Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

That is one honk that perry does. What type and size flute is perry using on that recording. I want one.It sure sounds awesome.

My teacher suggested blowing enough air to just begin to break into the Kan without going there as a way to improve overall tone for Ro as well as all the other notes.  I think that blowing muraiki and mixing Ostu and Kan in the "bellows" has a similar effect.  As time goes on, I find that posture and holding your head high while playing facilitate the "honk" and decreases how much air needs to be expended to reach it.

I don't really view the "honk" as a technique.  The advice given to me is to decide what your Ro (or other notes) are going to sound like (in otsu, kan, and dai kan) and commit yourself to making that sound.  I think that starting out I tended to concentrate on reading the score, which kept my head down and led me to playing flat.  Now, as I internalize/memorize more pieces, I am unlearning this.  I also play standing up alot more now, and that helps as well.  Looking down/reading, gave my Ro a "dead" quality.  The "honk" reflects more positive energy moving from me to the flute and a more alive sound, in my humble beginners opinion.

purehappiness wrote:

That is one honk that perry does. What type and size flute is perry using on that recording. I want one.It sure sounds awesome.

It was an unlacquered 2.4 Chikusing.

Bas wrote:

due to my question about this sound\ technique I became much more aware of the overtones (and undertones) and find the concept op tone color and characteristics quite interesting, this is perhaps one of the aspects the shakuhachi is very 'good' at.

The essence of the shakuachi, from my experience, starts with the understanding of all the possibilities within a single tone. A Ro will sound different when different players of different levels of ability play the flute.

lowonthetomem wrote:

I don't really view the "honk" as a technique.  The advice given to me is to decide what your Ro (or other notes) are going to sound like (in otsu, kan, and dai kan) and commit yourself to making that sound.

It requires a certain degree of technique to execute it, but certainly does not mean one should ever really do that with the context of a piece of music unless your teacher does it.

Good advice from you teacher. Most players try to copy the sound of their teacher. If the person has one teacher, the teacher's Ro will be the marker of progress. If the player has studied with more than one teacher, they will have choices to make. Could be a good thing, or a bad thing.

radi0nome wrote:

I'm finding that after spending a month or so of doing nothing more than trying to get notes in tune that I'm not playing around enough with varying strengths of blowing. Varying blowing strengths mucks with the pitch, which I'm pretty sure experienced player correct for, but I think it's a good thing to not be too reserved all the time.

Good observation. Most modern flutes are made to play in pitch with a measurable amount of overtone, which leads to the honk. This means the flute has to be played with a higher degree of volume. Otherwise it is just playing within the fundamental tone, which normally produces a slightly flat pitch.

I should mention that to truly understand a shakuhachi instrument, much more is involved than the ability to Honk!

I suppose that what I mean by it not being a "technique" for me is that it IS the sound that I have decided will be Ro for me.  I don't just use it in this or that song.  For me it is the sound of Ro.  I like the way it vibrates as it approaches Kan and also the way Ro Kan vibrates, or rings, as it approaches breaking into the next octave.  I enjoy the way the sound seems to teater on the edge.  It is a nice exercise in delicate balance.

Muraiki means "bellows breath."

Last edited by lowonthetotem (2009-04-28 14:10:47)

"Honking" in Japanese is called "naru" or, it's a verb, "to naru". There are varying degrees of this. Some types of names have been offered here, "honking" and "growling", etc. It would be useful to have a common vocabulary but it has to built out of shared experiences. It's a bit subjective too without the audio references.  Big fat jinashi flutes don't usually "naru" according to jiari players  but they glow, growl and snarl. However, jinashi people (people who play mostly jinashi) use the word "naru" also but it points to a different sound. I heard Yokoyama Sensei come off stage and apologize for his flute not "naruing" that day. There are always flutes out there that seem to "cross the lines" but in general, the jinashi flutes that "naru" usually have a narrow bore and jiari flutes that don't "naru" usually have a big fat bore.

Perry wrote:

It requires a certain degree of technique to execute it, but certainly does not mean one should ever really do that with the context of a piece of music unless your teacher does it.

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       Another viewpoint would be that "honking" is like revving up an engine to hear it run and see what it can take. It takes technique in the embouchure and breathing which means......it takes technique. Some flutes do it more, some less and some not well at all.

  The reason to practice this is that it's smart to practice something you can't do since you'll have to change how you play. If you are willing to do this (change) you'll learn something from it and maybe even develop technique if you do it long enough. You can always back off this "honk" when playing according to the energy that's appropriate to the song you're playing.

Chris Moran wrote:

Is there a Japanese term for the type of growl that Aoki Reibo II gets from his instrument -- not on the Ro but on the Tsu or Re or ... (I can't recall which)?

This was the 'growling' sound that I was referring to above though I think of it more as fluttering.  I don't think that it is a technique at all, but rather an indication that his flute can't quite handle the volume and concentration of air that he is pushing.  It may well be that he likes the sound or at least thinks that it's not undesirable since he does it a lot and it would be strange if he weren't aware of it.  I have never heard anybody consistently make that sound other than him.
The growling attributed to Tairaku (above) is different as far as I know.  Without a sound bite to listen to, I might be thinking of something else, but Tairaku's growl seems to be something more vocal than flute generated.  Certainly he can clear that up though.

There is a shakuhachi growl that is not vocal growling, if I'm thinking of the same thing as others as "growling".

At first I thought it was only possible on long flutes (I can only do it on some of my long flutes), but recently Perry Yung posted a video of you, Tairaku, playing a 1.6 (?) that you definately get a growling tone out of.

I think you're playing Sankara Sugagaki.

Could a jinashi non-root end honk? just curious.I get some loud tone but I go into kan right afterwards.It is nothing like these posted.

Doesn't traditional music have places where a nice quiet Ro is more appropriate? It's great to push the limits of your dynamic and tonal range, but those limits exist in multiple directions.

I guess it is kind of misleading to say that I have committed myself to this sound as Ro.  This is the sound I practice as Ro because I have tended to play flat/dead so far.  During practice, I try to play keri notes VERY keri and meri notes VERY meri, mostly because when I play songs I tend to become complacent in the degree to which I move my head/chin.  Exagerating these movements during practice seems to lead to less complacency during songs.  Exagerating the "honk," which is a name I don't like so much because it sounds more like a ringing sound to me, ringing a large bell in otsu and a smaller one in kan, in practice leads to a more dynamic sound, whether it is loud or soft or whatever.  As someone pointed out in another thread, when there are many notes, the value of each singular note is decreased, so in folk songs and other tunes I may not take the time to really accentuate things like this because before you know it, you are on to the next note (Maybe I go on to the next note a little TOO quickly in some cases, ).  In other pieces, like some honkyoku, Ro will be played for an entire breath.  In these instances, I certainly take the time to really push the envelope of whatever octave I am in with Ro or any other note that calls for such emphasis.  So yes, different songs call for different sounds, but practice is for tweaking and polishing those things that you do through habit.  I don't need to practice a softer or flatter Ro because I seem to accomplish it without much effort.  During practice with the tuner, I seldom worry about hitting the exact note and attempt more to go about 5 or 10cents sharp on keri notes.  On meri notes I often try to go 5 or 10 cents flat of the note because my tendency to play flat has not really spilled into meri.  I guess really my tendency is to be lazy and limit my head/chin movement, so I try to exagerate that during practice.

Radiognome - yes that is the clip, thank you!

I can't speak for what Tairaku is doing in that clip, but the same growl appears in some of his other youtube clips (from Mujitsu), I have found a similar (if not identical) sound, more readily on some flutes than others, probably beyond my ability to articulate, but it has more to do with how the air is dumped into each note rather than any specific throat/tongue vibrato or anything I would describe as a "gargle." When I get that sound I'm not aware of doing anything different with my throat or tongue, and I'm definately not vocalizing at all (I know because I sometimes do that and it is completely different), it is more how I'm pushing the breath into the note. I would almost describe it as a "low drag" (but not "meri"). My Taimu is good at it but I have to warm up to find and hold it above RO - TSU. I have a 2.8 wide-bore hocchiku from Perry that I was amazed how readily I found the growl all the way up the otsu-scale. It is also different than the "buzz" that happens on the utaguchi-edge of the Taimu and other hocchiku that I have. It feels like it's happening deep in the bore of the flute rather than with the mouth.

Maybe Tairaku can clarify if I am on the right or wrong track, or what his technical details are, if we are all talking about the same thing, or if I'm nuts.

Last edited by ABRAXAS (2009-04-29 12:08:15)

Not second-guessing you at all, I'm just curious/deferring to Tairaku as he's probably the best authority on whats going on when he gets that sound.

I'm interested to see if I'm on track on my own at all or just wallowing in my own weirdness.

chikuzen wrote:

Not unlike Godzilla vs. Marmaduke.

Good cross-cultural concept. At least for those who know the characters, this is much less ambiguous than the other descriptions.

Nuclear breath vs. Listerine?