Thank you to Dan Gutwein and Brian Ritchie for some excellent and detailed explanations.
I still believe that the shakuhachi is not a pentatonic instrument but is chromatic. I guess i am not associating chromatic with equal temperment (perhaps i am very mistaken!) but instead meant to infer that all 12 pitches are available (and are used in traditional shakuhachi music). Shakuhachi does not seem like it was intended to play chromatic music. On the surface it appears to be meant to play on D F G A C (thinking in terms of a 1.8 size). Honkyoku rarely touches this scale! Simplistically speaking, D Eb G A Bb and G Ab C D Eb Are common modes that are frequently employed.
However if you play another genre of traditional Japanese music that the shakuhachi eventually found its way into (sankyoku), you learn that there are many modulations and eventually you find that each of the 12 tones does come up. Thus i conclude that it is an instrument that plays all 12 tones of the european octave and perhaps it was meant to be as it arises in traditional pieces via the various modulations. Of course, in some aspects of traditional playing the tones do not equate with piano tones as the tuning system is different. Some schools nowadays seem to play honkyoku in equal temperament or perhaps my ears are decieving me?
In the 60's with more modern styles of composition coming into play with shakuhachi, the instrument certainly is being used to play all 12 tones of the octave.
Much of what is written for shakuhachi these days and much of so called improvisors, tend to dwell in what i think of as shakuhachi cliches, which are the basic pentatonic scales. Personally, i think it is necessary to step out of the box when one is developing modern music and their own style.
And there seems to be an insistence that Ro (D on a 1.8) is the tonic. From what i can see, in traditional shakuhachi music, Re (g on a 1.8) tends to be the tonic more often than Ro. Again, perhaps i am mistaken and confused about all of this. :)
Brian is certainly correct in saying that if you want to play in C#, one is better off using a 1.9 than a 1.8. However, not many shakuhachi players have a different flute to use each time a different key comes up. Many shakuhachi players only play 1.8 or one or 2 other sizes at most.
Of course, none of this is easy to actually do on shakuhachi. Players like Akikazu Nakamura, Kifu Mitsuhashi, John Neptune and others have seriously raised the technical level of the instrument to a standard that few of us will ever achieve.
hope you all have a nice weekend.
phil
Philip Gelb
shakuhachi player, teacher
Vegetarian, Vegan Personal chef
http://philipgelb.com
phil@philipgelb.com
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