Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Toby wrote:

Hi folks,

I have a decision to make: I have a lovely piece of bamboo which I harvested some years ago and which is exactly proportioned for a 1.8 without any need to cut and shorten, so I have decided to go ahead and build a one-piece jiari flute. This piece has a very nice root end, and, unusually, has a nicely aesthetic 8th ring which I am considering keeping, but this will make the flute just slightly long, which I suspect will flatten the ro somewhat. I am considering opening the root end like a clarinet bell to bring this up if necessary. Has anyone had experience doing this? I know that the sensei will say that I should just cut off the bottom ring but I would really like to give this a try.

Toby

Not an unusual solution. Even such makers as Yamaguchi Shiro have done it and it's a frequent fix for collectors of vintage flutes. It may not be the best thing for your flute but it wouldn't be verboten to try it.

radi0gnome wrote:

I just tried opening the bell end of my latest Ebay aquisition because Ro was flat. It worked well, it plays close to in tune now. I might go a little further with it to get it more fully in tune, but I'm considering leaving it as it is because the tone changes pretty dramatically when you do this and I'm not sure if there's a limit where the tone will start to deteriorate.

I can't post pictures now because my camera is in the shop, but this flute has been a real experience and I've only had it a few days. First I had to fix the utaguchi. I used a piece of plastic from a CD case for that. Then I opened the bell to get the Ro in tune. I was really happy with the results, particulary since it was the first old Ebay flute I bought that didn't have any cracks... until a few hours ago when I heard it crack. This thing had cobwebs in it when I got it, it obviously was reacting to getting played after sitting idle for years. Now I wish I had applied bindings the first thing. I guess I'll have to chalk that up to another lesson learned.

I don't really want to hijack this thread or anything, but it also got me to wondering why some of these old Ebay flutes are so out of tune. From what I read about sharp chi's and stuff it sounds like they are reasonably easy to lip into tune being off by less than 20 cents or so. A lot of these Ebay flutes are way out, some of them it's obvious it is because they were made by amatuers, but even stamped ones like this last one are way out. Why in the world would a maker put his stamp on a flute that was so far out? The sharp chi on this one I can live with, but combined with the flat Ro, one of them had to go and the Ro was the easiest to fix. This flute has obviously been played a lot sometime during it's life because you can see discolorations from where fingers were on it. It made me hesitant to go mucking around with the tuning, but I'm satisfied with the results. I guess it's just another chapter in the life of this little beauty, along with it's first crack. I'll post pictures as soon as I get a working camera in my hands again. By then it should be bound and happy again.

I get a chance to try out many old flutes at Japanese flea markets, etc., and the great majority of them are out of tune, stamped or not. Even the ones that are reasonably in tune often have poor response and/or tone or bad notes, especially up in the third octave. I estimate that only 20% or so are really decent players by modern standards (and I'm not talking about the obvious amateur attempts at flutemaking, but decently constructed jiari instruments).

I'm not so familiar with the prewar tradition, but it seems that small considerations like precise tuning were just not so important. That being said, I have some stunning examples of prewar instruments that are spot on, so obviously somebody cared. I picked up a Seppo for about 80 dollars (needed an utaguchi) which is a wonderful player with the exception that 're' was quite sharp, which I fixed with a bamboo plug and redrill of the hole a bit smaller and lower down. As Tom Deaver pointed out, hole positions were often chosen on the basis of aesthetic spacing instead of correct intonation. I know that John Neptune does not hesitate to carve his holes out with a knife to whatever size and shape suits him. I took a workshop with him on making jinashi flutes and he had his personal 1.8 along. What a mess! The holes are all irregular and of varying sizes, and the bore is full of bumps and gouges where he has adjusted it. But a monster player, smooth, solid and responsive from top to bottom. Kind of puts the lie to many of the myths of shakuhachi making that I learned from the get-go...

Toby

Last edited by Toby (2008-03-27 11:53:45)

Toby wrote:

I know that John Neptune does not hesitate to carve his holes out with a knife to whatever size and shape suits him. I took a workshop with him on making jinashi flutes and he had his personal 1.8 along. What a mess! The holes are all irregular and of varying sizes, and the bore is full of bumps and gouges where he has adjusted it. But a monster player, smooth, solid and responsive from top to bottom. Kind of puts the lie to many of the myths of shakuhachi making that I learned from the get-go...

Toby

obviously the bottom hole of the shakuhachi/the RO/ is actually the first hole, so compared to the other holes is quite big, and as the holes affect/make/ the sound/pitch and harmonics/  then its normal for more balance the holes to be bigger and with different diameter gradually in effort to make the sound of the notes more similar up to certain level/not to loose the specific shakuhachi sound/. so its not so unexplainable how the shakuhachi could be perfectly
sounding.

this is the case also with aesthetically same size and specific location holes which if we look inside can be totally different/undercut/. yet sometimes the margin is not enough to make a decent flute so this explains the poor sounding aesthetically perfect shakuhachi. 

and may be sometimes the flute sounds so good to the maker that it doesn't matter the pitch, at the end the sound is only one. playing around making  shakuhachi at home , sometimes when i got the tuning i loose  the touching of my soul from the sound. thats why the good and expensive shakuhachi have both and more. cause there are not any compromises made from aesthetical or material point of view.

in fact i don't believe a good maker would make some compromise, may be the shakuhachi is simply difficult but rewarding. i prefer a shakuhachi with moved finger hole because of mistake in the making than perfectly looking wall hanger.   everything is perfect/even the moved hole/, we are just  judging from our points of view but they change with the time