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#26 2010-06-08 17:58:55

Moran from Planet X
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From: Here to There
Registered: 2005-10-11
Posts: 1524
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Re: Ji-nashi terminology

radi0gnome wrote:

40 days without email? I don't think I could do it. You know what would be a neat experiment? Keep a journal and then see if the activity in the forum while you are away in any way correlates to your thoughts and emotions during the retreat.

Man, time would stand still. How marvelous.

Bad idea, I think, though,  to keep a journal about anything to do with the outside world. It would probably not be advised to keep a journal of the experience of the retreat at all. The least "activity" the better. I'm sure Kiku would be aware of that.

Wow. Forty days.

Imagine.


"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I am all out of bubblegum." —Rowdy Piper, They Live!

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#27 2010-06-11 14:34:05

radi0gnome
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From: Kingston NY
Registered: 2006-12-29
Posts: 1030
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Re: Ji-nashi terminology

radi0gnome wrote:

You know what would be a neat experiment? Keep a journal and then see if the activity in the forum while you are away in any way correlates to your thoughts and emotions during the retreat. Good luck on your journey.

See that, the forum is quiet because Kiku is meditating. Oops, my writing this must have been a thought that popped into her head smile


"Now birds record new harmonie, And trees do whistle melodies;
Now everything that nature breeds, Doth clad itself in pleasant weeds."
~ Thomas Watson - England's Helicon ca 1580

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#28 2010-06-11 14:44:09

Moran from Planet X
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From: Here to There
Registered: 2005-10-11
Posts: 1524
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Re: Ji-nashi terminology

radi0gnome wrote:

See that, the forum is quiet because Kiku is meditating. Oops, my writing this must have been a thought that popped into her head smile

Wow, yeah. You must be very close to her.


"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I am all out of bubblegum." —Rowdy Piper, They Live!

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#29 2010-06-11 15:36:54

radi0gnome
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From: Kingston NY
Registered: 2006-12-29
Posts: 1030
Website

Re: Ji-nashi terminology

Chris Moran wrote:

Of course an avatar of a man in monks robes supported in mid air only by his erect penis might also be seen as disrespectful or inappropriate, but I wouldn't want to deflect blame on anyone else while I am trying to make amends to the rest of the forum.

If you look at the ice cubes in a Bombay Sapphire advertisement you'll find all kinds of subliminals with monks partaking in activities of all kinds.

Yes, I know, that was a bad inside joke for only a relatively small number of people who read this book or caught one of the authors lectures: http://www.amazon.com/Subliminal-Seduct … 0451061489


"Now birds record new harmonie, And trees do whistle melodies;
Now everything that nature breeds, Doth clad itself in pleasant weeds."
~ Thomas Watson - England's Helicon ca 1580

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#30 2010-06-12 12:08:43

Peter Kororo
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Registered: 2008-06-21
Posts: 82
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Re: Ji-nashi terminology

I'll to respond to a couple of the things above:

"Perhaps this term, ji-mori shakuhachi will become more significant now since more and more people realise the amazing tone qualities of ji-nashi, but still want reasonably priced well-tuned instruments. The very good alternative is then ji-mori.

we are not far off. We will always have shakuhachi somewhere in the middle of definitions. I guess we have to accept that. 
If others have other opinions, it would be very interesting to hear.

I think if people with their hearts feel they are making a kyotaku or a hocchiku, then it probably is. I don't have anything to add to that. But I felt a need to clarify that ji-nashi means no filler and ji-mori is with a little filler."




"Yes, you are right, one could say that  Ji-ari and Ji-nashi are antonyms"


The majority of players I know (including myself) prefer flutes with less ji. But, personally, I like flutes with a smooth bore, whether or not they have ji, as much as shakuhachi without ji. My experience of playing my own jinashi flutes (in lengths 1.7-2.0), is that there is a unique warmth and vibration to them that is indeed very attractive, and also draws one in to the sound. The tonal difference between a ji-nashi shakuhachi and one with a little ji and smooth bore--since ji is used to smooth out the bore--is obvious, but how much is the ji, how much the smooth bore? I've been able to choose my 1.8s from many flutes and have kept flute without much ji in them; two have almost no ji, but smooth bores, and they have a lot of bamboo in the sound. So again, how much of that "buzz" of old, ji-nashi flutes with a certain amount of the nodes left in them is due to the lack of ji, and how much to the nodes?

Also, there are all types of jinashi flutes--some with very small bores and holes, and correspondingly small sound, others more or less the opposite of that. ANd then there are modern jinashi flutes, with steeper utaguchi angles and/or very smooth bores, and they sound distinct from at least the various kinds of Edo/Meiji jinashi flutes I've played.

Mmore ji makes a shakuhachi louder and brighter, by the way.

So, I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, or create useless obfuscation, just stating my own experience and making the point it is, I think, not a simple dichotomy. I think another factor really worth considering is the process of making a particular shakuhachi, which was touched on above, that is was the flute made based on the paricular piece of bamboo it was made from, or was it made from a profile and the difference between that and the piece of bamboo filled in with ji, whether that's a lot or a little. None of these are mutually exclusive, but all are factors.

I haven't played many flutes by any makers before Araki Kodo II (1823-1908); the 15 or so of his I've had the chance to play were basically of two types, large-bore and small bore. I prefered the large-bore types. They have a wonderful quality I haven't seen in other shakuhachi, but a few flutes I've played--one I own and have played daily for years--by Miura Kindo have something of that. Kindo was in a way the first great "modern" maker because he was able to reliably and repeatedly make shakuhachi that played with balance and ease throughout the range. But his flutes--at least amongst the ones I've played--still have a marked individuality to them. Another maker of this period I'm quite familiar with, Satô Gesshû, actually made more modern flutes--very smooth lacquer and pretty much identical bore profiles, while still very individual-sounding and having a lot of character, more than the many hundreds of modern flutes I've played.

While no recording exist--regrettably--these players were considered amongst the best of their age, and they were also considered the best makers, which is no cooincidence. So they had the ability to make many fine adjusments, and for their better and best flutes at least, they put a lot of care into the making. I've never seen a middling Kindo or Gesshu.

Another example, flutes by Yamazaki Chikuin. His shakuhachi have a rather unusual and unique sound--not appealing to everyone, actually. All but one of the Chikuins I've owned/own have very, very little ji, but the bores, aside from one, have all been smooth. The bores are very large--not hôchiku large, but compared to other smooth-bore/ji-ari shakuhachi, again very little ji but the bore profile opens up at the end, Kinko-style, which is one more thing that affects the tone.

The lacquer is pretty smooth but not too smooth. The smoothness--or even the presence--of urushi has a pretty noticeable effect on the sound. It's not really better/worse though one can certainly make that judgement, but one could say more suitable for certain types of music.

Shiraki Seiha, one of Watazumi's teachers, made some flutes with very large bore dimensions, 19-22mm at the joint. I have a  1.8 which has a kanjiri-shibori (smallest part of the bore is at the end) bore profile, like most Edo/Meiji ji-nashi flutes. This also affects the sound quality noticeably….while in many respects it and the Chikuin 1.8 I have are identical, the Chikuin is much more bold sounding, the Seiha more introverted, like the bore shape itself.

Then, these older flutes have a less-steep utaguchi angle, also closer to Edo-Meiji period (generally ji-nashi) shakuhachi, which also has a noticeable affect on the sound. Modern shakuhachi mostly have a steep angle and that is also an pretty big factor in how bright and sharp vs. darker and soft the flute sounds.

So while the presence or absence of ji is certainly an important factor in the sound of a shakuhachi, the bore dimensions and these other factors, in my opinion, play an important role as well.

I'll add that one of Watazumi's deshi, Mr. Ishibashi Gudo, was kind enough to let me play on a few occasions a number of hôchiku he'd made. I asked him this same question--what does that term mean?=-and his answer was aside from them being ji-nashi, that it was the very large bore, which makes the sound less focuse. I liked that feeling very much, though, perhaps because I'm predominantly playing ji-ari flutes, I most liked the flute he'd lacquered the most, which he thought was "over-lacquered."



The following is off-topic here but an important point of misunderstanding IMO so I'll respond to this too.

"It's important  to keep in mind, and this is for everyone, that Yoga is not competition. The person next to you may have been practicing longer, they may be in a posture longer than you, deeper than you, but your experience is not any less meaningful."

Indeed, but that's not the same thing as saying there are no teachers and no students. To continue with the yoga example, in doing the forward-bending asanas, if the angle of the hips is not correct, stretching of the sacro-iliac ligament can occur, which if bad enough can be very serious, debilitating. My yoga teacher stressed this point to me because I was training to be a teacher and said be very careful of this angle, also pointing out that it's quite often not taught correctly. Or, teaching pranayama must be done very carefully--there's an old Inidan story of a man doing too much pranayama too soon and his body just dissolved…I think that story is told to make this point.

Even if the consequences aren't so dire, say with shakuachi, striving for excellence, meaning, for eample, to internalize and reproduce one's teacher's playing, is not essentially, in any way, a type of competition unless you decide to make it so….and one can compete about being non-competitive, so one should consider not justt the action but one's thought process and intention regarding that action..

Last edited by Peter Kororo (2010-06-14 06:30:52)


“Many people come, looking, looking. Some people come, see.”
                        —Nepalese saying

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#31 2010-06-12 17:20:16

Yungflutes
Flutemaker/Performer
From: New York City
Registered: 2005-10-08
Posts: 1061
Website

Re: Ji-nashi terminology

radi0gnome wrote:

Chris Moran wrote:

Of course an avatar of a man in monks robes supported in mid air only by his erect penis might also be seen as disrespectful or inappropriate, but I wouldn't want to deflect blame on anyone else while I am trying to make amends to the rest of the forum.

If you look at the ice cubes in a Bombay Sapphire advertisement you'll find all kinds of subliminals with monks partaking in activities of all kinds.

Yes, I know, that was a bad inside joke for only a relatively small number of people who read this book or caught one of the authors lectures: http://www.amazon.com/Subliminal-Seduct … 0451061489

Charles,
Your link brought back memories. I worked for master model maker Tom Trengove, the man who invented the Acrylic ice cubes in the photo on the book cover. I learned a lot from Tom about casting. Some of the props I made for him is now in the Smithsonian collection of American advertising.

http://www.yungflutes.com/logphotos/ice.jpg


"A hot dog is not an animal." - Jet Yung

My Blog/Website on the art of shakuhachi...and parenting.
How to make an Urban Shakuhachi (PVC)

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#32 2010-06-12 22:11:43

Moran from Planet X
Member
From: Here to There
Registered: 2005-10-11
Posts: 1524
Website

Re: Ji-nashi terminology

Yungflutes wrote:

I worked for master model maker Tom Trengove, the man who invented the Acrylic ice cubes in the photo on the book cover. I learned a lot from Tom about casting. Some of the props I made for him is now in the Smithsonian collection of American advertising.
http://www.yungflutes.com/logphotos/ice.jpg

I definitely see the skulls in the ice cube, Perry.

Makes me want to buy that shakuhachi right now.


"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I am all out of bubblegum." —Rowdy Piper, They Live!

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#33 2010-06-13 07:25:12

Yungflutes
Flutemaker/Performer
From: New York City
Registered: 2005-10-08
Posts: 1061
Website

Re: Ji-nashi terminology

Chris Moran wrote:

Yungflutes wrote:

I worked for master model maker Tom Trengove, the man who invented the Acrylic ice cubes in the photo on the book cover. I learned a lot from Tom about casting. Some of the props I made for him is now in the Smithsonian collection of American advertising.
http://www.yungflutes.com/logphotos/ice.jpg

I definitely see the skulls in the ice cube, Perry.

Ha! You missed the tortured faces on the tiny roots smile


"A hot dog is not an animal." - Jet Yung

My Blog/Website on the art of shakuhachi...and parenting.
How to make an Urban Shakuhachi (PVC)

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#34 2010-06-13 13:39:17

rpowers
Member
From: San Francisco
Registered: 2005-10-09
Posts: 285

Re: Ji-nashi terminology

Yungflutes wrote:

Chris Moran wrote:

I definitely see the skulls in the ice cube, Perry.

Ha! You missed the tortured faces on the tiny roots smile

And the Cheshire cat grinning in the middle of the cube?


"Shut up 'n' play . . . " -- Frank Zappa
"Gonna blow some . . ." -- Junior Walker
"It's not the flute." -- Riley Lee

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#35 2010-06-14 09:19:01

Yungflutes
Flutemaker/Performer
From: New York City
Registered: 2005-10-08
Posts: 1061
Website

Re: Ji-nashi terminology

rpowers wrote:

Yungflutes wrote:

Chris Moran wrote:

I definitely see the skulls in the ice cube, Perry.

Ha! You missed the tortured faces on the tiny roots smile

And the Cheshire cat grinning in the middle of the cube?

Rich, You are very observant. There's more wink


"A hot dog is not an animal." - Jet Yung

My Blog/Website on the art of shakuhachi...and parenting.
How to make an Urban Shakuhachi (PVC)

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