Hi everybody,
I have been reading the discussion with great interest. Please allow me to tell you of my situation here in Montreal and what we do. If someone has some suggestion, please do not hesitate to share them with me.
We are currently 3 shakuhachi players in Montreal. Our teacher is an old Japanese man who moved to Montreal almost 20 years ago. He had an old shakuhachi (more than 60 years old). When he turn on the heating in November of that first year he was here, his shakuhachi cracked almost completely. Later on he got few students and ordered his shakuhachi from Nampo Shozan-San, a friend of his, and asked him to add many bindings on the shakuhachi. For example mine, has... eleven bindings all together, which is of course very unusual. The 2 other shakuhachi players are playing for around 14 years. One of these 2 shakuhachis cracked the day he turned on the heater in his house. The other did not crack yet. I have mine for 5 years and it did not crack yet.
Here in Montreal, we are in a very unusual weather and temperature condition. Montreal is at the same level as Marseille, yet Summer can have temperatures up until 40 degrees and Winter, below 40 degress (centigrade). I wa stold that Motnreal is the place in the world wehre the differences of temperature between Witner and Summer is the widest in the whole world. This situation does not help us at all. Heating dries up the air and is not very good for the shakuhachi.
Here what we were able to come up with to safely keep our shakuhachis from cracking.
1) The player whose shakuhachi did not cracked 14 years ago is also an oboe player. Oboes can also crack. What they do is to keep the oboe in a chest, put a bucket of water with a sponge in it, to keep the chest humidify. He has been putting in that chest his shakuhachi. It never cracked (although his shakuhachi has around 10 bindings).
2) Because heating dries up the air, we keep our houses kind of cool (between 15 and 20 degrees centigrade).
3) Yet, sometimes my shakuhachi get so dry that both pieces split apart easily. If I hold the upper part, the bottom part will fall down. So what I do (a suggestion from a violonist and a cellist friends of mine), is to use a cello humidifier for few days (2 or 3 days, never more). So far, after 5 years, my shakuhachi did not crack at all.
Is there some people that would like to comment on that, positively or negatively? I am not saying that this is the best way, but this is what we came up with because of our temperature conditions in Montreal.
Sayonara!
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Bruno Deschenes
Tel.: (514) 277-4665 * Fax: (514) 844-5498
musis@videotron.ca
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