Just for the record,
In 1998, here at the World Shakuhachi Festival (and a fine time it
was, too...), I went to a workshop on shakuhachi design and
construction put on by the estimable John Kaizan Neptune. I believe
that Monty Levenson and Kobayashi Ichijo also participated. As part
of his presentation, Neptune picked up a tapered plastic tube with
holes and a plastic mouthpiece which looked like nothing more than a
modern bamboo shakuhachi from which the bamboo had been removed.
Neptune then proceeded to play the living bejesus out of the thing,
and lo, didn't it sound like a first rate shakuhachi....
I have been regaled for years by otherwise apparently reasonable
people who claimed that my (then, whenever) new shakuhachi would
really not sound its best until I had dutifully played for a year and
"broken it in...mellowed it out."
It is my not so humble opinion that the only thing that gets broken
in and mellowed out here is the practitioner--and the more dutiful
the player the more profound the result.
I am certainly not advocating the abandonment of bamboo for
shakuhachi construction here--why mess with a great thing. I do
believe that wall thickness, hole size, shape, and hole tapering have
a much more important effect on the playability and responsiveness
and certainly the "character" of a given shakuhachi, but let's leave
off worrying so much about angels dancing on pinheads here and blowl
the damn thing.
(and Monty, thanks...)
eB
-- "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin FranklinedBeaty Boulder, CO edosan@indra.com
****-_-_-_ ^..^ > /\ /\ "Buzz"
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