Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Hi All ...

I'm a pro flutist (silver flute) from Indonesia, and a collector of ethnic wind instruments. Unfortunately the majority of my collections are tourist grade and are barely playable, but they do make nice home decorations. I'm trying to 'upgrade' my collections slowly, and  currently I have some decent (not the best, but playable) instruments. Among them are a set of Chinese Di Zi, an Australian Didgeridu, a panflute, Japanese yokobue, and off course, my very own Indonesian suling.

For those who don't know, suling is a bamboo flute with a design somewhere between a recorder and a shakuhachi. It has a very short airduct that makes it easy to play but allows embouchure variations to affect the tone and pitch. Indonesian flutes tend to get a secondary role in the gamelan orchestra, but here in Bandung, the suling is much more dominant and refined. It is tuned in F# and capable of producing two different pentatonic scales, as well as diatonic scale with proper technique. It has 6 fingerholes and a range of approximately 3 octaves.

I decided to tackle the shakuhachi next. Unfortunately there is no player in the vicinity, and no instruments available. But being in a bamboo country, I have all the resources needed to built one myself. So currently I have a self-made shakuhachi that .. well.. it produces sound.

I'm here to find solutions to my never-ending tuning problem