Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Firstly a question, do older Shakuhachi predominantly have an utaguchi insert or not ?

I make mi Jinashi without an insert and so the blow edge most often has a slight ceration due to the bamboo fibre. As much as i fine sand to get a smooth regular curve, there remains a ceration. An insert of bone or plastic is smooth, without ceration.

I don't know whether this influences timbre, it may.

Secodly, I have used at least four different species of bamboo, varying in wood density, which is probably due in part to the species but also to the age of the culm as I think it develops a higher percentage of silica as it ages. This would have some influence on how the material cures over time and how it 'petrifies', which as you know, is morphing towards stone.

I have not made a decisive opinion regarding different species as to timbre but a harder wood will allow a smoother bore surface, I am confident that at a micro-fine level, the surface texture has a big influence on timbre and the resonance of the harmonics.

For example, with the blow edge itself, as it is being formed, it starts out coarse and is refined to a smooth surface, and there is a very noticable change in sound as this change happens, from a [dirty[ sibilant sound to a cleaner, fuller sound with more defined character regarding harmonic presence.
Also, after drilling a hole, it is rough  at the edges, and changes quite dramatically particularly as the inner edge is cleaned, smoothed and bevelled, if it is bevelled, this is not always necessary.

I don't have an oopinion on a flute improving the more it is played, other than, yes, I get intimately familar with the character of each hole and the way the flute responds, and the wood warms with handling and even the warmth and moisture of the breath. BBut I never play the same way twice, I am in continuous flux myself.   

I suspect with playing, oils and such will coat the bore one way or another, as the outer surface takes on body oils, this could have an influence.

Finally, I like my Scotch aged and at room temperature, so feel this would also apply to my Shakuhachi.

K.

Musicians are a funny breed. Coltman's experiment raised a firestorm of protest from players. Here is what he had to say about it:

"First, the player and experimenter rarely, if ever, have any way of knowing whether the instruments they are comparing have differences other than those of the material, in fact I know of no reports in which the claim for 'no other variation' is made. Second, the musician cannot, under normal playing circumstances, dissociate his personal preferences and prejudices from the question at hand. In the case of the three 'flutes' I constructed, nearly every player who picked them up and tried them had a preference for one or the other. Often he would describe his impressions - the wooden flute has a 'fuller' tone, the silver one 'projects' much better, etc. He was then usually baffled to find that he could not identify any of the instruments under the 'blindfold' conditions I described. The plain facts are that his judgment is influenced by preconceived notions and mental associations of tone quality with other properties of the material. This is a normal human reaction, intensified in the case of those trained to incorporate feeling into their art, and to whom the instrument becomes, in effect, an extension of their own body and personality. It is just not suited for answering narrow, objective questions like the one I posed - namely: can the material of which a flute is made directly influence the tone quality produced? "

Coltman himself is an excellent flutist, and completely redesigned the scale of the Boehm flute to make it much better in tune.

BTW, the Adolphe Sax saxes were not made of thinner or much different metal than modern ones, but Sax did produce what he called a "conic parabola" as a bore shape, in which he placed great credence, and which has since been abandoned due to manufacturing difficulties. His bore dimensions were quite different from those of modern saxes, which are designed for projection. I have an old Conn soprano sax from 1924, and the sound and response are worlds away from those of modern design. I and many others find the old horns have much nicer timbre, but the intonation is all over the place, especially in the top notes. Noewer horns include a different conic section near the neck area, which locks the intonation in much better, but at the expense of a certain kind of sweetness of tone and liveliness of response.

Toby

Last edited by Toby (2009-12-17 04:38:24)

Karmajampa wrote:

Firstly a question, do older Shakuhachi predominantly have an utaguchi insert or not ?

I make mi Jinashi without an insert and so the blow edge most often has a slight ceration due to the bamboo fibre. As much as i fine sand to get a smooth regular curve, there remains a ceration. An insert of bone or plastic is smooth, without ceration.

I don't know whether this influences timbre, it may.

Secodly, I have used at least four different species of bamboo, varying in wood density, which is probably due in part to the species but also to the age of the culm as I think it develops a higher percentage of silica as it ages. This would have some influence on how the material cures over time and how it 'petrifies', which as you know, is morphing towards stone.

I have not made a decisive opinion regarding different species as to timbre but a harder wood will allow a smoother bore surface, I am confident that at a micro-fine level, the surface texture has a big influence on timbre and the resonance of the harmonics.

For example, with the blow edge itself, as it is being formed, it starts out coarse and is refined to a smooth surface, and there is a very noticable change in sound as this change happens, from a [dirty[ sibilant sound to a cleaner, fuller sound with more defined character regarding harmonic presence.
Also, after drilling a hole, it is rough  at the edges, and changes quite dramatically particularly as the inner edge is cleaned, smoothed and bevelled, if it is bevelled, this is not always necessary.

I don't have an oopinion on a flute improving the more it is played, other than, yes, I get intimately familar with the character of each hole and the way the flute responds, and the wood warms with handling and even the warmth and moisture of the breath. BBut I never play the same way twice, I am in continuous flux myself.   

I suspect with playing, oils and such will coat the bore one way or another, as the outer surface takes on body oils, this could have an influence.

Finally, I like my Scotch aged and at room temperature, so feel this would also apply to my Shakuhachi.

K.

The smoothness and edge of the utaguchi are critical to timbre. Smoothness of the bore has a large effect on losses at the boundary layer: basically, a rougher surface slows down air molecules close the the wall, converting their energy to heat. This also has large impacts on the resistance, response and timbre of the instrument.

An interesting an often overlooked point is the presence of any sharp edges in the bore. Any sharp edge increases turbulence, which in turn increases acoustic losses, which get greater as dynamic intensity increases. In fact sharp edges can create a limiting case as blowing pressure increases, which will then limit maximum achievable sound intensity. Benade cites a case where five minutes of playing caused enough wear on the sharp edge of a clarinet fingerhole to noticeably change the playing characteristics. This is a second-order function, though: you get the most change when the edge is sharpest, and less and less as it is more rounded. I have the mathematical formula for figuring the losses based on edge diameter and frequency, but suffice it to say that the normal wear on the outside of shakuhachi fingerholes over the years can have a significant impact on the playing characteristics, and by all means undercut the insides when you build the flute!

I like that very much: always being in flux with oneself. A very poetic and accurate description of subjectivity

Toby

radi0gnome wrote:

Tairaku wrote:

Sound is vibration. When an instrument vibrates the material it's made of settles and that changes the sound. Not a big mystery.

I could see where a cracked and repaired flute could have the repair settle. I've been reading some of Toby's posts some more too. It seems he's saying that, acoustically, softer material should give the same results as harder material. That seems entirely counter-intuitive to me.

It's not at all counter-intuitive if one attends to what Toby is saying here:

     1. The sound is produced by a vibrating column of AIR.

     2. Hardness/softness is a relative thing, and air is VERY soft compared to anything you can make an operational flute out of.

Toby wrote:

Physical instruments in the physical world follow physical laws... [etc. etc.].

Wonderful post, Toby! Thanks very much for the good info and clear presentation.

radi0gnome wrote:

edosan wrote:

It's not at all counter-intuitive if one attends to what Toby is saying here:

     1. The sound is produced by a vibrating column of AIR.

     2. Hardness/softness is a relative thing, and air is VERY soft compared to anything you can make an operational flute out of.

Have you ever felt the air coming out of a compressor? It's a lot harder than you'd think it could be, to the point of hurting against flesh. I know that is less pressure than that coming from our embouchures, but I'm not all sure how soft those pressure nodes inside the flute really are. It is compressed air after all.

The air column in the shakuhachi cannot have more pressure that what is put into it by the air pressure coming from your lungs. It is also instructive to note that the radiated sound power of any woodwind instrument is less than 1% of the power put into it. More than 99% is lost to viscous and thermal losses, mostly at the walls. This means air being slowed by "friction" and transferring its energy to the walls as heat, not energy spent flexing the walls, although there is some of that kind of thing happening at your soft fingertips. This is the vibration that you feel.

Toby

Last edited by Toby (2009-12-18 02:02:59)

Peter Kororo wrote:

Send me a link to your CDs or send me some sound files if you want to convince me of your expertise.

And where are YOURS, Ko Ro Ro?

radi0gnome wrote:

It kind of sounds like my favorite definition of "scientific method": collect as many data points as you can, toss out the ones that do not fit your theory as "anomalous outliers" and forget about them.

The definition of a bona fide ignoramus...

radi0gnome wrote:

It kind of sounds like my favorite definition of "scientific method": collect as many data points as you can, toss out the ones that do not fit your theory as "anomalous outliers" and forget about them.

That sounds scientific to me. In fact, it is currently in practice by many in the "climate industry".

"Turn out the lights on the age of reason!" -New Model Army

madoherty wrote:

"Turn out the lights on the age of reason!" -New Model Army

"How do we tell the people in the white coats.... enough is enough?"  -NMA, as well, of course!

Glenn Swann wrote:

madoherty wrote:

"Turn out the lights on the age of reason!" -New Model Army

"How do we tell the people in the white coats.... enough is enough?"  -NMA, as well, of course!

Used to do gigs with them waaaaaayyyy "back in the day". Got an email recently, nice guys. They're still at it!

My band opened up for NMA in 2005.  It was wicked (Them, not us).  Their latest is great.

Last edited by madoherty (2009-12-20 19:45:25)