Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

The flutes that I have seen in Korea that relate more directly to Shakuhachi as musical instruments are the
Tungso and the Danso.

The Taegum is a transverse flute. Tungso and Danso are vertical end blown flutes.
I'm not sure if the distinction is really that important.

some Tungso - can be see on this page showing various Korean traditional flutes.
www.ureuk.or.kr/htm/musical05.php
The Tungso I have seen are not as elaborate as the flutes shown in this page.

Danso-
www.kcaf.or.kr/ehome3/english/danso.htm

I saw Tungso in the Jongno-samga ( Jongno-3-ga) area of Seoul near Insadong ( Insadong being the most famous touristy area near Kongbok Palace) . There are many interesting shops in the area.
Including some great small music shops.
I had a brief play of a Tungso there which has some similarity to hochiku style shakuhachi.
The utaguchi was pretty crudely crafted if compared to the refinements of Japanese inlayed utaguchi or even non-inlayed utaguchi..
The one I played was made from Madake and was about the same length as a 1.8.

Actually I would say it seemed like a possible precursor of the shakuhachi if it were assumed that the Tungso has been around since early in the first millennium and had traveled with Koreans to Japan . I say this casually without much research on the subject.
Though it really wouldn't surprise me at all if shakuhachi came to Japan via Korea (not with Korea as the source but as vector from China or elsewhere). I have never researched this. I assume others have.

The Danso is a smaller type of vertical end blown flute. They can be bought in any large department store here in Korea like E-mart or Lotte Mart ( just to indicate their prevalence). The Danso I have seen are made from black
(or dark brown) bamboo. I think it is called Murasakitake in Japan (or people call it tiger bamboo too).
Danso are small flutes.

Doing a bit of simple research on the internet I found a couple of clips of tungso but no links worth putting here.
It seemed that some people call a Tungso a Taegum. This is incorrect.

I have an interesting CD by Lee Saeng-gang a Taegum player. It s quite beautiful. If you can get your hands on any of his music I am sure you will find it interesting. There is one player here who is particularly famous but I have forgotten his name it is "master... someone". I'll make a note when I check it out.

here is where you can get some decent Taegeum

http://www.koreainstru.com/?OVRAW=%EB%8 … 8361292042

To get there select the second choice then 3rd submenu


From what I can see the real stuff made of smoked bamboo lacquered bore with silver fittings etc.. is never under 1000$ all the other cheaper stuff looks to be mostly junk.

Last edited by Gishin (2007-12-28 23:12:53)

There is a centre for traditional music and dance in Seoul. There is a musical instrument museum and shop as well as a conservatory and three large performance areas. There are concerts everyday. You can buy good quality instruments at this centre.

However, you can get Korean instruments at a better price and quality in a shop on the main road opposite the centre. I will look up and address and post at a later date.

One of the leading performers is Lee Seng Kang. You can download some free mp3s from http://www.asianclassicalmp3.org. The site says they are legal downloads.

I have a book of scores. They are written using Chinese characters in boxes much like Tozan or koto notation. The book also contains the western notation. Unfortunately, I am away from home till the new year so do not have it at hand. I will post a scan of a score in a few days.