Hello,
My name is Bridget and I have been studying shakuhachi for about 8
months with a teacher. I am not a professional musician or even an
amateur one for that matter. I am an artist, but have always wanted to
make some form of music. I just couldn't find what that was, but about
10 years ago as I was building my thesis sculpture show for graduate
school I bought a tape of flute music by Riley Lee. I was mesmerized
and inspired by the music... Years went by and occasionally I would
pull out the tape and listen to it. Then, in the last year I had
occasion to hear two live performances of shakuhachi.
Here in the S.F. bay area we have a wealth of teachers and players.
After hearing the second performance, a little voice in my head said,
that would be something to learn how to play. It was really one of
those little musings one does. I did, in a casual manner mention it to
my partner, who surprised me Christmas morning with a flute. It was as
if I had found a dear old friend. From there I found Monty's web site
and a whole new world opened up.
In June I upgraded my flute to one of Monty's and wow what a difference
having a good flute makes. I've also been trying to listen to as many
types of recordings as possible and agree with the person who mentioned
Tajima's and Miyata's CDs. Those are two of my favorites...I'd also
recommend John Kaizan Neptune's recordings. I have not heard Katsuya
Yokohama's solo recordings, but do have a compilation put out by JVC
that has him, along with Goro Yamaguchi, Reibo Aoki and Hozan Yamamoto.
That one is also one of my favs and is available all over the place,
i.e Tower records etc. Most of my favorite recordings are traditional
honkyoku, but I have been expanding and listening to some which are
other types of music, especially new compositions. I recently got a
recording from the library by a group called Trisan on the Realworld
label, and the shakuhachi player's name is Joji Hirota. I think in my
experience so far, it is the best of the 'new age' genre which
incorporates shakuhachi.
Hope to hear from some of you out there,
sincerely,
bridget
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 01 2003 - 15:16:52 PDT