Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

After all, are we all not trying to find samadhi(enlightenment) or something like that  anyway?

I'd have to say emphatically, NO, WE are not ALL trying to find that.

Let's stay on topic. Flute making philosophy.

Brian wrote:

Now we know what the consumers think, I'd be interested in hearing more from the makers.

Since we've heard from consumers and makers, how about hearing from teachers too?

  A cheap beginner's flute is the way to go to start, most of the time. $100.~$300. is surely enough. But, if a student comes to learn shakuhachi, it means he has a desire to become a better shakuhachi player and expects to become a better shakuhachi player than they would be if they just stayed home. Many people use a cheap shakuhachi to start. If the flute will help the person getting started than good. If not, then they'll need to get something useful. It doesn't mean an expensive flute but something useful.  As time goes by and the student starts to study more complicated songs than the beginner's flute will eventually "get in the way". It will no longer help the student in their attempt to play more difficult or more refined shakuhachi music. This happens for a variety of reasons but it boils down to what the flute can and cannot do vis a vis the objectives of the study. If the teacher is helping the student develop an understanding of these things along the way, then, when the teacher mentions that they think the flute has become an unnecessary obstacle, the student will have no trouble understanding the reality. The flute education process takes a long time and happens little by little but it also has to start from day one by the teachers. It's their responsibility.  Many beginner's flutes are fine. I have talked with Perry Yung about the problems of student bringing a flute not useable to lessons. I applaud him when he tags certain flutes as "not for use in lessons". That makes my job easier or at least I'm not seen as being "the bad guy" when I tell the student we have to find something else. That time does eventually come. If the student choses not to buy a more useful flute at that time, it simply means they chose not to commit more money, or time(if you buy a new flute you might play it more and things in life could get "out of balance"), or energy. It's the COMMITMENT part that must be thought over at that time.

   The scenario that gets my attention and my blood boiling more is when students pay $600.~ for something that is not worth the price. In my life and most people's, that's a lot of money. I don't spend that much on anything but my son's education, rent and shakuhachi's.  I think everyone who plays shakuhachi for many years looks back at something they bought and either paid too much for and so it goes with the experience a bit. However, I think the internet has made it easier for someone to take advantage of students who have little experience and not enough ability to evaluate the flutes. To be able to evaluate a flute a person has to be able to play songs. Songs demand certain sounds and techniques so it's natural that someone with limited experience cannot do a good job picking out a flute by themselves. This is one analogy used in Japan: we are standing in the Building of Shakuhachi on the first floor, the beginner's floor. The teacher points at this and that and explains what it is to the student and how to use it since the student has usually never seen nor used what is there. Above their heads are different levels: 2nd floor, 3rd floor, 4th floor, and on up. The student cannot see what's up there although they are intrigued by the existence of these floors. To get to the next level however, the student must build a ladder. The ladder is what's called "experience". The ladder they build will eventually come to the eye level of the next floor where, when peeking over the student will get a glimpse of what's on the 2nd floor for the first time. This will only be a partial perspective as they will have to build this ladder higher until they can get up on the 2nd floor to stand up, walk around and get a good long look at things, start to experience what's up there and learn about it. Until then it's impossible (almost) to know what's up there so talking about it is fun conjecture, but not something the student does with the teacher. The teacher will just tell them to go practice. However, while on the ladder on the way up, the students, being bright people, will start to imagine what's in store for them. What will appear in the future. They may get an idea from hearing their teacher play. Another way for them to find out something is to ask the teacher, who will probably help them refocus their attention more on certain aspects of their ladder building but should also explain things that they feel will help prepare them during their ascendance. The teacher has in mind what's on all the floors above and directs the students education in such a way that they will be able to ascend as high as they can. Helping the student ascend is the teacher's goal, job and duty.

  In Japan, while in a dojo there is a rule that there is "only one teacher". Only one person answering the questions. That's because the teacher has the most experience. Students talking about what's on the 2nd floor while they are still climbing the ladder are not allowed to answer questions. Any talk about the floors above is considered imaginative at best (a good thing) but mostly conjecture. This is done amongst students when the teacher isn't around. Students are very quiet when building ladders on the lower floors because they don't have a common vocabulary to talk with yet: "meri", "kari", "atari", "kuchi atrai", "yuri", "yoko yuri", etc. etc. Many things. I think the forum helps people quite a bit in the early stages getting used to a lot of this vocabulary.

This long winded analogy can be easily applied to shakuhachi players. It's easy for a more experienced player to know where the less experienced player is, i.e. what floor the player is on. If there is no sensei involved, then it's easy for the student to make a "mistake" when purchasing a flute or making other decisions. It's also easy for them to be taken advantage of. This happens on the internet all the time. People who can't even play sell shakuhachi on the internet...to people who can't even play. How bizarre. The above analogy is the same for whatever one is learning, even shakuhachi making.

  Thinking of Ken's "worries" about the dilution of the craft. Shakuhachi outside Japan cannot be the same as inside Japan since ideas concerning shakuhachi are arrived at mostly from non shakuhachi experienced mindsets. If we use the analogy of the Shakuhachi Building, we could say that the building itself is very different in the two countries unless you are studying with someone who has studied in Japan a long time. Not a judgement here. Just differences. I realized many of these same things when playing golf. I realized that if I wanted to "improve", I would have to take lessons, get better clubs,  and spend more time playing (practicing). I decided I couldn't with a kid in college and shakuhachi teaching being what it is in the midwest (before skype) so I stopped playing. However, I always enjoyed it, even with my garage sell special clubs. My clubs I used in high school were $100. specials. I had an 8 handicap when I finished. Nothing great but good enough for me to really enjoy the game. I knew they sucked but I had no money. I finally saved enough to get a set of nice woods. They made a hugh difference. This is often the same with shakuhachi. The difference in golf here is that we have many great players in the country whose play becomes the reference for excellence. This isn't true for the shakuhachi world outside of Japan. I agree with Seth in that the number of good players (not great) has increased more and more and we can expect more in the future. I do think it's a very strange notion, and one I've heard several times, that the non native Japanese players have revived and even saved the world of shakuhachi. I heard people saying this when Aoki Reibo, Yokoyama katsuya, Watazumido, Yamaguchi Goro, Kawase Junsuke, Yamamoto Hozan, Taniguchi Yoshinobu, Kurahashi Yodo, and many more great players were at their peaks. If you have or had heard these peoples sounds, I don't think you would make these comments. In Japan, I sometimes heard the opposite comment: " Shakuhachi survived many wars and strange environments throughtout japanese history, it will survive the west too".  Not my own total perspective by any means, as I think they are both limited in the speaker's own experience, but I can see the point. 

In a nutshell, it comes down to COMMITMENT: how much money do I have for shakuhachi, either a flute or lessons, and COMMITMENT of time and energy: how much of these do I have for practice. Everyone reaches a balance themselves. A golfer who shots bogey golf in Britain is considered "good". That's an average score of 90. The meaning is that one can enjoy golf even being a boggy golfer.

  Experientially speaking, one does not have to wait till the third year of playing either  to have a real valid "human being on the planet as a spiritual being doing something with a piece of bamboo" experience. This, of course happens from day one, playing wise and hearing wise.

    I have been a bit long trying to provide a another point of view for this subject. I hope it provides food for thought.

Last edited by chikuzen (2009-03-25 21:01:37)

Good post Michael. I liked your comments about Westerners "saving" shakuhachi that's pretty funny. But I wonder how we can raise the level of play in the West without, as you say, going and studying in Japan for a long time. That has never been a realistic option for me, for many reasons, also because I don't like Japan enough to live there. Even if I did my "work" is elsewhere. It's funny, I've got Japanese people beating down the door looking for work at Chado (our tea house) but shakuhachi teachers from Japan in the West are few and far between. It would be nice if some would relocate so we can study with them. There are whole styles of shakuhachi which are not taught at all in the West.

That said, I think that once you achieve a certain level of skill intense blowing and practice is more important than learning new songs and styles. But the teacher/student relationship goes beyond music.

Micheal you make a good point about learning the correct way. In the west we seem to be loosing many things, practical skills have given way to technology and good teachers are few and far between. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to be an apprentice paternmaker where I was taught the correct methods and aquired many skills that are now useful for making shakuhachi. Yet two unexpected things have come out of my journey so far that I have not experienced when making other things, firstly the pleasure experienced when a shakuhachi comes to life during the making process and secondly the relationship we develop with our instruments over time, how we grow into them and grow out of them. I have a couple of instruments that I have completely remade simply because I changed.
So it seems that we need an instrument with which we can have a kind of symbiosis, one that matches us at the point where we are on our journey since as you have pointed out we bring so much of ourselves to the instrument. the best results can only be acheived when the abilities of the player perfectly match the capabilities of the instrument

I too would love to join the tea party!

Dave

When you read through this thread one gets a good understanding of the various reasons why people pick up shakuhachi in the west.  And also a good understanding of the different value systems through which people understand their shakuhachi experience.

In the western shakuhachi world I would offer that there are two primary value spectrums on which people fall:

Traditional versus personal expressionists

And

Artistic mastery (extroverted) versus spiritual experience (introverted)


By combining the two spectrums above we can actually create a values map of the shakuhachi community.

Traditionalist Artists are musicians who want to make it as artists focusing on the traditional repertoire.  They want to excel as musicians, first and foremost, and they wish to preserve the shakuhachi tradition.  It does not mean they don’t have spiritual sides, but the shakuhachi is first and foremost a musical instrument not a spiritual tool.  And the shakuhachi is truly, for them, meant to play the traditional shakuhachi body of music.   I think most of the traditional shakuhachi famous players fall into this category.

Expressionist Artists also primarily see the shakuhachi as a musical instrument, but really do not ascribe much value to preserving of focusing alone on the traditional shakuhachi repertoire.  They are just as happy to play jazz or shakuhachi hip hop.   Think of all the professional musicians playing shakuhachi jazz.

Traditional Spiritualists see the shakuhachi as primarily a spiritual tool.  They don’t mind if someone enjoys listening to them as well, but first and foremost the shakuhachi is a path of self discipline, self discovery and meditation.  They also see the instrument as somehow wedded to the traditional music and see a unique spiritual benefit in playing traditional music in traditional ways.   Here I imagine the traditional monk / introverted types playing their honkyoku in the privacy of their own homes, temple of local park late at night.

Expressionist Spiritualists  see the shakuhachi as, again, primarily a spiritual tool but don’t feel the need to focus on the traditional music.  They feel just as much pleasure or benefit can be made blowing only RO or improvising.    Again, they don’t mind if other people listen and enjoy, but mostly they blow for themselves.   These are the wabi sabi zen pink elves that Gishin discussed.  Of course the pink elves can be great musicians, but that is really just a side effect of what they are actually pursuing.


Now the above are just extreme types.  I am sure many of us blend together many of these perspectives as many do not see tension between the artistic and spiritual paths or expression and tradition.  But by mapping out these extreme four corners I think you can get a much better understanding of the differing perspectives as to what is the goal and purpose of all this shakuhachi stuff.

Please feel free to attack and tear the above to shreds.   I think it could be improved with a good deal of critical examination.

Last edited by Seth (2009-03-26 07:21:45)

One point regarding the "East vs. West" theme that keeps cropping up in this discussion: Whether on CD or online some of the worst examples of non-traditional shakuhachi I've heard, grotesque jazz-funk-fusion, insipid cover versions of pop tunes, elevator muzak, and insufferably saccharine "new age" renditions, have been from Japan.

Also, some of the most outstanding examples of how I would NOT want to play a shakuhachi has been from Japanese and Western players noted for their traditional training background, even though the demonstrated "technical" proficiency might be outstanding. I know much of this falls under the heading of individual taste, but for every non-traditional piece of shakuhachi music I've heard that knocks my socks off, there are about ten times more that make me hit the off-button or listen aghast to the train wreck.

So the West might not be the only or primary culprit in diluting or abandoning tradition, and some "traditional" players might be first in line of those taking it in the most cringe-worthy directions.

Even if quality control could be exerted over production and distribution the physical instrument, it would be impossible to exert over what anyone does with their perfectly to-spec shakuhachi. But now the discussion digresses from making to playing - how closely do the standards of the two interrelate? A proficiently crafted traditional instrument allows the proficient traditional player to play bad non-traditional music with great proficiency. Then maybe its time to go back to listening to Watazumi play on a freshly chopped laundry pole to get our heads straight.

Last edited by ABRAXAS (2009-03-26 09:05:32)

lowonthetotem wrote:

Perhaps that is a poor analogy.

Alas, when the Meijis came along, they took their swords....

...and in the end, we have personal preference, choice, various reasons and motivations one might want to play an instrument, and varying levels of knowledge of and/or respect for tradition.

I just love the Shakuhachi flute; am very interested in its past and tradition, and have no real motivation other than to enjoy gettting better within my own little world of playing the flute, listening to much Shakuhachi music from those who can play well, and reveling in the feelings that the sounds of this flute can evoke.

Now, I've got to spend a few minutes with my crappy 50 year old ebay rootend Japanese flute before I go to work.

Last edited by Lance (2009-03-26 10:18:23)

Not to get off the subject but I was listening to some honkyoku recently and was starting to feel very emotional. It seemed to evoke some feelings I did not know exist inside of me. Scary and profound at the same time.I don't think it was shika no tone but I felt like I could hear the animals crying back and forth to one another and actually felt their emotion.

lowonthetotem wrote:

Personally, I think to be involved in a tradition is to be concerned with things like "dilution."  It is kind of the nature of the beast, is it not.  To take up a tradition in a serious way is to accept this constant dialectic struggle between "preservation" and "corruption."  How one chooses to interpret it is highly personal, but expectations of resolving it seem rather futile.  Traditions don't just live in ages gone by or in distant lands.  Traditions are organic growing things.

Jeff, this is an interesting conversation in itself. It's hard to imagine the degree if you haven't lived there a long time but for ages the whole populace of the city of Kyoto lived with the objective of preserving tradition very strongly in their minds. There's a good book by Shuichi Kato entitled: "Form,Style Tradition: Reflections on Japanese Art and Society" that you might enjoy. It's a collection of thoughts about these things.

Last edited by chikuzen (2009-03-26 11:10:20)

There's a good book by Shuichi Kato entitled: "Form,Style Tradition: Reflections on Japanese Art and Society" that you might enjoy. It's a collection of thoughts about these things.

Thanks, more homework.