Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Justin, a member here, and I have been in contact, and I finally had a chance to visit him at his studio near Tokyo. First surprise what the space he has: an abandoned pipe-organ factory, with a full disassembled pipe organ sitting in a huge and high room, the likes of which I have rarely seen in Japan. Apparently the room was designed to mimic the church space in Europe where the organ was installed. The acoustics are fabulous.

Justin has scores of flutes in various stages of manufacture, and we spent a lovely afternoon and half an evening talking, comparing and trying various flutes: some on my own, a number of interesting historical and modern flutes from his collection, and various jiari and jinashi flutes he has made or is in the process of finishing. The next surprise lay there. His jinashi flutes are excellent, and some do indeed play right up to the top of dai-kan. But even more surprising to me were his jiari flutes. Though they had diverse tone colors and characters, all were uniformly superior players, with excellent intonation, balance and response. I have spent many hours playing the various flutes by well-known makers that are on sale at Meijiro and other places, and in my opinion Justin's flutes are the equal of all and superior to many.

As an amateur maker myself, and in contact with other amateur makers of various skill levels at Meijiro, I had expected that Justin's flutes would be OK, but with all the various inconsistencies and shortcomings of almost all amateur-made (and many professionally-made) flutes. I was hugely impressed. One look down the bore of his jiari flutes gave me at least part of the answer: I have rarely seen bores as nicely finished as these. But of course that is only half the secret; the dimensions are most important of all, and Justin seems to have a rare command in that area. It seems to me that many modern makers hit upon a working formula and stick to that, and one finds that while their flutes are well balanced in all important aspects they are very much alike. Other makers seem more hit-and-miss, with some fabulous flutes but many others that have problems in one area or another. Justin's flutes, at least the ones that I tried, all had distinctive character but all were of the highest standard in terms of intonation and response.

Justin is also impressive as a player, and because of this, I think, has the discrimination to tell when and where a flute needs improvement. The fact that he also has the knowledge and skill to then adjust the flutes to satisfy himself as a player is unusual. It is, I feel, a rare combination of talent in both fields of playing and making, and it shows in his flutes.

Unfortunately I have not had the chance to visit the other makers who are members here, so I cannot comment on their work, but after my visit with Justin I do think that if anyone has the chance to visit him or to try his instruments they will not regret it.

Toby