Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

David Brown's flutes are beautiful, in tune, and play very well. Good enough that Riley Lee has endorsed them (even owns and plays one, notably on 'El Sueño/The Dream on the album 'Nalu'), and Riley is very reluctant to flat-out endorse anything.

They are indeed a good value, IMO. I don't know what delivery time is like nowadays--sometimes he's a bit slow, but perhaps that's not the case these days.

The long flutes are just as good as the shorter ones. Perhaps the one for sale mentioned on the Forum is just the ticket?

eB

Last edited by edosan (2007-10-21 14:45:48)

While i am NOT on of the Pro's i thought i'd drop my 2 cents.

I have had one of David Brown's  flutes for a bit over a year.  It's a great flute that i play regularly!!!!  My teacher agrees its a wonderful flute also.  I was looking for a flute i could use outside, backpacking, hiking, and even my office and not have QUITE the damage and care concerns of my Root End Tai Hei.

Beatiful craftsmanship, great tuning, highly recomended.

radi0gnome wrote:

I'm curious why you typically don't like wooden shakuhachi.

OK, I should have said I'm not a fan of the ones I've tried (other than David Brown's), which admittedly has only been twenty or thirty. The ones I've tried just don't sound good. They have had very thin low octaves, harsh second octaves, and impossible third octaves. In addition they've often had serious tuning problems on go no hi and other high notes. Since there are now good bamboo student models for only a little more money, I tend toward advising students to play a yuu for a while and save their money for bamboo, unless they want to buck up for a David Brown. This is not to say that there are not some great wooden flutes that I've never encountered.

I don't think the cracking issue is as much of a problem as it's sometimes made out to be.

Lorka wrote:

I want to be able to play all holes with my finger tips (as one would a 1.8), and am not sure if I can do that on a 2.6.  I can do it on my 2.4 jinashi, but am not sure if the regular hand positions for the lower hand would work on a 2.6, or if I would need to use the alternate hand positions for longer flutes.

Why would you want to play with fingertips? Even if you can do it, your hand positioning is going to be such that it's going to cause discomfort, if not injury. You don't want your wrist to be twisted much at all, that's one of the ways musicians get repetitive stress injuries.

dstone wrote:

Lorka, I think you mean finger pads (not tips).  i.e. you want to avoid playing with the flesh on the proximal phalanx like many do with longer flutes?

Holes can be moved in wood or bamboo.  Pretty holes lined up in a row don't do you or the flute any good if it can't be played comfortably.

-Darren.

Thanks for that link with the proper terminology. I kind of thought Lorka meant the distal pads. The way it works for me to hold the 2.5 in my avatar picture comfortably is that I cover the index finger hole (tsu?) with the proximal pad and the lowest hole on the flute with distal pad. I'd have problems if the holes weren't skewed on that size flute. I have a 2.2 where I'd like the holes to be in line because with the holes skewed no matter what I try (and remain comfortable) one of the holes falls under a finger joint and leaks too easily.

nyokai wrote:

OK, I should have said I'm not a fan of the ones I've tried (other than David Brown's), which admittedly has only been twenty or thirty. The ones I've tried just don't sound good. They have had very thin low octaves, harsh second octaves, and impossible third octaves. In addition they've often had serious tuning problems on go no hi and other high notes. Since there are now good bamboo student models for only a little more money, I tend toward advising students to play a yuu for a while and save their money for bamboo, unless they want to buck up for a David Brown. This is not to say that there are not some great wooden flutes that I've never encountered.

I received the mass-produced used wooden shakuhachi from the Ebay dealer (ayumispacking, this is the 2nd flute I've obtained from this dealer that I'm very satified with, although the other one is a jinashi and has tuning problems) and it exceeded my expectations. I'll admit that my expectations were somewhat lowered by your comments, but the flute is pretty good. I don't have any professional quality flutes, but in ease of playing it's better than all of my other flutes. The first octave is solid, far from thin as you describe, the 2nd octave sounds fine, and it plays very well in tune. I guess you're right about the 3rd octave, I can barely squeek out the first note in the 3rd octave, but that could be just me because I have problems in that area with my other flutes too (remember that those aren't pro quality though, so it could be the flutes fault). 

It cost just about $100, so I can't agree with you about buying a Yuu instead that would have cost the same or more. I've seen Perry Yung sell a few tweaked wooden ones on Ebay that probably play even better that went for less than $200. I think the mass-produced wooden instruments are an excellent buy, and have less of a negative stigma than plastic.

About the Yuu, I'm curious about how it can be that much of a better playing instrument than the mass-produced wooden ones. It's true that it used a real shakuhachi as a mold, but that's apparently only for the outside since the bore isn't centered near the bottom of the flute. I doubt that bamboo grows that way. The David Brown's I can understand could very well play better since they are individually made, and even if they didn't play better the exotic woods look so good that the $400-$500 price tag is well-deserved.       

nyokai wrote:

I don't think the cracking issue is as much of a problem as it's sometimes made out to be.

Umm... I've had pretty good luck with shakuhachi. However, I've had some bamboo flutes of other types and bamboo didjeridu crack. Also the number of cracked instruments being sold on Ebay and the number of cracks it looks like Perry Yung repairs is an indication that cracks are fairly common.