 pieces were so difficult that it would have been impossible to have done a satisfying job practicing just 1 for the premiere... I canceled one but had to go ahead and do the biggest fake concert I have ever done with the two others. How to play two pieces (one was a duo with clavichord), pretending you are in control, when the only thing going through my head was 'How did I get myself into this? Wish I could disappear for ever...' One of the pieces is on YouTube! And I DO look like I am about to either scream or cry any moment. The audience was very loud and unfocused too.... After this experience, I had a really hard period - like 9 month where I considered to stop playing shakuhachi. I still can't laugh about it, only try to erase it from my memory.
I'd like to ask any of you pro out there, if you have tried to get into a serious depression about playing and considered to stop playing. If so, how did you work your way through it?

I must say this is a delightful thread...thanks for sharing.  Sincerly.

Kiku Day wrote:

I'd like to ask any of you pro out there, if you have tried to get into a serious depression about playing and considered to stop playing. If so, how did you work your way through it?

Sure, I think my relationship with the music world -- the world of humans who make music -- has been like a relationship with a partner who has way too many expectations. Sometimes I get bummed out about being less technically proficient than somebody else, or less flexible, or less charismatic, or worse at promotion, or whatever. But always I come back to remembering three things: 1. There is nothing I'd rather do than make music. 2. There is nothing I can do better than making music. 3. I am offering this music as a gift.

There is no dishonor in having a hard time with the sort of difficulties imposed on performers by many academic "classical" composers. Much of this stuff would sound as good or better if the performer improvised it. There ARE a few composers who investigate interesting difficulty, for instance Frank Denyer's shakuhachi pieces -- that's a kind of difficulty that MATTERS. But the vast majority of notated stuff by academic composers is difficult for no compelling musical reason. It doesn't even celebrate bravura virtuosity, only slavishness to notation and the elevation of abstract sonic manipulations over any heartfelt connection with the real world of breathing suffering joyous people.

As often as possible I try to get together with great NON-professional musicians, people who are excellent listeners with very little ego investment, people who remember that it's about the joy of making beautiful sound. It's one way to get back to what music is all about. Teaching is another way -- feeling the solid value of the transmission. And being around children whenever possible, not musical prodigy children, just regular children, the most natural musicians in the world. They put it all back in perspective.

On one occasion when I was performing in the open air, the sheet music blew off the stand (the pegs I had applied failed). Somehow I managed to improvise above the accompaniment and then find my way after a lovely old lady from the choir recovered the music. I was miked and there was an audience of over 20,000. I could feel my whole body shaking but I survived!

nyokai wrote:

Sure, I think my relationship with the music world -- the world of humans who make music -- has been like a relationship with a partner who has way too many expectations. Sometimes I get bummed out about being less technically proficient than somebody else, or less flexible, or less charismatic, or worse at promotion, or whatever. But always I come back to remembering three things: 1. There is nothing I'd rather do than make music. 2. There is nothing I can do better than making music. 3. I am offering this music as a gift.

These are great points to be conscious about! Thank you! For many of us, music is life! I did come to something similar too. I had to play another of these fairly technical pieces, but this time the composer handed the musicians the score more than 3 month in advance and that made a huge difference. Feeling that I had practiced this piece for so long and so many hours, and that I knew the piece very well gives a sense of being on top of it - being in control of your art. That really helped me put the rough time behind me.

nyokai wrote:

There is no dishonor in having a hard time with the sort of difficulties imposed on performers by many academic "classical" composers. Much of this stuff would sound as good or better if the performer improvised it. There ARE a few composers who investigate interesting difficulty, for instance Frank Denyer's shakuhachi pieces -- that's a kind of difficulty that MATTERS. But the vast majority of notated stuff by academic composers is difficult for no compelling musical reason. It doesn't even celebrate bravura virtuosity, only slavishness to notation and the elevation of abstract sonic manipulations over any heartfelt connection with the real world of breathing suffering joyous people.

The pieces weren't actually that bad in the sense of being academic. But surely that is a problem one encounters often. The two pieces I premiered March last year were not that academic. But 2-3 weeks were just absolutely too short. The composer and I worked through the solo piece after the concert and we changed so much. These things do need to be done before the premiere - obviously! I think this particular piece will become my favorite piece of all time though. He had thought so much about the jinashi shakuhachi's sounds and he had made quite a few mistakes in what was possible by mixing his own imagination and the sounds he had heard together. But after we fixed the problems, this will become a great piece.
Denyer's music IS fantastic! And the interesting thinkg is that Denyer writes very well for the shakuhachi. He knows the instrument. I have played 2 of Denyer's pieces, and they have been a challenge, but really amazing music. He is the last composer to write a piece in my project. He is writing for a G# Taimu. The piece will be called 'Woman with Jurashi Shakuhachi' and a part of his series of music for women. It is supposed to be ready in August. I am looking forward to it, the music and the challenge I know it will be.

nyokai wrote:

As often as possible I try to get together with great NON-professional musicians, people who are excellent listeners with very little ego investment, people who remember that it's about the joy of making beautiful sound. It's one way to get back to what music is all about. Teaching is another way -- feeling the solid value of the transmission. And being around children whenever possible, not musical prodigy children, just regular children, the most natural musicians in the world. They put it all back in perspective.

Very true. It can be very encouraging to meet people's reaction that has not been trained in any way. The very opposite of being the only player from another ryu-ha at a concert in Japan.
I agree. Teaching is my favorite. I learn so much from the students. It is a very positive exchange.

Tairaku wrote:

I have gone through a few bouts of musical depression. The last big one was when Sun Ra died. I thought, "why bother when nobody will again reach those heights". I am happy to report learning shakuhachi was what got me out of this funk because I realized I could make music as elevated as Ra's just by studying it and playing honkyoku.

That's nice to read what honkyoku can do! Yes, honkyoku goes deep!

Tairaku wrote:

Kiku I watched your piece on youtube and it didn't come across that you were terrified. Sounded pretty good.

Oh, so I did hide my state of being enough so that it is only myself who notices. The clavichord player asked me after the performance, 'Weren't you a bit shaky out there?', so he noticed it too.