Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Perhaps this ties in with the 'what other instruments do you play' thread. Everyone has their own reasons and it might be compelling to share them.

My journey started in a roundabout way - I'm half-Japanese and go there regularly, but my knowledge of shakuhachi was limited, even though a family friend is an accomplished player. My main interest is filmmaking, and the 16 mm short I'm directing this summer is going to be in Japanese. I wanted a haunting, unique solo instrument that was not firmly situated in the Western classical tradition. Shakuhachi fit the bill. Helpful people on this forum have volunteered to record some honkyoku, but I also wanted the capability to play adequately myself, if only for personal satisfaction and to record a few fills.

I started off making a PVC 2.0, which suffered from bizarre utaguchi dimensions and tiny holes that choked the higher tones. Still, it was enough to make me light-headed for a few hours as I struggled to produce sound. This was about a month ago.

I ordered an Earth 2.0 from Perry Yung, which has proven to be an excellent instrument - comfortable, responsive, and balanced. At first I had a hard time with the embouchure, as the homemade PVC shakuhachi had taught me some bad habits (too much shaping with the lips, not enough simple 'exhaling'). Initially I could only play 3-4 seconds at a time. Gradually that length grew, although like progress in anything, it's difficult to measure without a fixed point of reference. I think I'm around 10-15 seconds now.

A 1.8 from fairly narrow bamboo sliced out of a $2 tiki torch was my first venture into natural materials. This turned out reasonably, and gave me an opportunity to practice accurate tuning.

I procured some root-end pieces and after about a week finished a 2.15 (A#) jinashi that is leaps and bounds beyond the previous attempt. Getting into kan is easy (almost too easy from Ro), all the notes are resonant and balanced, and the overall performance is great. It doesn't kari/meri quite as well as my Earth 2.0, and the attack is not as fast (maybe a product of heavier/denser bamboo, or a longer length which takes more time to begin resonating?), but I'm extremely satisfied.

Next is a 2.8 hocchiku from a large-bore culm...

After all of this, back to the original point: what makes you play?

For me it was that transcendent moment when you first produce a 'real' tone on a new instrument. A chill runs down your spine, because you're controlling a new sound that will never be repeated. At the same time, much of the power comes from somewhere else. If you hold a strong Ro using a long jinashi in the early morning hours I think you know what I mean.