How did this happen in the first place...using the underground root bearing
portion of the bamboo for shakuhachi? Hmmm...legend has it that shakuhachi
also served as clubs in the days before guided missiles...but is it possible
that it could have been the other way around, that clubs somehow began to be
used as shakuhachi...who knows?
This is really a hard question to get at. Right off the top I would say
absolutely not...roots do not have much to do with the sound of the flute.
I should dig the glass shakuhachi, which has no roots, out of the closet and
have a go with it. On the other hand, Ranpo once told me that the shape of
the root end does have something to do with the tone. Would he deliberately
have pulled my leg? Probably not! Could this be why most of the older
Kinko shakuhachi are nearly bald in that most of the roots have been
removed. Take a close look at one of these flutes by holding it up to a
bright window with the front of the instrument facing you so that you can
see only the silhouette and see if the bell end is not just about
symmetrical about the center line. Your eye will fill in the spaces between
nodes where there is no material. Anyone ever bong a lopsided temple bell?
How does it sound? If your instrument is not symmetrical then start removing
material until it is so and then play again. Sound any different? Only one
chance here to test, life or death, since you cannot put back all the
removed material. Any change in the tone? If roots make a difference, then
is a flute with more roots better than a flute with fewer? Of course, the
standard is three root bearing nodes at the bottom with all the roots of the
uppermost node removed, but many players value flutes with four or even five
root bearing nodes at the bottom. Hmmm...interesting question for which
there is probably no absolute answer.
Ask a physicist and you will most likely be told that the tone depends on
the relationship between the cross sectional area of the bore at the center
of the finger hole, the size of the finger hole and the thickness of the
wall through which the hole is opened. Somehow this relationship is
supposed to yield something called the "cut off frequency", the frequency
above which none of the energy is reflected back up the bore to make a
standing wave stand up somewhere or other. All the energy above this
frequency is supposed to pass out the end of the flute thus making no sound
at all. Anyway, the higher this cut off frequency is the brighter the tone,
the lower it is the darker the tone.
Also keep in mind that all instruments of the flute family are supposed to
operate at the impedance minima. Hmmm...what is going on here, this
impedance??? Well, after years and years of not knowing or having a clue,
Joe Wolfe turned on the light. Impedance for flutes, it turns out, is air
flow divided by air pressure (or is it the other way around). Take a look
at Joe's web page and you can see the impedance curve for a couple of
fingerings. While visiting here Joe said that it doesn't always happen that
the the frequency one hears or plays is perfectly aligned with the impedance
minimum. Thus difficulty of playing or lack of stability. So if you are
blowing Ro in Otsu for 10 minutes or blowing long tones for an hour each day
as a warm up and not feeling really comfortable with everything, it may be
that your Ro of 293.66 hz (equal temperament at 440 hz at 70 degrees
Fahrenheit) is not perfectly aligned with the impedance minimum. Big
question here...how to move the impedance minimum and set it right smack dab
on Ro and all the other fingerings. Joe didn't know (yet, he said), I don't
know, anyone know? HELP! And remember as well that the frequencies of the
lower octave are variable depending upon energy input (blowing pressure)
while the next higher octave frequencies are stable, don't move around with
blowing pressure changes. Everyone has had trouble, I suppose, keeping the
pitch stable in Otsu when tapering the volume off to zero. It wants to go
flatter and flatter doesn't it?
Hmmm...where is this going? I still feel as confused as ever so it seems
the thing to do is get out of here and go blow some more...and wait.
Best wishes,
Tom
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 08 2002 - 09:19:35 PST