Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

At the end of the World Shakuhachi Festival in New York City (2004) , I asked "Living National Treasure" Aoki Reibo about his thoughts on the future of the Shakuhachi. He said , "More Female players."

Personally, in the 35 years that I have been teaching full-time, I can see some attitude changes - particularly among Japanese women. In 1973, Shakuhachi Sensei were willing to teach women, but Japanese women (for many reasons) were not stepping-up to ask for lessons. This has changed.

In KiSuiAn Shakuhachi Dojo, at present we have 3 licensed women Shakuhachi Masters - two jun-shihans, and one full Shihan.

Over the past 3 1/2 Decades, in general, I have taught about 20% women students at any given time, and out of my current 80 students , I teach about 15-20 women.

The only difference between male and female students is that the size of women's mouths are sometimes smaller then men's mouths, and the Shakuhachi that one selects for his/her personal instrument may reflect that. But then again, I have taught women with large mouths, and men with small mouths, so this is a rather irrelevant generalization.

I believe, as AOKI-Sensei said, that in the future, there will be many more women players.

Maybe it's simply a case of "Boys and their toys".

I find finger size AND chin size to set limits sometimes. We just had to find smaller flutes. I've had this with men also but much less.

Kiku Day wrote:

Michelle, please do not hesitate to come with comments when there is something interesting to comment on. It is nice that I am not alone!

Michelle, Kiku....at least there's three of us here!  :-)

Ohhhh.... how nice with 3 posts right after each other by women shakuhachi players.
Airin, Michele. Good to know you are here!

Shakuhachi is a relatively rare instrument, so sampling size is a difficult issue in estimating how and why there aren't as many women playing (outside of Japan).  It's no doubt due to the same reasons that there are fewer female particle physicists--very subtle, or sometimes not so subtle, societal pressures driving men and women towards and away certain areas and fields.  However!  Due to the fact that it's a small musical area, it can be greatly influenced by teachers who are progressive in their mindset.  Seems like we have many among us. 

In comparison, take a look at the guitar: why are there still a zillion more men who play guitar than women?  You'd think that would have equalized by now, and yet it hasn't.  As I mentioned above, though, there's a better chance for aspiring students and teachers to be the change they want to see in the world, if they so desire.