Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Ah the dilemma of playing the flute and wearing a bit of facial hair!

Over the last few years of playing the rim blown flutes I have been clean shaven and have been able to play most flutes I get my hands on with no problem. Not sure why but it has simply been easy for me to get the right embouchure,possibly due to the way my lips and chin are.Who knows. But I admit I thank God every day for this and am happy to have such an ability.

But... about a month ago I started to grow back my handlebar moustache and under the lower lip patch (soul patch they call it )and within a few weeks noticed that my ability  to play them had dropped off the radar!! As I  have been taking shakuhachi lessons for the last month and not touched the rim blown Natives since then and could not make a sound! Yikes!

I truly didn't think it had anything to do with the facial hair.


So this morning I shaved it all off again and became clean shaven. The first thing I did was take down the shakuhachi and the Native rims,the Anasazi,Hopi and Mojave.

The shakuhachi playing was much easier and better focused than before and now I know why I was not playing as well these last 2-3 weeks. The real test was when I tried the rims. Wow!!! Immediately I was achieving sound and scales.In less than a minute I was back to where I had left off and playing them just fine.

So...have any of you fellows experienced such issues with facial hair?

And just for fun here are the before and after pics of what I looked like with and w/o the facial fuzz:

  A few years ago:



Last month:



And today:



I feel MUCH better now!! And if it helps me play my shakuhachi better,so much for having the moustache back!!

Jim