Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

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Tube of delight!

#251 2011-02-04 19:59:52

Karmajampa
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From: Aotearoa (NZ)
Registered: 2006-02-12
Posts: 574
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Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Latest update on Ed. It is so cold in Utah, not only are his fingers firmly frozen to his keyboard, his lips are frozen to his Shakuhachi !


Kia Kaha !

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#252 2011-02-04 21:32:36

No-sword
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From: Kanagawa
Registered: 2008-07-09
Posts: 115
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Re: Do materials used affect sound?

I knew that biting thing was a bad idea.


Matt / no-sword.jp

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#253 2011-02-04 22:16:38

Moran from Planet X
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From: Here to There
Registered: 2005-10-11
Posts: 1524
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Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

I think he's on his way to the post office with his jinashi Perry Yung 2.8. He's sending it to me in trade for my Perry Yung PVC 2.8, since material doesn't matter..

Dammit! I could have traded him a 2.8 I made from four toilet paper tubes!

Dammmmmmmit!


"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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#254 2011-02-05 02:48:08

Alan Adler
Member
From: Los Altos, California
Registered: 2009-02-15
Posts: 78

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Greetings All.

I haven't read every single post.  So this may have already been mentioned. 

How do you bamboo advocates feel about Monty Levenson's "Precision Cast Bore Technology"?

http://shakuhachi.com/Q-PrecisionCastBore.html

I've never heard or played one of Monty's flutes, but it's my understanding that they are very highly regarded.  Yet the air column is vibrating in epoxy.

Monty has demonstrated that a good shakuhachi needn't have a bamboo chamber.

Best regards,

Alan

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#255 2011-02-05 05:12:53

Moran from Planet X
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From: Here to There
Registered: 2005-10-11
Posts: 1524
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Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Alan Adler wrote:

Greetings All.

I haven't read every single post.  So this may have already been mentioned. 

How do you bamboo advocates feel about Monty Levenson's "Precision Cast Bore Technology"?

http://shakuhachi.com/Q-PrecisionCastBore.html

I've never heard or played one of Monty's flutes, but it's my understanding that they are very highly regarded.  Yet the air column is vibrating in epoxy.

Monty has demonstrated that a good shakuhachi needn't have a bamboo chamber.

Best regards,

Alan

Greetings Alan,

First, you really should go back and ready every single word of every single post — all 11 pages. For exciting reading it can't be beat, except maybe by a transcript of Strom Thurmond's 1957 Senate filibuster or the Brooklyn telephone book.

Since you're a flute maker and know something about shakuhachi: Before asking anyone else's opinion of them, you should try try some of Monty's flutes yourself, his top models, his student flutes, his jinashi.

Or maybe you just want to stir up more controversy on the BBQ?  wink Tee-hee.

So go back and read every single word of every single entry on this thread.

After you're done with that penance, try walking up to Willits, California on your bare knees while reciting The Hitori Mondo of Hisamatsu Fuyo (preferably in 17th century Japanese) — continuously.

Play and study some of Monty's shakuhachi.

Report back with your findings.

Thank you, it is your duty,

Chris


"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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#256 2011-02-05 08:39:38

Karmajampa
Member
From: Aotearoa (NZ)
Registered: 2006-02-12
Posts: 574
Website

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Alan Adler wrote:

Greetings All.

I haven't read every single post.  So this may have already been mentioned. 

How do you bamboo advocates feel about Monty Levenson's "Precision Cast Bore Technology"?

http://shakuhachi.com/Q-PrecisionCastBore.html

I've never heard or played one of Monty's flutes, but it's my understanding that they are very highly regarded.  Yet the air column is vibrating in epoxy.

Monty has demonstrated that a good shakuhachi needn't have a bamboo chamber.

Best regards,

Alan

Second Chris de Moran's suggestion, you haven't quite picked up the depth of the thread.

K.


Kia Kaha !

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#257 2011-02-05 10:21:53

mrwuwu
Member
From: Chicago, Illinois
Registered: 2007-11-23
Posts: 160

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Sometimes you just got to respect that Moran guy's in-depth book knowledge of historical artifacts.    He's deeper than he sounds.   : )


" You know, it's been three years now, maybe a new teacher can help you? ...... " Sensei

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#258 2011-02-05 12:18:53

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

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Alan Adler wrote:

Greetings All.

I haven't read every single post.  So this may have already been mentioned. 

How do you bamboo advocates feel about Monty Levenson's "Precision Cast Bore Technology"?

http://shakuhachi.com/Q-PrecisionCastBore.html

I've never heard or played one of Monty's flutes, but it's my understanding that they are very highly regarded.  Yet the air column is vibrating in epoxy.

Monty has demonstrated that a good shakuhachi needn't have a bamboo chamber.

Best regards,

Alan

Hi Alan,
   This has been touched on some. Tairaku has questioned why makers can get a "good" shakuhachi out of alternative materials, but not "great" ones.

Monty's lining really just takes the place of the jiari in a comparable shakuhachi. Partly due to the complexities of traditional jiari shakuhachi, most of the discussion has revolved around what would happen if two identical wooden shakuhachi were compared. We've got a maker here that's working on getting two wooden shakuhachi made to tight specs but different types of wood involved.

The controversy in this forum is caused, IMO, not because we can't agree on whether material effects sound, but that informal, non-scientific, experimentation is possibly damaging to the shakuhachi community if the results do not support related, more scientific, findings.

You'll find a lot of good and interesting information in this thread, but be aware that it took many tangents.


"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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#259 2011-02-05 18:58:11

Alan Adler
Member
From: Los Altos, California
Registered: 2009-02-15
Posts: 78

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

I had read about 85% of the posts, but not quite all.  I'm still looking forward to responses to my question.

How do you bamboo advocates feel about Monty Levenson's "Precision Cast Bore Technology"?

Best,

Alan

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#260 2011-02-05 19:12:29

Toby
Shakuhachi Scientist
From: out somewhere circling the sun
Registered: 2008-03-15
Posts: 405

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Hi Alan,

In traditional jiari, too, the air is enclosed in and pushing against a hardened tube of stone powder and urushi. Cast bores just speed up the process of making an inside sleeve of the right dimensions, as I think you already know.

As a systematic researcher yourself, you know the value of controlled experimentation that yields repeatable results. For the record, I have no problem with informal experimentation, unless it is put on the same level as formal research in building a physical model. It has its place, but I definitely would prefer my house designed by a certified architect than a five-year-old with tinkertoys wink

And don't worry, 17th century Japanese is almost identical with that used today.

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#261 2011-02-05 19:23:25

Tairaku 太楽
Administrator/Performer
From: Tasmania
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 3226
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Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Alan Adler wrote:

I had read about 85% of the posts, but not quite all.  I'm still looking forward to responses to my question.

How do you bamboo advocates feel about Monty Levenson's "Precision Cast Bore Technology"?

Best,

Alan

I don't know what "bamboo advocates" means, of course we are bamboo advocates, we play shakuhachi. It's like saying, "you wood advocates' to a violin player.

Only raw bamboo flutes with no urushi, ji, epoxy or whatever have bamboo lined bores.

Jinashi flutes have the shape of the bamboo bore but usually they have one coat of urushi, so you're still hearing urushi, and it makes a difference in the tone, as anyone who has put urushi into a bore has experienced.

Jiari flutes have ji and urushi lined bores.

Monty's (or anybody's) cast bore flutes are basically another kind of jiari flute, it's just the means of getting the coating into the bore and the material used that is different.

So to directly answer your question I like some of his flutes, but I don't think it's because of the cast bore, probably I would like them just as much if he made them with ji and urushi. But I don't know that for sure. I haven't played any Monty flutes that are made with ji. So I don't know whether the material he casts the bore is better sounding or worse sounding than ji and urushi. However it's easy to hear the difference between his jinashi flutes and the cast ones.

I can make one sideways comparison though. I have played Neptune's jiari, jinashi and cast bore flutes and I liked the cast one I played least. But that was the only cast flute of Neptune's I played. That's a small sample.


'Progress means simplifying, not complicating' : Bruno Munari

http://www.myspace.com/tairakubrianritchie

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#262 2011-02-05 20:28:34

Karmajampa
Member
From: Aotearoa (NZ)
Registered: 2006-02-12
Posts: 574
Website

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Alan Adler wrote:

I had read about 85% of the posts, but not quite all.  I'm still looking forward to responses to my question.

How do you bamboo advocates feel about Monty Levenson's "Precision Cast Bore Technology"?

Best,

Alan

Alan,I have a Monty 1.8 Performance precision cast, plus access to a second 1.8 precision cast, a 2.1 precision cast and one of his 2.4 Jinashi. They are all very good Shakuhachi, solidly crafted, bound like a Chinese foot.
The two 1.8's sound quite different as the bore profiles are different.

I also have a Kono Gyokusui 1.8 Jiari, I play this more than the Monty primarily because I like the tone, but I also like the texture of the bamboo surface, it also only has one rattan binding near the utaguchi.

I also make Hocciku using a relatively softer 'black' bamboo and the harder 'Madake' which I grow on my own property. I have also made a few ceramic, glazed bore to satisfy my curiosity, my opinion on these is they are too bright for my liking.
So consequentially I have been interested in this thread to the point that there seems to be a fine influence on the sound by the hardness/softness of the bore surface, maybe showing up in the timbral makeup of partials. 
And I also feel that there is little difference between plastic, metal, resin or Ji surfaces, they are so similar.

So next we have woods, hard and soft, and bamboos, hard and soft.
But even the harder bamboos have a different surface to the hard plastic, resin, metal surface.

This influence may be slight but nevertheless it is there.

Then there are the aesthetic preferences. I like the quiet simplicity of working with bamboo that I have grown, dried and now shape into a Shakuhachi with a handful of tools.

But I don't reject other materials as viable to make a useful Shakuhachi. I like playing and I will blow a plastic doll if that will satisfy that desire.

K.


Kia Kaha !

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#263 2011-02-05 20:54:14

Horst Xenmeister
Shiham
From: Germany
Registered: 2007-05-26
Posts: 69
Website

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Alan Adler wrote:

I had read about 85% of the posts, but not quite all.  I'm still looking forward to responses to my question.

How do you bamboo advocates feel about Monty Levenson's "Precision Cast Bore Technology"?

Best,

Alan

Alan,

Vary imprortanting when mak wurst puting correct thing inside. Good pig, spice and intestines if the sausage only. Bad sausages, hunderfleisch, insekte bone und haar.

Simlar with Shakuhachi vary imprortanting puting corect things inside.

1. Raw Bambuss gut
2. Urushi OK
3. Ji beter
4. PVC more beter
5. Casted form in quality of beter-BEST WAY! Most natürliche. This is develepment of shakuhachi to modernen world.

End of history.

Last edited by Horst Xenmeister (2011-02-05 20:57:59)


i am horst

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#264 2011-02-05 23:18:54

Colyn Petersen
Member
From: Omaha, NE
Registered: 2009-11-20
Posts: 46
Website

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Toby wrote:

I definitely would prefer my house designed by a certified architect than a five-year-old with tinkertoys wink .

Why certainly, but Toby, are you implying something additionally here? If not, my apologies. I would also prefer my flute be made by a more hemispherically balanced individual. I have known a few flute scientists. Most of whom seemed to be quite well read on paper, not to mention who are generally quite vocal on forums. Trouble is that I have not met one yet who could consistently make a decent flute. I find the talk quite impressive. I find the walk quite lacking.

In taking quiet surveys, it seems that there are many notable individuals who feel that there is a difference in the sound of materials. It appears that they are smarter than I, however, because they have long ago exempted themselves from the public eye regarding their opinion.


Though images may appear on the surface of a mirror with clarity, they are neither in the mirror, nor sticking to its surface.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

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#265 2011-02-06 00:09:09

Tairaku 太楽
Administrator/Performer
From: Tasmania
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 3226
Website

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Colyn Petersen wrote:

Why certainly, but Toby, are you implying something additionally here? If not, my apologies. I would also prefer my flute be made by a more hemispherically balanced individual. I have known a few flute scientists. Most of whom seemed to be quite well read on paper, not to mention who are generally quite vocal on forums. Trouble is that I have not met one yet who could consistently make a decent flute. I find the talk quite impressive. I find the walk quite lacking.

Great makers like Miura Kindo, Yamaguchi Shiro, Araki Chikuo, Inoue Shigemi, Kogetsu and so on are not members of the BBQ. Nor did they have websites, or even leave behind any written material about their thoughts on flutemaking. However they must have had some ideas. Most of these guys are the ones who developed the jiari concept to perfection, so it can't be said they were just relying upon "tradition". They were innovators. Who knows what great information they had and shared with each other. Some of this must have been lost by now, because nobody is making flutes like that any more. Their results are fantastic, whatever their theories might be.

On the other hand, you're right, guys like Nelson Zink have little clue how to make a musically satisfying shakuhachi even if they've thought it out quite thoroughly and are quite verbose about it.

That's not to say these scientific thinkers don't have something to add to the conversation, certainly they do. But there must be more to making shakuhachi than measuring stuff or the results would be there.


'Progress means simplifying, not complicating' : Bruno Munari

http://www.myspace.com/tairakubrianritchie

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#266 2011-02-06 02:40:20

Moran from Planet X
Member
From: Here to There
Registered: 2005-10-11
Posts: 1524
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Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

Great makers like Miura Kindo, Yamaguchi Shiro, Araki Chikuo, Inoue Shigemi, Kogetsu ... They were innovators. Who knows what great information they had and shared with each other. Some of this must have been lost by now, because nobody is making flutes like that any more.

When I have asked "my" teacher Bill Shozan Schultz about modern and older shakuhachi he's said a few things which I'll do my best to paraphrase:

1. The tuning of good older shakuhachi is different because older Japanese music recognized intervals that do not fit (that) well modern Western music intervals. There is nothing wrong with that and they should never be re-tuned to modern standards because once you touch one part of the bore you alter relations with other parts of the bore which work tonally on similar notes (like to Neptunes pressure points).  This is probably repetition for most of us reading here. The Chi's are only "sharp" or the Tsu "flat" becuae you're condtioned to hearing Western music.

2. Bill plays a modern Shinzan 1.8 for Tozan, KSK (Yokoyama style) and Myoan (Meian) style. However in order to get his shihan license in the Myoan Shakuhachi tradition he must used an approved Myoan jinashi (possibly a semi-jinashi) flute which plays different (older) intervals. He used to say that he should always play his Shizan 1.8 for all his different styles but recently he has seen the merit of playing some older flutes to coincide with the older music.

3. When Bill and I have played more modern japanese instruments we've noticed a growing trend in modern shakuhachi designed to play certain notes very strongly yet rather rigidly. Taking Ro for example I played lots of modern shakuhachi Ro which basically have one good Ro -- they're designed that way, but have little room for other types of dimensional expression with that Ro.  They are easier to play and engineered to make certain desirable sounds which people associate with good shakuhachi playing, but are two dimensional instruments when it comes to expressiveness. Shakuhachi making is a business and people are looking for a certain set of sounds which they think are good, so shakuhachi makers make them to sell to those audiences. So people sound "good" quicker, at least they sound good to themselves quicker. Although I struggle more to keep good intonation on my instrument, I found instruments that I don't have to struggle with to be limited and boring.

4. Cast bore technology works well for getting basic instruments made with bore profiles based upon master makers. You would think that it would be slam dunk but there are so many variables introduced my shape of the bamboo that making "great" multidimensional instruments might be a big problem. It also depends on what kind of music will be played. Old Tozan, New Tozan, Minyo, Myoan, KSK, Kinko Sankyoku, or honkyoku. Then their are material concerns: Is Epoxy close to traditional tonoko ji? Doesn't density effect tone? You'd have to go and try them, get the mouth pieces shaped to fit your face, let Monty know what kind of music you want to play and what kind of notes you want express most fully and may be you'll come out with a truly superior instrument -- for you.

5. I decided that I would like a custom shakuhachi made from carbon fiber. Bill wants a master instrument made from titanium.

Last edited by Moran from Planet X (2011-02-06 07:46:00)


"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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#267 2011-02-06 03:53:11

Toby
Shakuhachi Scientist
From: out somewhere circling the sun
Registered: 2008-03-15
Posts: 405

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Colyn Petersen wrote:

Toby wrote:

I definitely would prefer my house designed by a certified architect than a five-year-old with tinkertoys wink .

Why certainly, but Toby, are you implying something additionally here? If not, my apologies. I would also prefer my flute be made by a more hemispherically balanced individual. I have known a few flute scientists. Most of whom seemed to be quite well read on paper, not to mention who are generally quite vocal on forums. Trouble is that I have not met one yet who could consistently make a decent flute. I find the talk quite impressive. I find the walk quite lacking.

In taking quiet surveys, it seems that there are many notable individuals who feel that there is a difference in the sound of materials. It appears that they are smarter than I, however, because they have long ago exempted themselves from the public eye regarding their opinion.

No, I did not mean that as it sounded. My apologies. I meant only that an understanding of the properties of materials is a good thing when that is an important consideration for one reason or another, all other factors aside.

I think that you will find that almost every player and maker who is not a scientist has a strong opinion on the effect of materials, usually that they matter very much. This leads many people to believe that the scientists must be missing something. Scientists can only continue to point out that their methods work very well in many other fields much more "critical" and tightly coupled than instrument building (such as designs of cooling systems for nuclear reactors or jet engines), and there is no real reason to think that bamboo or wood will not lend itself to the same sort of analysis that they use in those other fields. And correctly, they point out that without controlling for all the factors that are known to make a difference, it is really impossible to tell what is going on. Further, there have been a number of well-conceived experiments that do show perceptual bias as an important factor. Blind testing really is a pretty good method of getting past that. And it further needs to be remembered that almost all the scientists of whom we are speaking are or were either professional or highly accomplished amateur musicians.

But still we have people like the president of Powell Flutes extolling the virtues of cyrogenic treatment, and giving impossible metallurgical reasons for the supposed improvement in his world-class instruments. I leave it to you to make your own judgment

As I said in an earlier post, you can't make an instrument by numbers, generally speaking. Analysis and synthesis are two very different things. The place of synthesis is in the creation, and it is intuitive and creative. The role of analysis comes afterward. Unfortunately, there are few individuals who can wrap their heads (or have time) to combine those lovely complementarities. Here is a link to a paper by Benade about instruments, and how to build and adjust them. It is worth looking over if you are interested in seeing how science might come to the aid of the instrument builder:

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/marl/Benade/ … 3-1977.pdf

Beyond that, such analysis can be an invaluable aid in understanding how to deal with shortcomings of instruments and adjust them. Much of John Neptune's work with "pressure points" for bore adjustments derives from Rayleigh perturbation theory and W curve analysis. Perhaps not better than the countless years of experience of the great builders, but certainly a valuable roadmap.

Nor does the inability of scientists to build the best instruments by number invalidate the accuracy of their analysis. Let's not be confusing apples with oranges.

I've spent much more time on this thread than I would have liked simply because I want to shake up some people who are lost not in translation, but in tradition. I've lived in Japan now for more than a quarter of a century, and I have quite a bit of experience with this little island nation. I wish it well; I wish it beyond well--in many ways I think it is the hope for the world, in its spirit of cooperation and balance of group and individual rights. However it is also so horribly hidebound in so many ways. How sad, and even tragic. I want to shout that you can accept the modern world without getting lost in its depersonalization; tradition can abide with and even be strengthened by modernity. Science and art is not an either/or proposition, and those who think it is only diminish themselves and their work IMO.

Actually Buddha said it best: people with opinions only go around bothering each other.

Namasté

Last edited by Toby (2011-02-06 05:50:32)

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#268 2011-02-06 04:13:27

Toby
Shakuhachi Scientist
From: out somewhere circling the sun
Registered: 2008-03-15
Posts: 405

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Moran from Planet X wrote:

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

Great makers like Miura Kindo, Yamaguchi Shiro, Araki Chikuo, Inoue Shigemi, Kogetsu ... They were innovators. Who knows what great information they had and shared with each other. Some of this must have been lost by now, because nobody is making flutes like that any more.

When I have asked "my" teacher Bill Shozan Schultz about modern and older shakuhachi he's said a few things which I'll do my best to paraphrase:

1. The tuning of good older shakuhachi is different because older Japanese music recognized intervals that do not fit (that) well modern Western music intervals. There is nothing wrong with that and they should never be re-tuned to modern standards because once you touch one part of the bore you alter relations with other parts of the bore which work tonally on similar notes (like to Neptunes pressure points).  This is probably repetition for most of us reading here. The Chi's are only "sharp" or the Tsu "flat" becuae you're condtioned to hearing Western music.

2. Bill plays a modern Shinzan 1.8 for Tozan, KSK (Yokoyama style) and Myoan (Meian) style. However in order to get his shihan license in the Myoan Shakuhachi tradition he must used an approved Myoan jinashi (possibly a semi-jinashi) flute which plays different (older) intervals. He used to say that he should always play his Shizan 1.8 for all his different styles but recently he has seen the merit of playing some older flutes to coincide with the older music.

3. When Bill and I have played more modern japanese instruments we've noticed a growing trend in modern shakuhachi designed to play certain notes very strongly yet rather rigidly. Taking Ro for example I played lots of modern shakuhachi Ro which basically have one good Ro -- they're designed that way, but have little room for other types of dimensional expression with that Ro.  They are easier to play and engineered to make certain desirable sounds which people associate with good shakuhachi playing, but are two dimensional instruments when it comes to expressiveness. Shakuhachi making is a business and people are looking for a certain set of sounds which they think are good, so shakuhachi makers make them to sell to those audiences. So people sound "good" quicker, at least they sound good to themselves quicker. Although I struggle more to keep good intonation on my instrument, I found instruments that I don't have to struggle with to be limited and boring.

4. Cast bore technology works well for getting basic instruments made with bore profiles based upon master makers. You would think that it would be slam dunk but there are so many variables introduced my shape of the bamboo that making "great" multidimensional instruments might be a big problem. It also depends on what kind of music will be played. Old Tozan, New Tozan, Minyo, Myoan, KSK, Kinko Sankyoku, or honkyoku. Then their material concerns smile Is Epoxy close to traditional tonoko ji. Doesn't desity effect tone? You'd have to go and try them, get the mouth pieces shaped to fit your face, let Monty know what kind of music you want to play and what kind of notes you want express most fully and may be you'll come out with a truly superior instrument -- for you.

5. I decided that I would like a custom shakuhachi made from carbon fiber. Bill want a master instrument made from titanium.

Wow, Moran! What a nice, lucid, serious post!

Yes, everything changes, the river never stands still. The same can be said about Western instruments, even modern ones like saxes. The great old Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari violins have all been altered to get more sound out of them. The sweet sound of the old simple system flute is gone, doomed once Theobald Boehm heard a concert by the virtuoso Charles Nicholson and wanted a sound as big as his.

I always say that every instrument, every bore, is a compromise. For something gained, something always must be sacrificed. Science can point us to acoustic efficiency, but that may not be the most important thing for the music. In a neighboring world, there is a dedicated community of sax players who love the vintage instruments. As with your Ro, modern saxes are loud and brassy and lock right onto pitch, but they lack the sweet lyricism of the older instruments, and their fluidity and their responsiveness.  But the world moves on and new demands are made by the changed environment. Vintage sax sound was doomed by electric instruments, and the uses and conception of the shakuhachi as a musical instrument, and the role it plays, have changed as well.

It is also necessary to realize that once shakuhachi were made with no attention being paid to the actual notes, the holes being drilled on the basis of aesthetics alone. Nor was anyone looking so much for a certain sound. I have a bunch of flutes from pre-modern societies; funny nose flutes from the Ifugao tribe in the Philippines and some monstrosities from Papua New Guinea, which were obviously not made for playing diatonic music...A lot of earlier Japanese instruments were like that as well, and the gagaku court winds still hold a place of honor in not being designed or able to play anything like a normal diatonic or pentatonic scale.

Such considerations aside, there are good instruments and less good instruments in every class,  but my feeling is that when a certain point is reached, it becomes a matter of taste as to which attributes (often seemingly mutually exclusive) one wants accentuated. I have three or four nice 1.8s here, and they are all lovely instruments with distinct personalities. I had several  others not quite in the same class, and they have been distributed to the winds, but I would be hard-pressed to say that any one of these was "better" than another, even though I could definitely grade them according to narrow attributes like "brightness" or "resistance".

I am still of the opinion that instruments with identical bores would play identically, but that too is a narrow, objective point. They would feel different, and look different, and that alone would change their gestalt. How an instrument feels in the hand and one's emotional attachment to it has much more effect on the final sound than small differences in the bore, because the sound is a product of the player/instrument combination. You and I have the same keys on our keyboards, but we write very different things with them.

Last edited by Toby (2011-02-06 06:04:01)

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#269 2011-02-06 07:45:13

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

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Toby wrote:

Wow, Moran! What a nice, lucid, serious post!

Gee, Thanks, Tobysan. Shows what an extra strong dose of Ambien does to my writing, although the inappropriate smiley-face and a couple of other punctuation choices did give me away.

Have we heard from Eddie yet, or are they still trying to defrost his tongue?


"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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#270 2011-02-06 07:50:24

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

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Horst Xenmeister wrote:

Bad sausages, hunderfleisch, insekte bone und haar.

Horst, I know a lonely Norwegian rapper in search of a good lyricist.

I'm sure the lederhosen would be a big plus.


"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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#271 2011-02-06 14:34:56

Karmajampa
Member
From: Aotearoa (NZ)
Registered: 2006-02-12
Posts: 574
Website

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

It has been so cold in Utah  Ed has taken the pragmatic course and gone into hibernation, along with his shakuhachi and keyboard !


Kia Kaha !

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#272 2011-02-07 06:21:09

Alan Adler
Member
From: Los Altos, California
Registered: 2009-02-15
Posts: 78

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

It appears that some hacker is at work.  He has replaced a word referring to the favored material with "SUPERBOWL CHAMPIONS".  He has also replaced the word referring to the favored musical instrument with "Green Bay Packers".

Mujitsu, are you watching?  Did you do this?  It's now embedded in this site.

Last edited by Alan Adler (2011-02-07 06:27:06)

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#273 2011-02-07 07:40:48

Toby
Shakuhachi Scientist
From: out somewhere circling the sun
Registered: 2008-03-15
Posts: 405

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Alan, I think that the "hacker" might be one of the admins, who is a Green Bay fan...I believe the last time the word for our type of flute was changed to "tube of delight".

Last edited by Toby (2011-02-07 07:42:16)

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#274 2011-02-07 08:14:24

Colyn Petersen
Member
From: Omaha, NE
Registered: 2009-11-20
Posts: 46
Website

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Hacker Backer. obviously.


Though images may appear on the surface of a mirror with clarity, they are neither in the mirror, nor sticking to its surface.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

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#275 2011-02-07 08:24:45

No-sword
Member
From: Kanagawa
Registered: 2008-07-09
Posts: 115
Website

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

This is not a scientific hypothesis but I am not sure that a flute made out of Superbowl champions would sound that great.


Matt / no-sword.jp

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