Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

This reminds me of the old Beach Boys song, "Be True to your School".

No dai meris in that song though.

Kiku Day wrote:

I would just say that all schools have special fingering or breathing techniques. All schools are tough about the rendition of koten honkyoku (which is what we all play). All schools I have encountered are dead serious about the continuation and transmission of koten honkyoku. Only when we are inexperienced do you not realise that we believe 'our' school is the toughest because we still have narrow ears and understanding and only hear the aim and toughness in our own particular rendition. If we do not open up for our soul to hear what players of other schools have spent years and years making perfect... we simply miss out a lot!

Kiku, that's just... beautiful!

Kiku Day wrote:

The new school of Yokoyama Katusya (Dokyoku, KSK and now Chikushinkai [just to summarise the confusion]) uses this fingering called ru in combinations like chi ru tsu no meri. The ru seems to be a type of u, but with a shaded first hole. Not all shakuhachi plays this note well - in fact none of mine does...
I discussed it once with Simura, mentioned above. He told me that most jinashi shakuhachi (and a few jinuri) do not react very well to this fingering unless the maker intensionally wanted it to play this. However, he told me, it is unnecessary to use this technique when playing jinashi shakuhachi, as it is usually much easier to play flat on a jinashi than on jinuri. It is therefore not necessary to add the shading of finger hole 1. (There is a whole section about the difference in meri between jinuri and jinashi in Simura's book, 'Kokan shakuhachi no gakki gaku' (古管尺八の楽器学). He has made many analysis of meri notes played on different instruments). So, due to either being inexperienced or feeling one should play exactly as one has learned from our teacher, many players play not the best fingering on the particular flute they own. Shakuhachi is all about being adaptable and flexible. The beauty of the shakuhachi does also lie in the fact that that we humans are not the superior being. The bamboo is - to a certain degree without it becoming a dogma, of course. No shakuhachi without a human being modifying the bamboo. However, when we are not flexible as players, then we say it is the flute that is not good, but at times it is us who have not explored the possibility of that bamboo yet!

Thanks Kiku.

Changing the subject a bit, but related to what you say here, Simura-san said something interesting at his talk in Sydney.

He IMPLORED us not to modify our vintage finds to try to play according to different standards than those of the original maker. He said if we find vintage flutes to play them a lot and try to learn how to get the best out of them.

I agree with that generally although I admit I have "fixed" a few vintage flutes. Only when there was something radically wrong and when I thought the maker didn't know what he was doing when he made the flute. And if it was a simple fix.

I wouldn't change anything as mindless as a sharp chi. Sometimes vintage flutes do not play the note "U" in kan. But if you realize that you can get around it by playing chi meri instead. Better to do that than modify the flute because usually when you gain something from a change you lose something else.

Your point about adaptability is relevant here. If you grab a flute and get angry because it doesn't respond in a predictable manner or try to force it into a rigid way of playing you lose the opportunity to play that flute the way it wants to be played.

Kiku Day wrote:

Last year at Bisei, I overheard a teacher from KSK/Dokyoku/Chikushinkai tell a group of people who were interested in buying John Neptune's flutes, that John's jinashi flutes were not good because they could not play chi ru! I then took the flute and said, that if the fingering, that most experienced jinashi players would use, was used, then chi ru could be played on ALL John's flutes - I just don't finger it the way Yokoyama does or did. The teacher just said, I know.... but why tell people off about John's flutes when they could play chi ru perfectly without adding the shading on first hole? The pitch produced without the hole 1 shaded was as flat as any KSK/Dokyoku/Chikushinkai player's ru. Some flutes get deep down in meri without the help of shadings, even though shading is necessary on other flutes.

You've got 17 years of experience on me, Kiku, so I hope I'm not out of place by asking, but perhaps the 'pitch' of the Ru would be the same on a jinashi (or Neptune flute) without half-holing #1 but the 'tone color' would be brighter (or at least different). Perhaps that was what was being implied...

Zak -- jinashi size queen

Last edited by Zakarius (2008-08-05 10:04:40)

Zakarius wrote:

You've got 17 years of experience on me, Kiku, so I hope I'm not out of place by asking, but perhaps the 'pitch' of the Ru would be the same on a jinashi (or Neptune flute) without half-holing #1 but the 'tone color' would be brighter (or at least different). Perhaps that was what was being implied...

I did mean chi - ru - tsu no meri - ru, but didn't write that whole phrase out. Sorry for my laziness!
I think the tone colour would vary even between each individual flute playing with hole 1 shaded...or with each flute which reacts the best with hole 1 open on ru (as dokyoku/KSK/Chikushinkai call it). Or  even with each player playing that note.
That is the wonder of the shakuhachi escaping standardisation!
Isn't that fantastic?

Tairaku wrote:

Changing the subject a bit, but related to what you say here (Kiku), Simura-san said something interesting at his talk in Sydney.

He IMPLORED us not to modify our vintage finds to try to play according to different standards than those of the original maker. He said if we find vintage flutes to play them a lot and try to learn how to get the best out of them.

I agree with that generally although I admit I have "fixed" a few vintage flutes. Only when there was something radically wrong and when I thought the maker didn't know what he was doing when he made the flute. And if it was a simple fix.

I wouldn't change anything as mindless as a sharp chi. Sometimes vintage flutes do not play the note "U" in kan. But if you realize that you can get around it by playing chi meri instead. Better to do that than modify the flute because usually when you gain something from a change you lose something else.

Your point about adaptability is relevant here. If you grab a flute and get angry because it doesn't respond in a predictable manner or try to force it into a rigid way of playing you lose the opportunity to play that flute the way it wants to be played.

Having worked on many old flutes, I have nothing but very deep respect for these fine historical artifacts. They possess a lot of Chikuin. When damaged, I try to only refurbish them with my low impact approach to repairs - topical bindings, filling chipped utaguchi instead of replacing. And only if the tunning is way off to where it can not play shakuhachi music (I'm referring to flutes that are meant to play a style).  There's nothing like blowing into an old flute that arrived with cob webs in the bore and had been cracked for 20 or more years. It's sort of like shaking hands with an ancient kindred spirit. I only want to do them justice, not mess with their spirit.

I had a great massage therapist in Northampton who was into cranial work and others spiritual stuff. She once asked me after a session, "You work on flutes right? Are these flutes spiritual?" I said yes, they come from a spiritual tradition. She then asked if I had a really really old flute around. She felt an old spirit around me that day.

Who knows, maybe she did, maybe she didn't. But, I certainly feel the past when playing these old flutes.

Here is one I am enjoying these days. The utaguchi is cut below a node, the bottom has an ugly shade of green, the Ri and Hi Go are sharp. The rides a little bumpy...who cares? She's over a 100 years old!




No utaguchi inlay - a real rogue spirit!

Peace, Perry

Tairaku wrote:

Yungflutes wrote:

No utaguchi inlay - a real rogue spirit!

Peace, Perry

Nice flute. No utaguchi, probably made by some crazy komuso!

Perry what do you think about correcting major construction errors such as that 2.4 where ro was A and the rest of the flute was in line with Bb? Is that Kosher or should we leave it alone?

Hey Brian, The question for me is would you play it after it was reversed. When we looked at the flute, we both agreed it can not play the music as we understood it.  Perhaps the maker just wanted to Blow Zen and didn't play a style of shakuhachi music. I guess if that what you want to do, then yes, you should return to the bowl

I recently retuned a 60- 70 year old Tozan. It has a fully plastered bore so I know what the maker was after. Holes #1, #2, #4 and #5 were all a semi tone flat. They were drilled almost a centimeter too low. Lowering Ro would taken major surgery since the length was a perfect 1.8. It was easier to enlarge the those tone holes. I only did this because it made the flute very playable as opposed to something I wouldn't play.

Peace, Perry

What a beauty, Perry. I can understand you are enjoying that one!
It is very nice to see more and more people are respecting old flutes and realise their pecularities and the work one needs to invest in playing them. I would have retuned too back in the days, but today I find it very interesting and giving to try to adapt to the flute and figure out its secrets! A new flute is like a new lover of the soul!

Kiku Day wrote:

What a beauty, Perry. I can understand you are enjoying that one!
It is very nice to see more and more people are respecting old flutes and realise their pecularities and the work one needs to invest in playing them. I would have retuned too back in the days, but today I find it very interesting and giving to try to adapt to the flute and figure out its secrets! A new flute is like a new lover of the soul!

Hi Kiku, Just don't tell my...ichiban....flute...that is:)

Tairaku wrote:

Hi Perry, tested it today by taping up the vent hole and true enough it SUCKED. So we did the right thing. cool

That's what I remembered It was a beautiful piece of bamboo, but you know how it is with shakuhachi - one little thing can be a big thing. In the case of that flute, the Ro tuning being so off was not a little thing.

Peace, Perry

New Push-Button All-Ryu Shakuhachi
shown here with the Deluxe Push-Button Shika-no-Tone
and optional B-52 Ro toggle switch. 
(Pictured: Tozan-ryu button selected)

Yes, I think I'd like one of those all ryu flutes; nice prototype, Chris.  Thanks for your reply, Perry, and for the link to the article "What is a Functional Shakuhachi"; very to the point article -- I guess a lot depends on what music one plays or wants to play as to whether one considers a shakuhachi acceptable or not.   Perhaps the question I asked you was a bit too flippant as I imagine that most makers are like you, intent on seriously testing their flutes for all the techniques they know, depending on what genre or genres or music they are playing though maybe I should be wary of saying anything like most makers are doing this or that as it is only the individual makers that I can really gather that kind of information from.  That's interesting that you have learned/are learning dokyoku pieces directly from Watazumi Do's notation.   Kiku had some very pertinent comments about learning from the bamboo and the fact that the shakuhachi has (luckily) managed to escape standardization, and also in her aside that Yokoyama Katsuya's school is a new school of shakuhachi (just as my own school, Chikudosha, is a new school of shakuhachi, though only playing traditional pieces).   At the risk of exhuming an expired minor point of contention I will mention that my shakuhachi maker Morikawa Genpu does admit to testing for dai meri and the phrase chi chi ru tsu meri, which he says is a common phrase; if he tests for those phrases then maybe all the other makers who studied under Tamai Chikuzen do the same, but then again maybe not;  I can agree with you Justin that some makers do not play Yokoyama sensei's honkyoku (on the other hand we might be surprised at the number of makers who have played Yokoyama sensei's pieces) but I think a number of them may test their shakuhachi for those particular phrases or very similar ones as they are all coming from a common legacy of Fuke playing.  I'm very thankful for Yokoyama Katsuya as he has been one of the key figures in introducing the shakuhachi to the West and I personally like his honkyoku a great deal but his style is still one among many strands of Fuke shakuhachi; I'm sure we both agree that the variety out there makes shakuhachi all the more interesting.  As to the number of shakuhachi makers in Japan I also asked Genpu his opinion on that question and he knows of about twenty who were like himself students of Tamai Chikuzen, including Kinya Sogawa, who is his senpai.  If we add Kiku's sensei, two Miuras that I know of, Tozan maker Kitahara Kozo, the makers that Perry mentioned, a professional maker I know of in Matsuyama,  maker Nishio san up in Shizuoka, and my own iemoto Fuji Jido then we're really starting to get up in numbers...

Chris Moran wrote:

optional B-52 Ro toggle switch.

Upgrade to 'Space Shuttle'

Dear everybody

Justin wrote: "insist on kan no ro dai meri being strictly at the pitch of ri, or lower even, and insist that it should be more powerful than regular ro"


I would love to hear some examples of this possibility. 

Thank you