Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Tairaku wrote:

The solution to playing long flutes and being able to reach the holes is to use the fourth finger on the left hand to finger three hole and also using the pads of the fingers rather than the tips to cover the holes.

Thanks for the fourth finger (pinky?) suggestion.  Do you move to that on the lower hand for the 1-hole at extreme lengths also?  I've tried the pinkies but they also rotate the wrist/arm a bit and I haven't gotten used to it.  But I see the advantage of more comfortable reach and I'll try it again on something in the san shaku range.

I use the fleshy section between the joints closest to the palm of the right (lower) index finger on flutes longer than about 2.4.  Very comfortable for me.  I can't/don't do that with the upper index finger though because I can't partial hole with the same sensitivity.

Then if all else fails, you can use your toes...     

Back to offsetting holes...  Here's a pic of a thumbhole I moved and was happy with the result.  It's not a long flute (2.1) but it's fat at 125 mm circumference at that point and a 4 mm hole offset allowed my thumb to just rest where it naturally wanted to behind the flute for low-effort balance.  (Yes, not putting the hole in the best place during first drilling was my novice fault! )  Obvious the pro makers can do a better looking job -- Perry and Al and others have pics of holes moved for comfort (and tuning).  Sometimes they use contrasting colored plugs for fill.

-Darren.

I handed Al Ramos (no stranger to long flutes) a Kyomudo 2.8 jiari with no offset holes when he was here in Kumamoto last fall.  Many of you may know Al...not the tallest dude in the world.  He had no problems with reach or any other aspect of playability.  Body size is  obviously not the only issue when approaching a chokan and he is clear proof of that to me. 
Jeff

Jeff Cairns wrote:

I handed Al Ramos (no stranger to long flutes) a Kyomudo 2.8 jiari with no offset holes when he was here in Kumamoto last fall.  Many of you may know Al...not the tallest dude in the world.  He had no problems with reach or any other aspect of playability.  Body size is  obviously not the only issue when approaching a chokan and he is clear proof of that to me. 
Jeff

Unless requested otherwise, I like to keep holes inline up until 2.8 or so on wide shakuhachi. I like the consistency of inline holes when moving between different shakuhachi. There is also an orderly, centering, meditative playing quality to inline holes which I find satisfying. Sometimes I place the 5th hole slightly off center.

radi0gnome wrote:

In fact, in the beginning when I got frustrated with not being able to cover the holes well enough sometimes I resorted to playing with the fingertips, but I couldn't keep that up for very long because I experienced too much discomfort.

On long shakuhachi, I use the same grip and fingering for both hands. Fleshy ring finger first pads on holes #1 and #3. Wide, fleshy third pads (nearest to the hand) of index fingers on holes #2 and #4. Both thumbs support the flute on the medial side. The #5 hole is covered with the side medial knuckle of the thumb. There is little, if any, bend to both wrists. Both hands are fanned outward and comfortable. It takes awhile to get used to 4th and 5th hole fingering.  I don't know anyone who uses this fingering style so I can't necessarily recommend it. What I can recommend is whatever fingering you adopt for long shakuhachi, don't to be too quick to judge the results. It's amazing how one can adapt with practice and an open attitude. It really can be done!

KL

Jeff Cairns wrote:

I handed Al Ramos (no stranger to long flutes) a Kyomudo 2.8 jiari with no offset holes when he was here in Kumamoto last fall.  Many of you may know Al...not the tallest dude in the world.  He had no problems with reach or any other aspect of playability.  Body size is  obviously not the only issue when approaching a chokan and he is clear proof of that to me.

So true, Al plays flutes that seem "too long" for him without effort.  He gives lessons on flutes up to at least 2.9 without issue. 

I'll tell you something else about Al...  I'm sure every smart player does some warm-up beforehand, but he's like a kung fu coach when it comes to disciplined and thorough warm ups and stretches at the start of each lesson, before any blowing starts.  Full body, neck, arms, legs, etc. and lots of focus on hands, wrists, fingers, tendons.  Same for any length of flute, but then if we reach for a long flute, everything is warm and relaxed and circulating and it's just the smart thing to do. 

If you buy into chi/ki schools of thought, circulate chi down the arms and out through palms and fingertips before practicing on a long flute and see if it doesn't feel great.  Hot, happy, relaxed hands.  Practicing when hands (esp. tendons and sheaths) are subject to tension and movement but they're cold (either due to circulation or environment) is unhealthy, in my opinion.

amokrun wrote:

Does anyone here place your flutes so that the tip rests on something, either on ground or on some sort of table? ... On the other hand, I could see there being a problem with something huge like flutes over 3 shaku. You'd need to actually raise the flute a fair bit and that might cause the blowing angle to be wrong. Anyone have experiences with playing really huge flutes while sitting in seiza?

All relative to height, obviously, so I'm 5'11" (180 cm)...  I prefer to practice in seiza and at 3.2 in length I can start to rest the flute on the floor but it's not necessary.  I have some difficulty with techniques that require large head movements (e.g. furi or any exaggerated meri/kari movements) when the flute rests on the floor.  I think this is my own obstacle though, because I see other players do it and pivot quite easily with very good sounding technique.  More practice...

-Darren.

dstone wrote:

Jeff Cairns wrote:

I handed Al Ramos (no stranger to long flutes) a Kyomudo 2.8 jiari with no offset holes when he was here in Kumamoto last fall.  Many of you may know Al...not the tallest dude in the world.  He had no problems with reach or any other aspect of playability.  Body size is  obviously not the only issue when approaching a chokan and he is clear proof of that to me.

So true, Al plays flutes that seem "too long" for him without effort.  He gives lessons on flutes up to at least 2.9 without issue. 

-Darren.

Sure Al can play those long flutes, in fact I have a sweet goma 2.9 he made. Very cool.

I began practicing with a 2.4 on my own 6 months ago. If someone else is in doubt about beginning with a long shakuhachi, I would say GO FOR IT.

If you consider buying a flute from the internet test the reach of your hands. You can make a quick prototype of a 2.4 from a plastic tube. Just mark the place of the holes over the tube with a pencil and experiment with different fingerings over it. Then shift the position of the holes to match a 2.6 and repeat the process.

With my medium sized hands, I had no problems for covering the holes of a 2.4 but a 2.6 seems impossible for me.

I use pinky fingers of both hands. Using ring fingers puts  to much stress on my wrists and finger joints.

During practice, I sit on a chair and rest the edge of the flute over my right knee. I can play as long as I want without any pain in that position. (Anyone else doing this?)

If im not sitting, I rest the flute over the v shape betwen right thumb and index finger.

Kiku Day wrote:

I rest all my flutes on the floor from around size 2.4... surely 2.5. That is one of the reasons for why I sit cross legged. I begin to sit in seiza when playing 2.9.

I think the range of flutes from something like 2.3 to maybe 2.7 or so are problematic for me because they are too short to rest on the floor while I'm sitting with my legs crossed and yet a bit hard to play if I hold them up. I often play the 2.5 I have without resting it against anything or sometimes by leaning it against my knee. Neither is really ideal. To rest it on the floor I'd had to actually bend forward quite a bit. Thankfully it's a fairly light flute and can easily be held up for longer periods of time.

I'll have to get a longer instrument at some point to try out how that would work for me. My experiences with 2.5 seem to suggest that I'd be most comfortable with a 2.7 or above depending on how far my fingers stretch.

Kiku Day wrote:

When playing the 2.3 and at times 2.4, I do, like you describe, sometimes rest it against my leg. Not through a whole piece though. It is not ideal because you twist your body a little, but if you do it being conscious about relaxeding, you are twisting your body less than playing the traverse flute.

I find that I don't have to twist myself much at all to rest the flute against my knee. It's basically just a matter of turning my head to the side slightly and then sort of raising and pulling back one arm to get the flute to lean that way. Rest of the body can easily stay still and it doesn't feel much different from sitting straight. Whenever I have to read notation for a piece I end up playing somewhat like that anyway and thus it was never a huge problem.

Kiku Day wrote:

Ahem... my new signature is... very interesting!

Reminds me of a forum I used to frequent years ago. At one point someone came up with the great idea of making the forum display my name differently whenever it was typed somewhere. The name given to me was absurdly long and contained about twenty words or so. It was pretty amusing until five minutes later someone came up with the great idea of making a post with my name repeated over and over in the title. The resulting name took a couple of pages of space to display right thanks to the forum diligently swapping every single instance with that long list of words. No more than five minutes later my old name was returned.

ps. Who do you need to bribe around here to get an amusing title?

amokrun wrote:

ps. Who do you need to bribe around here to get an amusing title?

You just go to your profile and add a signature. Since you are in Finland maybe yours can be, "Sibelius didn't write no honkyoku!"