Hans Supply wrote:
>I studied for the last year without a teacher, there is none to be
>found here in Belgium for the moment. I mastered the kinko style
>notation and fingerings ,.......... listenend and played, ......
Good on you.
>But now I found a tozan 'teacher' who gives lessons for free, as he is
>not yet allowed to ask money for his lessons. I had some lessons now
>but found the tozan school not only use a different notation style :-(
>but also some other fingerings. My question is now, should I use tozan
>fingerings or can I keep the kinko ones ? I have a kinko instrument.
>Are there other problems I could encounter ? Can I still use my kinko
>books to practise tozan ??
I find this a very interesting question, well worthy of heated
discussion :-) I'll write up my thoughts, but please take into account
that I'm not in any position above beginning student of a different
school, and am only postulating.
From a traditionalist viewpoint, you should probably not mix schools
and styles. There are good reasons for this, amongst which is the
preservation of a pure style and the belief that the originators of the
style had founded a style worth preserving.
Depending on why you play, you may or may not want to challenge this.
I play honkyoku, and view my playing as a meditative practise. I hold
this very highly -- my spirituality is very important to me and my
shakuhachi has become one way in which I strive to express my
spirituality and let it become part of the world.
I am learning from a single school at the moment to improve my
playing. I also play my own pieces and I play for myself and my own
growth. For this I do not _adhere_ to any styles, as only I can go down
that path. The point there though is adhere. I use the style that I
have learnt.
I read once about three levels of development, in which we:
i) begin by following someone (eg a school) -- we are empowered by
drawing on their strength/knowledge/etc.
ii) proceed to oppose that someone -- we want to be `free from'
the influence after we find the limitations that it imposes
iii) end by being `free to' do -- the focus shifts to our own
understanding and actions.
Other, equally valid and not mutually exclusive, reasons for playing
are
o to make music (I also play guitar and do use the shakuhachi to play
non-honkyoku pieces at times), and
o to learn a traditional japanese art form
If you are in it for the later, don't mix your styles.
If you want to learn the shakuhachi as an instrument only, it may be
useful to learn one style thoroughly, and then expand, to avoid getting
confused early on, but you will undoubtedly want to explore further
anyway. I'm thinking that Neptune would be a good person to comment on
this :-)
I suspect that most school accredited teachers in any style will have a
level of 'loyalty' to their style. If you become loyal to a school you
will learn to play shakuhachi the instrument and shakuhachi the [insert
name of school] path.
If you can find some sort of `ronin', enlightened, old man in the
forest teacher, maybe you can learn to play shakuhachi and be shown how
to find shakuhachi the path (your path). :-)
If you find a western style teacher who teaches technique, you can
learn to play shakuhachi the instrument and maybe will discover
shakuhachi the path yourself.
I hope I didn't ramble on too much.
Why do others on this list play?
>I would appreciate some help,
>Kind regards,
>Supply Hans,
All the best,
Ralf
Wind carries my soul
over lakes at lunchtime --
shakuhachi practice.
-- Ralf M. Oct 1998
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