Old Tsuyutoshi--Antique Shakuhachi Cleaning Cloth

Always run a tsuyutoshi or cleaning cloth through the bore of the shakuhachi after playing. Leaving moisture inside the flute allows dust and dirt to build up along the bore and will affect the tone of the instrument. Be very careful when cleaning the bore. Place your thumb over the utaguchi to protect its fine edge, then carefully drop the weight and string into the flute. Pull slowly until the cloth enters the bore without allowing the string to drag against the top or interior wall of the instrument. This may damage the blowing edge or remove paint from the bore. Pull the cloth through, then clean again.

Ray Brooks Shugyo

Ray Brooks wrote a great book on the meditative quality of shakuhachi sound; particularly fascinating was a discipline practice undertaken as an ascetic path to realization called Shugyo.  Ray undertook for 60 days a daily walk to the top of Mount Takao followed by several hours of shakuhachi playing. As the days grew shorter into November, his hands became very cold as he played, and a remarkable thing happened to him.

 On these occasions, it was rare for a group of women to pass without stopping and holding my freezing hands in theirs, each taking turns and commenting on how cold mine were. This was the height of generosity, the sharing of warm hands with a stranger. --Blowing Zen p.170

After a long rainy spell where Ray was restricted to indoor playing, the weather cleared and Ray took another hike to Mount Takao where at noon he liked playing a duet with the noon temple bells.

 At noon the main temple bell rang, and, as always, I played along with it. If my timing was right, it created an amazing atmosphere, as both my sound and the tolling of the bell blended and echoed across the valley.--p. 210


Statues atop Mt. Takao that kept Ray company.

Memento Light & Dark

Circa 1910 shakuhachi shop. 
Sign reads "Kinko Ryu shakuhachi.  We teach you here.  Home of teacher Shimizu."

18th Century Komuso Illustrations

Katsukawa Shunshô 1775

Katsukawa Shunshô 1788

Katsukawa Shunshô c. 1780

Katsushika Hokusai 1796

Suzuki Harunobu 1768

Kitagawa Utamaro c. 1800

Illustrations and Examples of Antique Shakuhachi

Ryûryûkyo Shinsai 1764–1820

Sunayama Gosei c. 1800

Matsumoto Museum Exhibit

the pleasure of sheer being

Koku Kyotaku for Tilo

Tilo Kocho Empty Butterfly

A Future Shakuhachi Player

beginning with tiny bubbles...

Shakuhachi like Golf

My Sensei Mori-san and I went golfing after a recent lesson under a beautiful blue autumn sky.

It reminded me a few years ago,  Michael Chikuzen Gould once remarked outside a golf course that shakuhachi playing is a lot like golf;  keeping different sized clubs in bags, with concerns of stance, form, grip, a relaxed but focused technique, the holes...

 (a zen-like ichion jobutsu hole-in-one approach)

Under the Bridge

Riley Lee--Chikuho-ryu Notation

The Fu-Ho-U Notation

Forest Chair Shakuhachi

Rodrigo Rodriguez

KPL Free Shakuhachi Concert

www.kpl.gov

Kalamazoo Public Library

Michael Chikuzen Gould

Free Shakuhachi Concert

Old Meiji 1.9 Gold Root Shakuhachi

When I saw this distinctive flute on Jeff Cairn's beautifully designed Windwheel website, I recommemended it to my student Ken. It turned out to be a very nice instrument well-suited for the Taizan-ha repetoire.

A photo of the Meiji gold root 1.9 C# alongside my main 1.85 wide bore C# shakuhachi, coincidentally bought from the same Ebay seller in Japan who sold the Edo instrument that Perry photographed below alongside the gold root. Small world, shakuhachi.

Ken travelled to New York to meet with Perry Yung, and commissioned Perry to repair some slight cracks to the exterior of the instrument. 

Perry shot these photos of the gold root 1.9 alongside a Seikado modern shakuhachi and an older Edo 1.8 in the shop at the same time for an utaguchi repair.

Ken enjoying the sound of my Edo period 1.7 shakuhachi.