Timothy,
I found out after graduating from Cornell that there was a prof there
who played shakuhachi--that was "way" back in the 80s though. I often
thought "if only I'd heard shakuhachi my freshman year...." Anyway, you
could look into that.
I for one have never heard of "u no san." There's "san no u" in the kan
range, which is the same pitch as hi-meri (b-flat on a 1.8) but played
dai-kari, so it's played strongly rather than quietly.
In Dokyoku (BTW it's a long "o" so it should be written Dohkyoku or
Doukyoku, but the convention seems to be Dokyoku...) one plays u in the
otsu range opening only hole 3, except when moving between tsu-meri and
u, and the pitch is a-flat on a 1.8; u dai-meri, called circle-u
because of the way it's notated, is the same pitch as re (g on a 1.8);
the note is played dai-meri, meaning one decreases the angle between
flute and face even more, and it's okay to shade hole 3 a bit. As was
said before, same pitch as re, different tone color.
Hiki means to pull--I've never seen the book you're referring to, but
perhaps he means pulling the meri note even more, so that u would be a
u dai meri, thus equalling re. This is one of the beauties of
shakuhachi--tone color is the key, so yes the pitch is the same, but
the quality of sound is bery different. Take the piece San'an--the
first five notes are u/u dai meri/tsu meri/tsu dai meri/tsu meri. You
could play u or chi meri/re/tsu meri/ro/tsu meri, but the feeling would
be completely different; it would be a different piece as far as I'm
concerned.
When I was studying the Jin Noydo style of honkyoku, I was told to play
u with 1 and 3 open; for sankyoku aka gaikyoku I was told to open only
hole 3. Same pitch, different tone color. BTW the same applied to
ri--open 1 for honkyoku, close it for sankyoku. I'm sure Ronnie Seldin
can clear up any lingering confusion for you when you see him in
Syracuse. Good luck,
Peter H
--- Karl Signell <signell@cpcug.org> wrote:
> At 07:49 AM 7/15/03 -0400, Timothy Larkin wrote:
> >I am trying to learn Choshi from Robert Grous's book, "Introductory
> Manual
> >for Kinko Honkyoku". I am stumped by his explanation of how to play
> u
> >hiki. He writes that hiki "...is played similarly to a meri;
> however it
> >is made mainly by bowing the head. The third finger does not cover
> the
> >third hole.... in effect it lowers the respective note a half tone
> in pitch."
>
> I don't know Grous's book, but it sounds like he's talking about "u
> no san"
> (1, 3 open), a half-step lower than regular "u" meri (3 open). He
> could
> have explained it more clearly.
>
> >But u is already meri, which means to me that the head is already
> >bowed. So what does hiki add? And u dropped a half-tone is re, so
> why
> >not play re?
>
> "Same" pitch, different fingering, different tone color = different
> note. That's common in honkyoku. He should have said that.
>
> >I had understood that meri notes are created by the combination of
> >half-holing (usually) and dropping the chin. But Grous says that
> these
> >are two different ways to make meri notes. "...one of two ways that
> a
> >meri note is produced...is by bowing the head downward and blowing
> >slightly flat.
> >The other way is by closing a specific hole part way with the
> >finger...." From this I conclude that a meri note is made either by
>
> >half-holing or by bowing while blowing the corresponding kari note,
> but
> >not both techniques at the same time. If this is the case, then the
>
> >description of hiki makes sense. I produce u just by the fingering,
> and u
> >hiki by an additional bowing of my head.
>
> Yeah.
>
> Karl
>
>
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