Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

philthefluter wrote:

Many thanks Dominique for all your suggestions. I'd like to add a short elaboration. I'd recommend that players slowly progress from the standard 1.8 to 2.0/2.1 to 2.4, etc. Even this can take years. I know that bansuri players start with a shorter flute and gradually move onto longer flutes.  It is also important to practise the long shakuhachi as regularly as the short ones. If I don't get a chance to play my 2.8 for a month, I will start off with only 5 minutes playing for a week before tackling one of the longer honkyoku.

Different strokes for different folks. I agree with you. When I switched from silver to Irish flute that has a much larger finger spread, I made made the transition easier by playing on a G whistle first (larger finger spread than a D whistle, but still smaller than a low D whistle or flute). I'd think it's the best way of doing it. However, I read somewhere that it was suggested that Turkish ney players should start with the longest instrument that they can, because if you learn on the longer instrument, the shorter instruments will be easy. I didn't do it this way, I first learned on a very short Egyptian ney (actually I think it's called a suffara), progressed to a longer Kiz ney, and then to the longer Monsur ney.

There may be more to the idea of starting on longer flutes than just the "speaking with gravel in the mouth" philosophy of starting out with whatever is harder first. A lot of the key to playing longer instruments comfortably is hand position and not finger spread. If a long flute is played placing the right hand (the one furthest away) so that the index finger covers the hole with the part of the finger closest to the knuckle, and the hand is angled naturally, not striving to be perpendicular, so that the next finger (the one next to the pinky on a shakuhachi)  covers the hole with the middle or tip of the finger, the amount you need to spread your fingers is reduced significantly. There's obviously a limit to this, and I'm speculating at this point because I've never played instuments as long as I've seen in some shakuhachi pictures, but at some point in order to keep a comfortable hand position you'd need to resort to using your pinky finger.

The whole thing about resting your hands often shouldn't be an issue. If you need to "rest" your hand, you're causing damage to your hand. You're either holding the flute wrong or the flute is too long for you. By "wrong" I mean it could be held in a manner that isn't damaging. It's possible that what is best for your hands isn't "proper" for traditional Japanese music. Personally, I had a silver flute teacher early on who recommended playing in a less than comfortable position because it was better technically. Not that the teacher was wrong, it made very logical sense and she even told me who taught her the positioning, but it goes to show that what your teacher is telling you to do might not be the best for your hands. Not so coincidentally this same teacher now, some 30 years later, is very quick to point out how great bo-peps, thumb docks and other ergonomic aids are.

I just noticed that in proofreading this I neglected the issue of holding the flute too tight. You don't need to . You only need enough tightness to cover the holes, which is minimal. There's a strong tendancy to try to correct notes not coming out by tightening the grip. There might be something to this because tightening your grip will cause your fingers to squish out a little, possibly causing the holes to be covered, but it's not the best solution.  If the notes aren't coming out, DONT SQUEEZE TIGHTER. Look at your hand position, see if the holes are being covered. If it's obvious they aren't, correct your hand position so they are, and try again. If it's not obvious, a little experimentation is in order. Play other notes that require those fingers to be down, like a different octave or one note lower. If you can't play that those notes either, assume you've isolated the problem to the hole not being covered well, so correct your hand position and try again. When your first learning an instrument, particularly by yourself without the help of a teacher, it can be very difficult to isolate the problem to notes not being covered well because it could very well be your embouchure causing the problem. I've went as far as covering the suspect hole with electrical tape to help isolate the problem.

Another thing that maybe I should clarify is that by "hand position", although the thing to look at first is your wrist and hand, your entire arm, how close or far away your elbow is to the body, how angled the flute is, by that I mean somewhere between straight down or horizontal to the floor, and even the position of your torso, can effect the hand position.