Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Careful Chris, westerners are totally irrational regarding dogs (and cats for that matter, in the U.S. even rabbits). They don't see them as animals, they see them as "members of the family".

I saw a rabbi on TV who said that morally there is no difference between eating dogs and cats or lamb and cattle. The only valid distinction is between vegetarian and not.

I have a dog, but after they are dead, I don't see what the big deal would be.  Have you tried asking the local Animal Control office?  Anywhere that euthenizes dogs should be able to help, of course your friends would likely have to do the skinning himself.  I wonder if he is irrational about wanting to use dog skin but not wanting to get his hands dirty.  I'd also try a taxidermy shop.  They may be able to point you in the right direction if they couldn't help you themselves.  This google seems to show several in your area.

http://maps.google.com/maps?sourceid=na … s&cd=1

shaman141 wrote:

At the risk of being labeled as Mr. animal activist but....In the west we keep dogs, cats, etc. as pets, so obviously this is what would lead to the distinction between the two. Is it not a question of ego to feel that you really did a perfect job by seeing the nipples centered?  If it drastically changes the sound quality that's one thing, but just to feel you did a perfect job applying the skin seems a bit extreme. Couldn't you use something else that you could still give yourself a pat on the back when you're done?

Well its just the way they do stuff in Japan for the Shamisen and like Shakuhachi if you were to say your Shamisen/Shakuhachi was made from another material than cat skin , dog, skin or Bamboo any maker or teacher would tell you how different or how bad your instrument sounds. Now as far as the nipple thing its the same as Rayskin for Japanese sword handles they marvel at how nice the skin nodes are and how big they are especially near the end of the handle.

If your animal skin has an indent saying “Goodyear” on it, it probably came from Canada. This is fairly common.

Yes.

I went to college with a guy from New York.  We attended a school in a very rural part of VA.  He was a very PETA-minded, cosmopolitan guy.  He would always comment on how disgusting it was to see animals squashed in the middle of roads like racoons, possums, and ground hogs.  I told him that is what happens when there actually ARE animals around, and you let them roam freely.  As far as dogs and cats go, if their owners can't keep them on leashes or behind a fence or wall, it is their own fault.  Again, once the animal is dead, what is the big deal?  Better to use it for something than just let it rot.  It's all meat, brother, some of it you kiss, and some of it you eat.

I purchased some sort of synthetic skin Shamisen in Okinawa in 1993.  It's faux snake skin. It was a toss up between that and a tin cookie can Shamisen that was also being sold everywhere. I love that instrument but I've always regretted not getting the cookie can for some reason.

Lemme give you more of the story.

I was communicating with this fellow, a young talented American sort who is studying the making of shamisen.

I told him that I am an organ and tissue donor and that I would put him in my Will -- with what I thought was a tacit understanding that the blessed event of my demise and hide-tanning would be sometime in the next three or so decades -- none too soon.

I also mentioned that he could probably get way more than one double-sided shamisen out of it as well and that I'd throw in a kidney for good luck.

Well, he asked me if I'd trade him for one of his handmade shamisen bridges and, being a long-range thinker, I said "sure!" ... I added that I would give my wife his email address.

Damned if he didn't send me an email with a picture attachment saying that he had just finished making the bridge.

One would think that goat would work, but only marginally according to those in the know. The tradition is cat belly skin for the more refined instruments used for long song, short song, kabuki and min'yo. Dog, back skin, is for gigayu shamisen (bunraku puppet theater and joruri narrative style), Dog is also used for Tsugaru shamisen, recently popularized by the glizty J-pop-ish Yoshida Brothers.

Something about the qualities of cat and dog skins that helps give the perfect "ring" to the shamisen. It seems to be the engine of the instrument. Bridge quality, plectrum quality, string quality, craftsmanship and wood quality, almost in that order of importance, come after the crisp, even resonant quality of the skin head. Like shakuhachi there is always materials debate.

Some even say that only Japanese dog or cat will do, too. I'd love it if a synthetic skin could work. I've seen and played banjo on the Remo Fiberskyn, but as with shakuhachi, there is something about the overtones/microtones of synthetics that betray the refinement of sound sought in Japanese music.

Being the walk my talk type of person, I thought I would donate some of my own hide after I'm dead and gone. But only after I'm dead and gone. Skin grafts probably wouldn't hold up well.  I also bet some of my bone would make good utaguchi inlay ... a little added "depth" to the vibe.

Rick Riekert wrote:

I'm not sure I share Brian’s TV rabbi's “a beast is a beast is a beast” moral sensibility. .

The context was a show about Asians eating dogs and cats, and had many graphic images of the dogs being skinned alive and then thrown into a vat of boiling oil while still thrashing around etc. The dogs were kept alive to preserve their "energy" which presumably passed to the consumer.

Anyway Rabbi basically said Westerners who object to the eating of dogs are hypocrites. He likened cattle cars to the trains that took Jews to concentration camps. I can't remember exactly but I think he was advocating vegetarianism in general.

I found it a bit strange because Kosher butchery is renowned.

There are many good objections to meat eating, not least of which is environmentalism. Meat basically wastes a lot of resources to produce. Those of us who eat it must engage in a certain amount of rationalization to get around all of the valid reasons not to eat it.

Everybody draws the line somewhere. Jains try not to eat any living anything. Even cannibals sometimes draw the line at their own immediate family members. And there's everywhere in between.

Yungflutes wrote:

I've always regretted not getting the cookie can for some reason.

http://www.yungflutes.com/logphotos/tinshamisen.jpg

Yeah, the cookie can ones are the best. Someone told me that those tin Sanshin originated after the army occupation of Okinawa after WWII. They say that they used the silk parachute cords from the U.S. parachutes to make the strings.

That is deplorable.  Perhaps it is time to establish a new aesthetic.  Blemishes and irregularities are the new black.

I can get you some kangaroo skin.

edosan wrote:

Or, you could purchase some of those roo scrotums you see hanging in all the Ozzie airport terminals these days...

And with that you could make an instrument with real cojones.