Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Yes, a great resource, but beware...the MP3s don't exactly go perfectly with the sheet music, as far as I can tell. I'm trying to follow Tamuke, for example, and the recording just doesn't seem to match it. I think Alcvin was playing meditation style on the recording, lol.

I'm not complaining about something free, mind you, and I'm glad Alcvin and Co. put this stuff up...I just wish they synched up for clarity's sake. I got super frustrated with it at first, then realized that I'd be much better off getting a real instruction guide with "proper" examples.

-E

I concur with Tairaku on that.

The piece is written out by Teruo Furuya, a Dokyoku master and the senior player in Katsuya Yokoyama-sensei's school. Al is playing it by the numbers; listen to any other recording of it, say by Riley Lee, Tadashi Tajima or even Yokoyama--they are virtually identical, if a bit more polished.

Al plays all of the pieces on his website as written, and he wrote the notes in the sheet music instructions--Furuya did only the calligraphy.

Sometimes, even though you've listened to a piece repeatedly and enjoyed it, when you get up close to it and try to actually learn it, it's difficult to tell exactly what's going on at first.

In the notation, all the little back and forth undulations of the vertical line have specific meanings, which Furuya, et al, worked out as a simplified scheme for all the music they transcribe.

eB

Last edited by edosan (2006-01-16 23:43:02)

Be advised that Al's notes for Tamuke cover only the tricky parts; much of the piece has similar lines which don't need to be deconstructed. You need the entire score to make sense of the whole piece. For any folks who don't have the whole score, I have posted a printable two-page scan of the piece written by Furuya-sensei, the same score from which Al's notes are taken:


http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/7000/tamuke18oe.jpg


http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/132/tamuke20ys.jpg

eB

kyoreiflutes wrote:

Yes, a great resource, but beware...the MP3s don't exactly go perfectly with the sheet music, as far as I can tell. I'm trying to follow Tamuke, for example, and the recording just doesn't seem to match it.


-E

For what it's worth, you might want to try Al's instructions for Honshirabe. On that one, the line by line teaching does cover the entire piece, not just the potential trouble spots.

Rich

I think I might've realized that Tamuke wasn't fully "on", and that's what I got frustrated with. I wanted to learn Tamuke because I love it, and because of it's seeming simplicity.

Thanks for the info on these pieces.

-E

You talkin' to me?.....


That ain't a 'tilde', it's a 'nayashi', which is a smooth, but usually quick, dip in pitch--a half or a full step--from the current pitch and back again. The next nayashi--on the next Ro--occurs in the context of the preceding Re. It is done the same way as at the beginning of the piece. If you look at the last line in the piece (#17), there are two good examples of the nayashi occuring right after a note, in this case two Re's. The Re is sounded, the pitch goes down quickly, then returns. There is a matter of timing and style for this that is very important, and speaks volumes. They are not all done exactly the same way, even though they are....

In the case of that first one in Tamuke, it indicates that the pitch starts BELOW Ro, and comes up to it--just listen to it.

The note right after the Ro is 'Tsu no Meri': Tsu lowered a full step by dropping the chin and closing the second hole down about 75-80 per cent. Fair amount of work to get a good handle on that one--coupla years, more or less...

The 'meri' of the Tsu is indicated by the little chop mark on the downward curve of the Tsu. In this position it means 'Tsu no Meri'--a whole step down--as opposed to 'Tsu Chu no Meri'--a half-step down--which is indicated by the chop mark being placed through the little short line at the upper left part of the Tsu (none of the latter occur in this piece). This notation is called 'New Kinko' and is a streamlined version of the older style, which used small indicators placed 'round about the note notation. The same applies to Ri: Ri no Meri is indicated by the chop being on the right downward curve (see line 2)--Re Chu no Meri has the chop over on the left side through the verticle piece.

The breaks--short, horizontal (almost...) chop marks (often short lines) are breath marks. Not always slavishly adhered to, but usually. They are quite important: Besides being placed almost always at the end of one's breath capacity, they determine the phrasing of the piece, and give you your 'Ma', which is just as important in the interpretation as the audible parts. Kakizakai-sensei, for one, has some useful comments on these pauses in his playing tips at http://www.kotodama.net/shakuhachi/tips.html.

Occasionally--very rarely--a player will skip a breath mark for some added effect.

'Seeming' simplicty is spot-on...



PS: You guys gotta get a teacher--it's MUCH easier to show this than to tell it...

eB

Last edited by edosan (2006-04-20 09:28:10)