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I am a practicing Zen Buddhist and I am a luthier. My former shop mate makes shakuhachi flutes so I am now on the path to building my first. I have Monty Levinson's book on building on the way. I am off to a local bamboo grower to see about bamboo stock. Any help on getting the correct bamboo would certinally be appreciated. I am looking foreward to making sounds with my first.
Peace,
Robert
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robert wrote:
I am a practicing Zen Buddhist and I am a luthier. My former shop mate makes shakuhachi flutes so I am now on the path to building my first.
Welcome Robert,
Hard, dense culms are usually best. Including the root end will give you the advantage of a tapered bore.
Here are some other bamboo possibilities:
An economical way to start making shakuhachi while developing your sound is to use tonkin bamboo. These hard, dense culms can make surprisingly nice shakuhachi. They are available at many nurseries and online bamboo warehouses. Look for culms cut as close to the ground as possible.
Chinese root bamboo is also inexpensive and can make decent shakuhachi. Various grades are available online.
If you want to go right into Japanese Madake, Mejiro in Japan will ship specific sizes to you. Sometimes, makers have extra culms to sell. But not always!
Good luck!
Ken
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Ooops. Portland, Oregon.
Well I went to a local bamboo grower in Portland and actually he has a few local people buying his bamboo for flutemaking. He has a lot of tonkin, and some nergra and a couple of other pieces. Being I have to wait for Monty Leninson to send the book, it will ship this Monday, what diameter should I be buying? He has some lengths at reasonable prices and does culling of customers stock every once in a while.
Went to various posts on your forum and am amazed at what is out there.
Robert
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Hi Robert. Exciting quest you're on!
robert wrote:
what diameter should I be buying?
Hard question to answer unless you tell us how long and what style of flute you're going to make.
Inner diameter is just as important, and every culm will present a different wall thickness to you.
But 30-42 mm outer diameter might be a good ballpark for "normal" flutes (1.6 or 1.8) right up through wide, long (chokan) jinashi flutes. You can read about aspect ratio on the forum on or Nelson Zink's site. A flute that's wide for its length can sound really great in the low register but might be hard or impossible to tune in the upper register and beyond.
Take a pieces of string or strips of paper with hole position templates along for various lengths of flute you think you might like. (You can find these formulas on the forum and elsewhere on the web.) Then you can see if the hole placements relative to nodes is reasonable.
Good luck! (Disclaimer... everyone else knows it here, but I'm an amateur.)
-Darren.
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robert wrote:
Ooops. Portland, Oregon.
Well I went to a local bamboo grower in Portland and actually he has a few local people buying his bamboo for flutemaking. He has a lot of tonkin, and some nergra and a couple of other pieces. Being I have to wait for Monty Leninson to send the book, it will ship this Monday, what diameter should I be buying? He has some lengths at reasonable prices and does culling of customers stock every once in a while.
Went to various posts on your forum and am amazed at what is out there.
Robert
Hi Robert, you probably want to start making PVC and cheap bamboo in different lengths and dimensions to learn the basics before venturing into using fine culms of madake. You also don't have to worry much about node placement then.
I agree with Ken, the tonkin bamboo is nice especially for long flutes. For short flutes there's nothing wrong with PVC.
Also the best advice to give to any aspiring maker is to learn how to play. There are some teachers up in your part of the world. I think Larry Tyyrell who is on the forum lives in Oregon. If you don't know at least the basics of playing you'll not be able to evaluate your own flutes.
Good luck and welcome to the shakuhachi world.
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