I have seen some priced at $5,000! It’s a piece of bamboo! So…why are they SO expensive?
The quality, honest-to-goodness ones are made from the rootstalks, chosen for aesthetic appearance as well as proper dimensions, seasoned for sometimes 20-60 years or even more before construction, and the cutaway embouchures are inlaid with horn or the like, and usually made by traditional artisans who’ve inherited their craft over generations or through apprenticeship. Some of the makers probably qualify as national treasures.
Camellia oil is the oil of choice for their interiors.
Nano,
Do you play one? I received one as a gift that I’d love to learn to play. Any suggestions?
Carol
Never tried, myself. There’s a local shakuhachi club, and most of the members play PVC or plain bamboo sticks --much, much less expensive!! I think that some others are made out of wood, as well. The cool, traditional ones are the pricey ones, though. Originally they were played by mendicant monks called Komusou who wore head-covering basketry over their heads --maybe you’ve seen photos of them. The idea was Buddhist; anonymity as non-ego, or something like that, but they were frequently employed as spies, too, due to their disguise, or at least spies appropriated the costume. The flute’s club-like construction wasn’t just for Zen-style beauty: they functioned as acceptable self-defense weapons suitable for a monk. Heard a shakuhachi recital once in Japan. Cool stuff.
I hazily recall that you cover most of the blowhole with your lower lip, and cut the airstream at the cutaway point. I don’t know much more than that.
It’s like a quena, more or less, but it doesn’t have a Western scale (some do, but that’s cheating! 
). If you want to do it right, it’s a quasi-religious quest. The music has it’s own notation, which of course is in Japanese. Worse than Irish music. And all you get from your trouble is spiritual enlightment and inner peace… I’d stay away from it! 
You’ve been warned!
g
P.S.: shakuhachi, by the way, is a Japanese term that describes the length of a standard flute (about the same size as a “D” Irish flute).
I have a shakuhachi that I purchased from an itinerant, quasi-professional shakuhachi builder and player. I paid $65 for it, mainly because the person looked like he really needed to make the sale. I gather that, at least in this country, shakuhachi performing is not all that lucrative.
Anyway, the shakuhachi that I have is made from timber bamboo and is 25 inches long. It has four finger holes and a thumbhole on the underside of the instrument, much like a recorder. However, the open thumbhole doesn’t give you another note, but, instead, it duplicates the octave of the fundamental, the same as having all holes covered. This makes the shakuhachi that I own a pentatonic instrument, the octave scale being divided into five intervals (six notes including the octave), in contrast to the eight notes (six finger holes) that is present on the standard open-hole Irish flute with a diatonic scale.
To be truthful, I have difficulty listening to the shakuhachi being played for any length of time. With so few notes in the tonal palette, the tunes sound uninteresting, even boring. I have the same problem with the Native American flute, which is also pentatonic. But, of course, I am use to hearing tunes fashioned from the twelve notes of the chromatic scale.
By the way, my shakuhachi is for sale. It probably deserves a more appreciate owner.
Doug, on the shakuhachi, there are as many as eight holes, I have been given to understand, and which is considered the norm, and I’ve heard quite the array of melodic possibilities played, and well beyond the pentatonic. I would well imagine there are lesser-holed varieties of the beast, though. What I do know is that the name comes from “shaku”, a unit of measurement generally describing the flute’s length, and “hachi”, or eight --the number of holes. To be honest, I don’t know if that means six toneholes and embouchure and bell, or eight toneholes. I’ve never looked that closely. Anyway, my sources have always mentioned the “one shaku, eight holes” reasoning behind the name.
Where’s Glauber when you need him???
i studied the shakuhachi for one year before giving it up. i was actually interested in starting on it again but i just got my grinter Bb flute the other day and i think i want to spend some time getting to know that. but the shakuhachi comes in various sizes, the low pitch ones are longer, some are quite big, and unbelievable in the way they resonate. if you were in a room when it is played, it would be quite an experience.
to learn, i had i really good one (normal/standard size). my teacher sold it to me. it had a repaired crack in it. i believe i paid about $600 for it. it was not a student model but at least a grade better. he made it while he studied with the monks in japan. it had a polished bore. there is half-holing and chin dipping involved to get all the notes so the flute needs to be very responsive. and the bamboo is thick too. there is a real depth to the tone. the cut away is so important too - razor sharp. the masters play with incredible sensitivity and control. they do some amazing things. so it is a tradition that evolved to demand the very best in instruments - very high standards. the tradition was purely a meditative endeavor (blowin’ zen was how it was described to me). although today many westerners are exploring musically with it - even altering the scale.
i’m no Glauber but…
shakuhachi means 1.8 shaku. that is the most common length, so that is the generic name. there are other lengths, 1.3, 2.4 etc.
a shaku is something like a cubit, IIRC it was the length of the forearm from wrist crease to elbow crease.
AFAIK most shakuhachi are pentatonic and seldom have eight holes. Japanese traditional music is based on pentatonic scales and any diatonic or chromatic music in Japan reflects Western influence.
There’s a good book, ‘Blowing Zen,’ written by
a Westerner who became a shaku master
in Japan–tells his story, full of great anecdotes.
Forget his name. I believe he’s in Canada now
and has made some recordings.
The book certainly makes it sound like
it’s an art that goes very deep. But I haven’t
really listened to the music.
I am shocked and surprised that someone like you would make such a statement! The tunes you are used to are fashioned from generally no more than only 7 of those notes in the chromatic scale (and often as little as 5). Further more, with regard to the eastern tradition, the bending of each of the notes in the octave (or “hexave”) comprehends a chromatic range. IE lets say your instrument goes from B to B+ in five notes, the glissando from each of the notes will cover the full range of tones in the spectrum from B to B+. That the tradition only uses a hexave does not decrease its chromatic range, particularly when the instruments in the tradition are geared to glissando.
Also, t seems to me that its not the instrument you are bored with but the tradition of the stuff you are hearing? There are many traditions with pentatonic music that is exciting and expansive. Have you tried these out? Blues perhaps? What about Bhoop?
On a less critical note, what are the five notes on your selling shaku?
(Edited to change “pentave” to “hexave”)
I stand corrected. With glissando, there are an infinite number of notes between the regular notes in the scale, so that the melodic possibilites are unlimited, even with the limitation of the pentatonic scale.
Yes, it must be the tradition that doesn’t interest me very much, even though I listen to a lot of world music with great interest.
Dan Parker, who made the shauhachi and who has made recordings playing the instrument, said that the flute was tuned to “yellow bell” tuning, which is thought to be the sound of nature but not right on western tuning. However, a chose approximation to the notes on the flute are: B, D, E, F#, A.
jim…that authors name…ray brooks.
Its a great book…very inspiring regardless of what instrument you play.
The philosophy of the shakuhachi is called ‘suizen’ or blowing zen
hence the title.
he has a cd aswell which i think is called ‘the empty bell’ based on the
trad honkyoku pieces of the wondering monks.
i dont own a shak but i do have an Andean quenacho flute which has
a similar embouchure but with seven holes (one thumb hole)…the
tone is very rich and expressive…my low D whistles are taking second
place to it at the moment.
I like Monty Levenson’s site, http://shakuhachi.com/
I found this amazing picture of John Coltrane there:
Lots of cool articles there:
http://www.shakuhachi.com/TOC-Articles.html
Monty is a regular in the “flutemakers” Yahoo group.
I’ve been sorely tempted to buy a shak, but i already have a full-time job and several full-time musical pursuits, and i just can’t take another one now, seriously.
I understand the traditional shakuhachi has five holes. There are models with more, but they’re not traditional. You can get a full chromatic scale in the 5-hole model by cross-fingering and “lipping”.
This link has some interesting shakuhachi websites on both makers
and players…
http://communication.ucsd.edu/shaku/shaku_makers.html
i think another reason for the shakuhachi’s expensive price is the
time the craftsmen spend preparing the bore…some makers will
apply small amounts of a plaster substance along different areas of
the bore to cause a subtle change in the acoustic, in this way and over
a period of time the instrument is fine tuned.
With a little effort you would get the scales for the following pentatonic raagas:-
B Shiv-ranjani;
D Bhoop (or transcribe Auld Lang Syne to D);
E Vrindabani Sarang (or transcribe Oro Se Do Bheatha Abhaile to E);
F# Malkauns (very Blusy); and
A Durga
You can find interesting traditional, jazz fusion and folk fusion renditions of them all on the net.
Try before you sell? What do you reckon? Been there, done that already?
I ordered the book.
I stand corrected, then. Reading through this thread it appears that there are various tunings, then, which was my first hunch when I got up this morning, given that Japanese trad was based on modes, and I imagine it is still. If they’re pentatonic, some of those modes use intervals that stand outside my usual conception of “pentatonic”.
Pentatonic just means five tones to the scale. Much if not most East Asian music is pentatonic but they may use different scales.
From Infoplease.com ( http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0825989.html ):
“The Japanese use two basic types of scale, both pentatonic. The first, used in sacred music and common to all of East Asia, has two modes—ryo, the male mode, and ritsu, the female mode. The more frequently used scale, found also in Indonesia and S India, emphasizes semitones and exists in three modes, all used freely within the same composition—hirajoshi, the most important, roughly represented on the piano by the series ABCEFA; kumoijoshi, second in importance, approximated by EFABCE; and iwato, approximated by BCEFAB.”
another quick intro to Japanese music can be found at:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCJAPAN/MUSIC.HTM
I’m still trying to figure out how one fits 25 inches of flute under basket-headgear.