Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

If you learn the pieces only by ear you will most likely miss a lot- which may be ok for you.  Know that when you take lessons, learn the traditional pieces as you say, be ready for some re-tooling of your techniques.   Shakuhachi is not like other instruments that one might be able to pick up by ear, more or less.  It is very tricky in terms of alternative fingerings and techniques that make all the difference in playing more correctly.  Outside of all that, I consider any concerted effort of playing beneficial, personally.

Oh, and by the way, you may already know this but, not everything is written in the notation.  This is another reason why a teacher is important.

Best wishes,
Michael

Hi Mike
I agree with what Michael and Brian have said above. But I would add that you can combine all of these. For the traditional music, as Brian says, it is essential to study under a teacher. Then the notation is to remind you what the teacher taught you. But I have also found it very useful to practice with recordings, using my notation. When I first started shakuhachi, I was studying under Michael Coxall in England. He was a student of Yamaguchi Goro, and he would lend me recordings of Yamaguchi Goro playing the pieces I was learning. So I could do a lot of practice with the notation together with the recordings, in between lessons. That was particularly important for checking if my timing was right, for when the piece speeds up and slows down, and for my pitch. Also, some sankyoku pieces are quite fast, and just practicing them by myself, I tended to play them quite slowly as they were difficult. But if I played with the recordings, it pushed me and forced me to keep up. In that case it really helped me and pushed me to be able to play faster. So, within this context of being under a traditional teacher, I can really recommend playing along with recordings. Other than that, playing with non-"traditional-shakuhachi-music" recordings (jazz etc) I would imagine would be great practice. Yokoyama Katsuya used to play along to whatever came on the radio, and advocates such practice. It must give you much more control over being able to play the melodies as they come to your mind.

Justin
http://senryushakuhachi.com/

I find that having the piece in front of me and then play along with a recording as well and alternating with just playing the piece with just the notation.  Ultimately the goal, obviously, would be memorization.

Tairaku wrote:

1. Study traditional music with a teacher and learn the notation.

2. Practice along with recordings of traditional music.

3. Play jazz and blues if you feel like it.

In that order because if you start with 3 your playing won't have any Japanese sound to it then it's somewhat pointless to play it on shakuhachi.

I played traditional stuff for years before I started playing Western music on shakuhachi. And I already knew how to play jazz and blues on other instruments.

I struggle with interpreting Western songs all the time because I like the flat Japanese half steps. Below is a popular Western song where I think a flatter Ou sounds better in the spirit of the song. What do you think?



I like to play it with both #1 and #2 down and meri.

I welcome thoughts from any one who want to try this piece. It's written in Dokyoku and the line can be played in one breath...AND loud.

Namaste, Perry

rpowers wrote:

I'm sure that susudake would be an advantage.

See, that's a good example of Western music which reflects some Japanese values. The piece is about a combination of natural elements.

I agree, Perry, lowered ou is good. Maybe the final ro just the barest amount low also?

later...