Hi,
My name is Dominic Hickey. I've been learning to play shakuhachi for
about ten months now, the last six with a teacher in North London,
Richard Stagg, who himself studied under Yoshikazu Iwamoto.
I've been on this list since its inception but until now haven't
found myself in a position to contribute anything useful.
With regard to the problems you're having with the low C natural
('Ro-O-Meri' in Kinko notation?) I might be able to help.
When I began lessons with Richard the first thing he got me to work on
was a warm-up built around standard ornamentations ascending through the
range of the instrument. At one point you play Ro-O-Meri (C),
gliding up to Ro (D). Even getting the note to sound took me an age and
then it was extremely weak.
Richard (who plays Boehm flute in the BBC Symphony Orchestra) is able to
play the lower note with a great intensity. While I cannot approach his
tone yet I am now able to get a low C which is as vibrant as a
medium strength Ro.
The thing to bear in mind with this (at least the way I play it) is
that you are trying to interfere with the air turbulence at the
blowing edge, reducing the frequency with which the airstream switches
direction (into the tube, out of the tube, into the tube etc) without
damping it completely. You might even be able to feel the swirling air
currents on the outer surface of your lips.
When playing full-meri the distance between your lip aperture and the
blowing edge is greatly reduced.
With *this* note when I look in a mirror it looks like the centre of the
edge is about half a millimetre from the centre of the aperture between
the lips.
The trick seems to be to get this distance right while blowing almost
straight down the tube, opening out the throat cavity for the right
resonance and turning the lips inward over the teeth somewhat, all the
time concentrating on the right air speed (helped by good abdominal
muscle/diaphragm control). It helps if you can imagine the pitch you
want to get.
The resultant sound is part noise and part tone, amplified by mouth
and throat cavity resonance (imagine beginning to yawn and keep that
throat shape while blowing).
As with all meri notes you should avoid trying to get as pure a tone as
you achieve with the 'straight' notes.
Hope this is of some use.
As Ronnie Seldin wrote, you'll find what works for you.
Good luck,
Dominic Hickey
d.hickey@umds.ac.uk
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