Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

I don't know much about Jin Nyodo's flute making, however I do know that other makers made for him and he put his own hanko on the flutes.  My sensei's father, Tsurugi Kyomudo was one such maker.  Kyomudo sensei doesn't make flutes any more as he's too old, but he through his own admission, made many flutes for Jin Nyodo that received the Jin Nyodo hanko.  I know that Tsurugi sensei made predominantly jiari flutes, so  the jinashi probably wasn't his, however I wouldn't rule that out.  I do know that Jin Nyodo sensei favored Tsurugi sensei's 1.8s and 2.0s.
As such, it's very difficult to know whether a flute was actually made by a big name teacher or it was commissioned without having first hand knowledge of that teacher/maker's particular style and tendency in making.

Dun, can you put up some pictures of the flute including the hanko?
It would be very interesting to see it !

Last edited by Kiku Day (2008-09-03 02:30:45)

Send me the pictures too. That might give me an idea of the age and characteristics of the flute.

John Singer says it's not Jin Nyodo's hanko. But it looks like a nice jinashi flute!

Chris Moran wrote:

Does the hanko read "Jin"?

I wouldn't know, but I was told the hanko reads "Jin". Please correct if that's not right and/or there is a different meaning/person/whatever to it. Also if in the higher part of the dai-kan register I have to use some creative fingering to get the tuning ok, I love the sound of this shakuhachi, and would like to learn as much as possible about its background. Brian, did you get an idea of the age or other 'nice-to-know's?

Yes, that hanko is just the older, pre-simplification version of 神, same character as the one used to write "Jin" as in Nyodo.

Last edited by No-sword (2008-09-09 10:18:47)

It took place in 1946. 神 was on the tōyō kanji 当用漢字 list released by the Ministry of Education that year. In fact that radical (示) was changed to its current form (something like a squashed ネ) in most commonly used kanji, including 祈 (pray), 社 (shrine) etc. [It is still used in some rare characters like 禧 (joy) etc.] I think only 秘 (secret) had its radical changed to a 禾 instead.

When I say "changed", note that this was not some radical innovation on the Ministry's part. They were just officially endorsing the way people tended to write the characters already, in all but very formal contexts. ネ is a cursive version of 示. It took a while for print to catch up, and that was fine. There was no legal compulsion to use the new form and no penalty for using the old one. It was first and foremost a decision about what would be taught in schools.

So, knowing that the simplification was part of the 1946 wave does not help you much here. Someone who had been using this character in their hanko before 1946 certainly would not have thrown that hanko away just because the Ministry of Education decided to stop teaching that character. And someone making a hanko after 1946, even someone making a hanko just last month, might well have preferred to use the old form. Hanko designs often use older, now-abandoned forms of characters -- it's tradition!

Last edited by No-sword (2008-09-08 18:07:32)

Dun Romin wrote:

Chris Moran wrote:

Does the hanko read "Jin"?

I wouldn't know, but I was told the hanko reads "Jin".  Brian, did you get an idea of the age or other 'nice-to-know's?

Jin is a pretty common name, I was playing a honkyoku concert and I had notation which said "Jin Nyodo Honkyoku". My neighborhood sushi chef was there and said, "Hey, who's Jin Nyodo? My name is also Jin." So there could easily be someone else making flutes under "Jin".

Looking at the pics makes me think the flute is approximately 1920's-1940's. I could tell more if I played it.

No-sword wrote:

Does anyone know what the "dei" in the "Nyodo-dei" mentioned above is, by the way? Just curious.

I don't know anything about any Japanese meaning, but in Latin/Italian language it would translate like 'gods', which probably is not the meaning here intended.

No-sword wrote:

For what it's worth, this site says that there are 3,800-odd households with the last name 神, though not all pronouncing it "Jin". [url=http://homepage1.nifty.com/forty-sixer/si3.html]This site[/a] says 10,000 people overall, a good proportion of whom live in northern Japan (40% in Aomori). (No guarantees on the validity of the data.)

I guess if you lived in Aomori, you'd be "keeping up with the Jins?"

Peace, Perry