Dear Nelson and Mark,
I admire this conversation to great length. I have
been making transverse bamboo flutes for nearly 10
years and I can only speak from my experience.
I honestly wonder if math belongs in flute making (esp
the shakuhachi)- Prior to making, I read a book by
theobald Bohem on transverse flute making and a book
by Lew Paxton Price. Needless to say, they were
useless. And lew Paxton Price played it from a very
scientific standpoint with I though was amuzing for a
moment ( Being a software engineere).
I made 7 flutes in the same key using his "Science"
and ( Believe it or not) the flutes all sounded the
same. They had no personality whatsoever. Which is
odd considering each piece of bamboo is diffrent.
I broke down and begged to study with Romy Benton who,
in my opinion, makes the absolute best sounding bamboo
flutes ever. But, the real hum-dinger was learning
that Romy Benton used no math to place the holes or
find the right lengths. It was almost like he could
feel what keys the bamboo should be in. Wathching him
make a flute is a rather surreal experience. This blew
me away as a 19 yo engineere.
So, with that in mind, I have come up with a few
questions for you two, if not, all to ponder.
1) What good practicing shakuhachi player wants an
instrument that is 'Perfectly' made?
2) Who would like to own a shakuhachi that was made
using math and sciences, extensivly? Considering
the
instrument did not originate from either.
3) How many shakuhachi players in Japan will take a
maker seriously who is capable of making a
shakuhachi for multiple players or Ryu?
4) How many serious shakuhachi players own an
instrument that uses those 'exact sciences'
mentioned earlier?
5) Is a shakuhachi that is made using exact sciences,
considered a 'shakuhachi'?
Serious dilemma, guys. I ponder these questions all
to frequently.
Cheers,
Isaac
--- Mark Millonas <millonas@email.arc.nasa.gov> wrote:
> Nelson:
>
>
>
>
> >Your question translates to the desirable ratio
> between even and odd
> >harmonics. Which can be further reduced to the most
> desirable ratio between
> >the amplitudes of the second and third harmonics.
> Once that is specified,
> >the rest falls into place. This ratio can be
> arrived at by ear, by arcane
> >math ratios (phi and so on), or by throwing dice or
> some such.
>
>
> If that is all there is to it (amplitudes of the
> primary relative to the
> next two higher resonance)
> then I would say the calculation part would be more
> of less easy to
> do. For example, if you wanted all the first
> and second octave notes to be in the same ratio (you
> pick the ratio you
> personally want) then you effectively have a one
> parameter family of bores. That is a playing
> characteristic, but I'm
> guessing there might be
> more features that can be heard. Even so, I'm
> interested in calculating a
> bore that corresponds
> to the desires of the flutemaker/player and also
> understanding what kinds
> of flexibility there might be
> within those constraints, so if you told me the
> ratio you want I could
> tell you exactly which bore would best implement
> that, or given any
> constraints specified by
> the maker, how to optimally perturb a given bore to
> get there.
>
> So the question I would ask the experienced players
> is: is Nelson
> right? Would the
> relative resonance strengths be the only thing you
> would look for? If
> those are ok for
> your tastes is it your observation that this pretty
> much pins down the
> timbre, or is there something more?
>
> Humm, I was just making the point the Karl that I
> didn't think it would be
> that complicated, and now I'm
> playing devil's advocate on the other side.
>
> Marko
>
> List subscription information is at:
> http://communication.ucsd.edu/shaku/listsub.html
=====
____________________________________________________________
Isaac Marshall
Seattle Shakuhachi Society
http://www.megaseattle.com/shakuhachi/
____________________________________________________________
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