Well, I come back to checking out the list after a while and all of a
sudden it's erupted into another knock'em down drag'em out fight over
the age-old (and, as has been eloquently pointed out, artificial)
science vs. art dichotomy. I've been thinking about it over the last
day or so, and so far have come up with these ideas:
Most all of the good flutes I've come across were made by very
experienced makers, and those who can turn out good flutes with
consistency have been at it for a long time. One maker I work with here
has been playing and making for about 30 years, and he has a gorgeous
sound. I am convinced his sound is indispensible to the quality of the
flutes he makes, as is the cumulative wisdom of decades looking into
shakuhachi bores. This is not to say that what he does definitely can't
be replicated in 15 minutes with the right scientific knowledge and
machinery, but I doubt it. Science is based in knowledge, whether it is
practiced in the #1 way or #2 way enumerated in an earlier post--that's
the root meaning in Latin, and I think it's appropriate. But knoweldge
is not the same is wisdom, and no machine can replace a human being.
That said, I'd love to be proven wrong here. Perhaps someone in the
"science can do it" camp would like to take my Meiji-era 1.8 that has a
sound to die for, and make me a perfect copy? If it works out I'd
probably be willing to trade this old, badly cracked, 6-fushi flute for
a nice new piece with a "perfect" root and no cracks that sounds the
same.
Two other points about the "perfect bore." I don't think that any
shakuhachi made in the day before gauges had one. Also, they all
differed. And on top of that, I think there must be a difference in
sound between flutes whose bore shapes are irregular even if they
average out to the same diameter at any one point along the bore. In my
experience shakuhachi with irregular bores are the most coveted and
really do sound the best.
Last, consider that not every point on the bore will affect the tuning
and balance equally. If one is only looking at averages, which is what
seems to be the case with the scientific angle, how to reconcile the
idea that one can optomize a bore with this general messiness? It seems
to me that without tipping the balance far in the direction of
deductive, rather than inductive, reasoning, than one is doomed to make
shakuhachi with perfect bores that are perfectly boring to listen to.
I would repeat the microwave analogy here; I really don't think a bunch
of numbers, no matter how thoroughly crunched, will make a flute that
sounds like my Gesshu 1.8.
I was looking at Nelson's site re breathing, and I'm feeling rather
skeptical about the exercises prescribed there. Why lift weights with
your stomach, or strengthen the diaphragm, which powers the in breath,
when what you want to do is strengthen the muscles that power the out
breath? Not that there would be no benefit whatsoever, but it just
doesn't make sense to me. If one is going to do exercises, shouldn't
they be creating resistance to the out breath?
On a side note, I was at a flute player's house recently, and she had
one of these ping-pong balls-in-a-tube things for developing breath
strength--you have to breath completely in and out holding the ball at
the top with your breath. She said 3 times was considered good, and too
many more would cause severe lightheadedness, but I held it for about
12-15 breaths, much to her consternation (though, since I was walking
around her living room mimicking a scuba diver as I did it, it might
have been a show of concern for my mental well-being), with no ill
effects and no need to stop. So it seems that shakuhachi playing
demands more air and will give you more power in that regard than flute
playing.
More below in response to Nelson's response to Isaac's response to....
--- Nelson Zink <zink@newmex.com> wrote:
> Issac,
>
> > You answered the 5 but you still have 4 more
> > to go.
>
> Then let me take a shot at # 3:
>
> > How many shakuhachi players in Japan will take a
> > maker seriously who is capable of making a
> > shakuhachi for multiple players or Ryu?
>
> My answer is 23.
I agree that Isaac's question was perhaps not well-conceived, but why
the needlessly flippant answer?
> But it's complicated by some facts. Other than America, Japan is the
> country
> source of the largest number of visitors to my site. And I don't
> think
> they're coming to learn about traditional things. I'm pretty sure it
> isn't
> Tom Deaver logging on a thousand times a day. The personal email I
> get from
> Japan are from people curious and interested in the shakuhachi. The
> content
> of this email leads me to believe that there is a hunger for
> something more
> than mythical/mystical explanations. My Japan volume has been strong
> and
> remains strong almost from the beginning. It's the Japanese
> response that
> keeps my site going and growing way more than anything else. The
> picture I
> get from my site statistics is different than the one presupposed by
> your
> question.
I was playing shakuhachi recently in a park in Vancouver, and a young
Japanese guy stopped and asked my if it was a Native American flute.
Unfortunately, I was not in the least bit surprised, as it's pretty
much par for the course. So I would not use Japanese interest or
disinterest as a gauge of anything except that, and that very possibly
fleeting at best. Outside the shakuhachi/hougaku community and
afficiandos, plus a good-sized minority of the 60-plus crowd here
(Japan) there is, among the general population, a mixture of ignorance,
lack of curiosity, or even outright disdain for shakuhachi (though that
among younger urban folks). It's "furukusai" (old and smelly). Also, in
my experience, telling a 25-40 y.o. Japanese woman you play shakuhachi
is not exactly like saying you're a rock guitarist--more like saying
you play the washtub bass, maybe worse. NOw, I'd qualify this by adding
that I've found the attitude in the small town of Chichibu to be much
more positive than in Tokyo.
So, in the end, all of this comes down to ideas and theory vs. hands-on
experience. I'm not saying the latter is necessarily more accurate,
better, call it what you will, but so far that's what I've found.
Peter
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 06 2004 - 14:09:34 PST