Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

D.J. · 2007-01-29 22:30:57

I am a bit of an eclectic. Between my daughter and myself, we work with a huge variety of instruments. My daughter plays upright bass in the orchestra, bass electric, acoustic and classical guitar, keyboards and marimba. She hates flutes!

I spent two years playing African drums (Djembe and Djun Djuns). I took a good many classes and just as I was getting good, a chronic back injury took me out. I moved to the didgeridoo soon afterwards. As I sat on the beach playing didge one evening, I had a distinct need to find finger holes so I could play notes. The rest is history.

I play a decent didgeridoo and NAF and I am still struggling with the Shakuhachi. I do most of the didge work in the spring and summer on the beach with the didges and the flutes when I can get out of the apartment. During the winter in the Seattle area, I am pretty much stuck inside so I concentrate on the flutes then.

D.J.

radi0gnome · 2007-01-30 00:08:54

Hi D.J.,

So do you use circular breathing with the shakuhachi? After playing didjeridoo for a while I try circular breathing with any wind instrument I pick up, when I got back to the shakuhachi I found circular breathing surprisingly easy. I read some discussions on this forum that say there's at least one teacher/performer that uses circular breathing, but I guess it's not typical.

D.J. · 2007-01-30 06:48:27

It took me nine months to get the circular breathing down. A friend of mine learned in 3 days! Obviously it is an individual thing! Now I can circle breathe all day. I often play for an hour or two at a time when I am in practice. I tried it with my flutes. No way. Not enough back pressure. Pocketing air in the mouth as done in didge playing disrupts my blowing of the shakuhachi. Ray Brooks in his book, Zen Blowing, discusses it and his master taught him how to pocket the air in the throat. I have not tried that. it took Ray 2 years to figure it out.

D.J.

radi0gnome · 2007-01-30 09:08:55

Interesting, it took me about the same amount of time to learn on didj, and maybe a little longer but some of that was developing my lip because that has to very solid to keep the tone going through all the pressure and mouth cavity shape changes that occur while taking a breath. And besides, it's not a "don't got it"/"got it" kind of thing, you can get better at it. Yes, there's not enough back-pressure on shakuhachi to puff your cheeks out, but the tone can be produced with so little air that it's not necessary. I'm not sure about using air that's in the throat, that seems a bit to far back as it has to at least be above whatever the piece of anatomy is that keeps food from going down your esophagus. I use the air that's always in the mouth cavity from the soft palette and forward and use a motion of my tongue that starts from the back of my tongue sealing the passageway so that the mouth cavity is separated from the nose/lung airway first and then push the air out by bringing the rest of my tongue to the roof of my mouth. It's not as easy as it is with didj, but it's a lot easier than with transverse flute, except I have a low G (alto) bamboo transverse flute that's not too difficult. Also, I don't use it and it would be very difficult to use it to keep the tone going indefinitely like you can on didj. What I use it for is to keep a tone going for about a minute or so at a time with 3 to 4 breaths circular breaths in between. I know that a minute is actually possible with a big normal breath (not by me, but I know it's possible), and circular breathing is not something I can do with that super-energetic loud blowing that's so fun on shakuhachi, but I think I would have tired from the limitations of not being able to circular breath and put the instrument back into its storage spot by now if it wasn't as easy and useful as it is... Umm, by "easy", keep in mind that I really mean "relatively easy", as I still end up dropping the tone occasionally while circular breathing.

D.J. · 2007-02-04 23:29:05

I found that the more I play the didge, the less air it takes. For me, it takes far less air than a Shakuhachi. The natural impulse when learning is to over blow. After about 4 year of play, I still don’t consider myself a good circle breather. I have a friend who used to play tuba and he now plays didge. He can keep the didge going at the lowest drone none-stop for hours without the slightest bump in the breath. It is amazing to watch him play. I circle breath at precise points where there is a change in the rhythm. Near the end of the summer when I play a lot, I get much better and my rapid bounce breath play is like a machine gun.

As far as circle breathing in either flute, NAF or Shakuhachi, I am terrible and I have no real desire to make myself learn the skill with the flutes. It would be nice to know how, but I am still concentrating on the music and in the case of the Shakuhachi, the embouchure. I will be seeing Ben Hicks this weekend at a workshop. What I am looking for next is a didge that is superior with harmonics and vocals. I took a class from Ash Dargan and he blew me away with the intensity and pitch of his harmonics. The didge he used was a very wide bore. I have to ask Ben what creates the best harmonic in a didge.

D.J.

Last edited by D.J. (2007-02-04 23:30:50)

Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

#1 2007-01-29 22:30:57

D.J. from North Seattle

#2 2007-01-30 00:08:54

Re: D.J. from North Seattle

#3 2007-01-30 06:48:27

Re: D.J. from North Seattle

#4 2007-01-30 09:08:55

Re: D.J. from North Seattle

#5 2007-02-04 23:29:05

Re: D.J. from North Seattle

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