Tozan vs Kinko

From: Tom (tom-tom@gaea.ocn.ne.jp)
Date: Tue Jan 30 2001 - 15:12:33 PST


OK Toby, here goes although this may not be of much help in answering the
question.

I didn't get to Tamai's sweatshop until late 1970. Tamai was primarily a
maker of Tozan sect shakuhachi with about 10% or less of his flutes made
with a Kinko mouthpiece inlay. This was still very slightly before the time
that shakuhachi players in both sects began to demand flutes that were more
accurately in tune to the equal temperament scale. That began to really
happen because of the work of Nagahiro Shinzan (also one of Tamai's
apprentices) and his relationship with Yamamoto Hozan in the mid 70's.

As far as the color of the finish urushi used for shakuhachi is concerned, I
think that there is no hard and fast division between Kinko and Tozan.
Rather, it seems to be the preference of the flute maker. Tamai did use
red, or rather vermilion, for Tozan and black for Kinko flutes. Yokoyama
Ranpo, who was still active around that time, preferred red for his flutes
which were mostly Kinko. I have also seen some Miura Kind flute, and these
would be fairly old by now, that were red. I don't know whether the red
color was the original as applied by Miura or that of some other person
doing repairs. I did see once upon a time a Yuko (Kurosawa Kinko's teacher)
flute that belonged to Yamaguchi Goo and sort of remember it as red. It
often happens that during repairs the finish color will be changed, or
rather the original color painted over with a different color.

I don't know what system Tamai used for finger hole placement. He had a
long flat bamboo stick made from what you would call a yard stick or a meter
stick (in this case a 3 shaku stick cut off to about 2 shaku) which had
marks on the back side of it. There were marks for the total length of the
flute, the cut for the connecting joint and for each finger hole. The
finger hole marks didn't seem to mean much as he would move the finger holes
well off the marks depending upon how close the bamboo nodes were to the
marks. He really got on my ass the first time I marked the holes on about
108 flutes because I took his marks literally. The idea, I discovered then,
was to move the holes around so that the balance (distances) between the
holes and the nodes looked attractive. The third hole was always a little
smaller in diameter than all the other holes on both types of flutes. I
also know that on all the older Kinko flutes I have seen the 5th hole is
bored (or burned for you romantics out there) closer to the top end of the
flute than was normal for both Tamai's Tozan and Kinko flutes.

Tamai also had a habit of cutting the top end of the bamboo off at nearly a
90 degree angle for his Kinko flutes and not rounding the chin as much as on
his Tozan flutes. The angle of this cut and the rounding of the chin both
seem to be up to the maker. If one looks around at various makers flutes
these days one will find lots of different angles and roundness. (The
spelling checker tells me that "roundness" is not an English word. But I
think you will get the idea.) Currently, Yokoyama Katsuya's idea is to
round or file away the chin to the extreme so that the players lips get
closer to the mouthpiece inlay.

Other than this I don't know what I can say about the differences between
Kinko and Tozan flutes. Most people today make both with, aside from the
mouthpiece inlay shape, little difference between them. Not so long ago I
did meet a shakuhachi player and teacher who said that one of my flutes
which had a Kinko mouthpiece inlay sounded like a Tozan flute.
Unfortunately, I was not there with him when he made this comment and
couldn't get more information about this. Hmmmmmmm...I'd like to meet this
guy and find out more about his special talent for telling Kinko and Tozan
flutes apart. I wonder how he would perform blindfolded on a small test of
nine Kinko flutes and one Tozan flute which he could play himself or listen
to someone else playing them.

Oh, yes! There may actually be some differences in the inlay paste with
which older flutes, Tozan and Kinko, were filled. It is really hard to tell
what has been used after the flute has been finished, even if one carves
some of the finish urushi off to get into the usually much thicker inlay
material. And I've done quite a bit of that sort of mutilation when
replacing tenons or mouthpieces. One would expect, though, that in the
olden days there were not so many different materials at hand to use as the
filler. Nowadays it seems that anything goes and rightly so. As Yokoyama
Ranpo impressed on me one afternoon at his home, "You can do anything you
want as long as it works".

Best wishes to you all!!!!!

Tom

----------
>From: "toby" <kymarto@gol.com>
>To: <shakuhachi@weber.ucsd.edu>
>Subject: Re: A simple Kinko/Tozan question!
>Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 12:35:04 +0900
>

>I do know a few other differences. The Tozan shakuhachi traditionally used
>red lacquer for the bore, while the Kinko normally used black or dark brown.
>Also the third tone hole from the bottom was the same size as the other
>holes in the Tozan flutes, while it was .5 mm smaller in Kinko flutes.
>Modern makers no longer seem to follow these traditions strictly, and many
>modern flutes are therefore identical except for the utaguchi.
>
>Maybe we can get Tom Deaver to jump in here and comment--he would really be
>the one to ask.
>
>Toby
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Kenny Forte" <kenny@cs.strath.ac.uk>
>To: <shakuhachi@weber.ucsd.edu>
>Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 8:24 PM
>Subject: A simple Kinko/Tozan question!
>
>
>> Hi
>>
>> This is something i've been curious about for a while. Is there a
>> difference between the Kinko and Tozan shakuhachi other than the
>> aesthetic look of the mouthpiece?
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Kenny Forte
>>
>
>



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