INDEX

BAMBOO – The Newsletter of the European Shakuhachi Society

Autumn/Winter 2022
Letter from the editors 4
Acknowledgements Letter from the chairperson 5
ESS Event Announcement: Winter Concert 2022, Dublin 3 online 6
Image/photo/illustration credits:
Cover image: Shakuhachi lesson: Riley Lee with Yokoyama Katsuya © Riley Lee; Shakuhachi Focus: Tradition 12
p. 6/7, 10/11, 12/13: illustration by Thorsten Knaub; p. 16: Courtesy of the International Some Thoughts on the Process of Transmission by Gunnar Jinmei Linder 14
Shakuhachi Society; p. 19/21: © Gunnar Jinmei Lindner; p. 22/23: Courtesy of Maeka-
wa Kogetsu; p. 24/25: Courtesy of Dan Shinku; p. 26/27: Courtesy of Seian Genshin; p. Thoughts on the Process of Transmission by Maekawa Kōgetsu, Dan Shinku, Seian Genshin,
28/29: © Chester Ong; Courtesy of Mizuno Kohmei; p. 30/31: Courtesy of Tanabe Shozan; Mizuno Khomei, Tanabe Shozan and Furuya Teruo 22
p. 32/33, © Teruo Furuya, © Thorsten Knaub; p. 37, 40, 43: © Hogaku Journal, February Two Teachers: Free as the Wind, Untethered from this World by Yokoyama Katsuya 34
1999; © Hogaku Journal, March 1999; p. 44/45: © Colm MacCárthaigh; p. 47: © Susan
Wilson; p. 48: Courtesy of Marco Lienhard; p. 50/51: Courtesy of Christopher Thoughts on the Process of Transmission by Hanz Araki VI, Elizabeth Reian Bennett, Marco
Yohmei Blasdel; p. 53; Courtesy of Larry Tyrrell; p.55 © Barry Macdonal; p. 56/57: Lienhard, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, Larry Tyrrell, Clive Bell and Daniel Seisoku Lifermann 44
© Wim Scheenen; p. 58, 60, 63: Courtesy of Riley Lee; p. 71, 72, 75: © Bruno Deschênes; Shakuhachi Presence: Being with a Bamboo Flute by Riley Lee 58
p. 76/77, 102, 136-139 & back cover image: Thorsten Knaub; p. 78/79: Courtesy of Luis
Kobayashi; p. 80: Courtesy of Saito Shinzan; Courtesy of Akio Yamaoka; p. 81: Courtesy My Lesson Experience (ESS members): Alf Bartholdy, Tamara Rogozina,
of Alexander Iwami; Courtesy of Akio Yamaoka; p. 82: Courtesy of Rafael Fuchigami; p. Damon Rawnsley, Ursual Fuyūmi Schmidiger 64
83: Courtesy of Claudio Yoshiwara; Courtesy of Rafael Fuchigami; p. 86: Courtesy of Akio World Music: Appropriation or Transpropriation by Bruno Deschênes 68
Yamaoka; p. 88: Courtesy of Luigi Antonio Irlandini; p. 90/91: live.fujigoko.tv; p. 93/94:
© Riley Lee; p. 97/98: Courtesy of the International Shakuhachi Society; p. 115: CC BY-SA Shakuhachi in South America: Brazil
3.0 Map of Japan with highlight on Miyazaki prefecture; ; By Ray_go - Own work, CC BY-SA A General Overview of the Shakuhachi in Brazil by Rafael Hiroshi Fuchigami 78
3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6685716 p. 117: MOMA, The New Akio Yamaoka: A Japanese Shakuhachi Teacher in Brazil by Daniel Ryugen 85
Fields at Ōno in Suruga Province (Sunshū Ōno shinden) by Hokusai; p. 120/121: © ISFP;
p. 122-125: Courtesy of labels/artists; p. 126/27; © Bruno Deschênes; p. 128/29: Courtesy Luigi Antonio Irlandini by ESSNL 88
of the Swiss Chikuyusha;p. 132/33: Tamara Rogozina; p. 134/35: © Sean Kelly/Laonikos The Bigger Picture – Images from Japan 90
Psimikakis Chalkokondylis;
Shakuhachi Resources:
Translations: - The Techniques of the Shakuhachi: 1.8 Shakuhachi Overtone Chart by Ramon Humet 103
p. 22-33: Japanese to English translation Chris Molina - Min’y Music with Véronique Piron 114
p. 34-43: Japanese to English translation by Nick Bellando Announcements International Shakuhachi Festival Prague 2023 120
Design & lay-out CD, Book & Event Reviews 122
Thorsten Knaub
Ha-Ha-Ro – Shakuhachi Humour & Art
BAMBOO – The Newsletter of the European Shakuhachi Society – Autumn/Winter 2022 ESS Members’ Area – What’s New? 136
ESS publication team ESS Membership / Ways to get In touch / ESS Newsletter guidelines for contributions 140
Thorsten Knaub, Emmanuelle Rouaud
BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS LETTER FROM THE CHAIRPERSON
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter
Spring/Summer 2022
ESS WINTER CONCERT
ESS ANNOUNCEMENT We are happy to announce the Road to Dublin – a series of weekend
online events taking place between May 2022 and March 2023.
11 DECEMBER 2022 As it was still not possible due to the pandemic to organise the Dublin
ESS Summer School in time for this year, we put forward an extended series of
online events to give us all the opportunity to be in touch virtually and move
together step by step towards the ESS Summer School 2023 in Dublin, Ireland,
where we finally can meet up again in person.
‘The Road to Dublin 2023’ timeline:
28/29 May 2022 – 1. Online Event
November 2022 – 2. Online Event
December 2022 – ESS Online Concert
March 2023 – 3. Online Event
Generally the programme will have around ten sessions
covering traditional and modern pieces, tips and technique and
of course there will be moment to ro-buki together.
As this edition is published we just had our first successful
Online Event on 28 May + Sunday 29 May 202 featuring
Araki Kodō VI, Shiori Tanabe, Horacio Curti, Nina Haarer and Philip Horan
and with more than 45 participants joining us
from all over the globe.
Stay tuned as the other event dates and details
will be announced in due time and check-out
the ESS ‘Road to Dublin’ website for changes and updates:
http://roadtodublin.shakuhachisociety.eu
Hope to see you there!
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022 ESS Announcements – ESS Winter Concert
ESS WINTER CONCERT
11 DECEMBER 2022
Concert Performers:
Dublin 1 Invitees:
Araki Kodo VI, Shiori Tanabe, Nina Haarer
14h00– - 17h00 CET
ON ZOOM Dublin 2 Invitees:
Akihito Obama, Véeéronique Piron
Christophe Kazan Gaston & Akari Sagara, Cesar Viana
FREE ATTENDANCE Dublin 3 Invitees:
Seian Genshin, Marco Lienhard
registration from 23 Nov Adrian Freedman, Tsujimoto Yoshimi–
roadtodublin.shakuhachisociety.eu/registration Honorary ESS Members:
Kaoru Kakizakai, Atsuya Okuda
In May 2022 we started our ‘Road to Dublin’ series of online events to travel
Clive Bell, Richard Stagg, Brian Ritchie
together to our destination of the ESS Summer School in the Summer 2023.
Now we coming to our next stop – the ESS Winter Concert 2022.
We invited all of the teachers of the three online Dublin events and our hon-
ESS Members:
orary members. Furthermore we had an open call for ESS members to be part Héelèene Seiyu Codjo, Markus Guhe, Bryan Jardim
of the online concert by submitting a video too. We think the concert will be Damon Rawnsley, Tamara Rogozina, Ursula Fuyumi Schmidiger
a great opportunity to listen to a mixture of performances from traditional to
avantgarde as well as an end of the year gathering to socialise online.
Laonikos Psimikakis Chalkokondylis
We are looking forward to see you there!
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022
ONLINE EVENT DUBLIN 3
4/5 MARCH 2023
Seian Genshin
Marco Lienhard
Adrian Freedman
Tsujimoto Yoshimi
Schedule to be announced 15 January 2023
Registration opens 1. February 2023
http://roadtodublin.shakuhachisociety.eu
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022
In this issue of BAMBOO we devoting a large part to the ‘Transmission’ aspect of shakuhachi music. ‘Transmission’ we understand here as the nexus where tradition,
authenticity, teaching method, individuality, style, school, natural evolution,etc... mingle, collide and transform. Here we wanted to explore in particular the passing on of
honkyoku music through the teacher/student framework within the lesson context.
We will hear from leading and experienced Japanese shakuhachi players/teachers like Seian Genshin, Mizuno Khomei, Maekawa Kōgetsu, Dan Shinku, Tanabe Shozan
and Furuya Teruo reflecting on teaching routine, authenticity and the way technological devopments (CD, YouTube, etc..) may influence the process of transmission. In the
same context we have ‘Westerners’ like Hanz Araki VI, Clive Bell, Elizabeth Reian Bennett, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, Riley Lee, Marco Leinhard, Daniel Seisoku Lifermann
and Larry Tyrrell to offer their deliberations. These eye and ear-witness accounts are bookended by more theoretical research texts by Gunnar Jinmei Linder and Bruno Deschênes.
As a middle part we have Yokoyama Katsuya who through his recollections of being taught by Rando Fukuda and Watazumi Doso, offers his insights on honkyoku teaching and transmission.
TRADITION TRANSMISSION TRANSPROPRIATION
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022 Shakuhachi Focus – Tradition, Transmission & Transpropriation
SOMe ThOughTS
Performing and Transmitting Music
I think that there is a change ongoing in Japan, as far as transmission
of shakuhachi music is concerned, partly maybe due to external
ON The PROceSS Of
influences. More people outside of Japan study the shakuhachi, and
more Japanese performers and teachers visit other countries both
to perform and to teach. Since the beginning of the World Shakuhachi
Festivals (the first one in 1994) the exchange has been ever-increasing. The
TRANSMISSION
use of more “efficient” methods – meaning instruction on a meta level – and
fixed lesson hours are two aspects that I believe have influenced the younger
generation of performers and teachers in Japan, and with “younger” I refer to people
born in the 1980s and 1990s. In opposition to what I – in a rather unspecified and slightly
careless way would call “Western methods” – in this article I expound what I refer to as
Gunnar Jinmei Linder reflects on the time being taught by Yamaguchi Gorō in Japan “traditional Japanese methods,” well aware of that such methods are not uniquely Japanese and I
and how the ‘traditional’ transmission model may be seen as a process of cognitive would normally not even agree to the use of the word “traditional.” In this context it means the methods
communication to internalise body movements and auditory information. used by a generation of transmitters that were born before the WWII and has had an influence on teaching methods
up to recently. To exemplify the mind-set, I quote my teacher, whose teaching methods constitute the main material
for this article.
My father’s way of thinking was that if it is the natural cause to start walking for a child when it can stand up, pursuing
beauty and wishing to become better are also part of our human nature, and so he wouldn’t give any detailed technical
instruction. I would say that his way of teaching was to try to pull out whatever the student [in front of him] had within
him- or herself. To let each person’s individuality develop along its natural path, but he would also cut off branches that
Introduction expanded too much, so to speak. In a way it was a very strict way of teaching. If I asked him something, his reply would be
“Use your ears!” and that would be the end of the question.2
I studied with Yamaguchi Gorō from 1985 to his untimely parting from this world in 1999. During this time, up to when
I received my shihan license, I studied the seventy-two gaikyoku (the ensemble pieces with koto, shamisen, and vocals) At several other occasions, Yamaguchi clearly stated that he was following his father’s way of teaching.3 Even though
and the thirty-six honkyoku of the Kinko School, in the curriculum decided by Yamaguchi. That took me some thirteen he never struck me as a harsh person (he was always very gentle), you could feel his severeness, and that would also
years, including some three years spent in Sweden around 1989–92. In Japan you are not supposed to perform, or even motivate you to do better. At least that was my impression. Without so many words, he implored you to study more, to
less so, to teach until you have received your shihan.1 practice, to follow what he was doing, how he was playing.
From a Western viewpoint it may seem too long, too cumbersome, and too meaningless to study an instrument for Generally speaking, during the actual acts of transmission of shakuhachi music in Japan – in the “traditional” way loosely
some ten years without being able to perform or teach; if I learn to play fairly well in say six years, why should I than not defined above – the most central aspects are the audial elements, the actual sounds produced by the transmitter.4 The
perform or give instruction to others? I once met a non-Japanese student of shakuhachi in Japan. He had a problem sounds relate to the notated scores, even though the notated scores are simplified symbolic representations of what
with the way his teacher, another teacher of the Kinko School, taught the instrument, or rather, the way his teacher – the actual sounds produced should sound like, and the sounds the transmitter emits during the act of transmission
according to him – did not teach the instrument: “He just plays along with me. That’s no way to teach music. It just takes or in a performance override any discrepancies between audial elements and notated elements. In my experience,
a lot of time.” I asked him if he was in a hurry, and he was affirmative on that point: “Yes, I am!” So, one can wonder why Yamaguchi would at times add some verbal explanations when required, for example when I had misunderstood a
the teacher is “not teaching,” and why it takes such long time. I discuss these aspects below. specific technique. In the later part of my studies with Yamaguchi, I remember that if I played in a way that was not
represented in the notation, he would stop me and ask if I had intended to play that way. If I said that it had been
my intention to play the way I did, he would just continue. On the other hand, if I said it was not intended, he would
1 As a side-track, but still worth noting here, is that the common English translation of the word shihan is a bit misleading; often
it is rendered as “master” – a translation I myself have used as well – but what it actually means is that you have achieved a level of correct me and ask me to play that part again, by myself. Then we would continue. Regarding the verbal elements
understanding of the repertoire that makes it possible for you to give instruction to others. It is not a given that you become a mas- of transmission, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel gives the following description: “Words were never an important part of
ter performer even after twenty or thirty years of study, with or without a shihan license. The word denotes a teacher or an instruc- [Yamaguchi’s] teaching method …, and he never attempted to analyse or critically examine the music. … [Yamaguchi’s
tor, and in my view, a master performer is something completely different. There are many fine players of shakuhachi in the world
– both in Japan and other parts of the world – but very few real masters. Some lineages of shakuhachi as well as koto/shamisen 2 Nihon Sankyoku Kyōkai, Ningen Kokuhō Kiroku Bideo, 1997.
issue dai-shihan diplomas or similar “inflational” titles, then rendered into English as “Grand Master”. Within the Kinko School no 3 For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCzZFUV6w08. Accessed on November 7, 2022.
such titles are used. I presume that the point is that a licensed teacher is a licensed teacher, and that no further grading is deemed 4 For a more thorough description of the process of transmission of shakuhachi please refer to my PhD thesis Deconstructing
necessary, but that the sheer number of shihan licenses issued has urged the head of such schools to add a “grand teacher” level. Tradition in Japanese Music: A Study of Shakuhachi, Historical Authenticity and Transmission of Tradition, which is also available
There are however no correlations between shihan licenses and university degrees such as BA, MA, and PhD. as a free pdf at su.diva-portal.org (Search: Gunnar Jinmei Linder).
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022 Shakuhachi Focus– Tradition, Transmission & Transpropriation: Some Thoughts on the Process of Transmission
generation of musicians] were trained by rote from childhood, and the music remains deeply connected with their we experience. It could well be that we realize something that was within ourselves from the very beginning, but the
bodies, internalized and fluent as their native tongue.”5 performance brought it out, so to speak. It is a kind of communicative happening, which is not necessarily so far from
other types of communication, for example, reading a book or talking to a friend. I will then assume that: A musical
performance is an act of artistic communication.
That a performance constitutes an act of communication – in a broad sense of the word – is maybe not
such a bold statement, but it does hold important implications. In a communicative act between two
people, we find one person dispatching some kind of message, and one person who receives the
message. The message itself can of course be audial (as in music or a conversation) or visible (as in
a musical notation, in a book, or sign language), that is, it is in normal cases either heard or seen.
In turn, this implies the existence of a physical entity between the psychological state of mind
– or processes – leading to the creation of the message in the first place, and the psychological
or cognitive state of mind – or processes – leading to the receiver’s perception of the physical
entity. The perception leads to an emotional or cognitive experience of or because of the
perceived physical entity. Thus, we have two intangible states or processes in each far end of
the communicative act, and a physical entity in-between.
When it comes to transmission, the aim is not to affect the student in the same way, as a
performer would like to affect an audience. Other aspects take precedence, such as correct
execution of technique. As has been noted in various research conducted by Japanese scholars
(for example Kikkawa 1980, and Tsukitani 2000), the pre-Meiji forms of music consist of fixed forms
of sound clusters, or kata, which are rearranged to create new pieces. Kikkawa mentions some forty
to fifty different kinds of kata in the epic genre Gidayū-bushi,8 and Tsukitani counts the number of
kata in Kinko School of honkyoku to 356.9 The point seems to be to master these patterns by acting out
Yamaguchi Shirō teaching his son Yamuguchi Gorō the proper bodily movements, and even though the number is vast in Kinko honkyoku, it does not seem
impossible. Thus, the easiest and quickest way of learning the tradition of, for example shakuhachi honkyoku,
The form of transmission may thus be better understood as a mainly aural, semi-notated, and only partly an oral would be to have the correct way of executing these fixed forms explained. As Nishiyama points out, the art is the
type of transmission. Blasdel’s connection between the musical activity and the body, that is, a physical dimension of somatic activity, or rather, the somatic activity constitutes the art.
music as somatic activity, is close to Nishiyama Matsunosuke’s definition of the Way of Art, geidō. Nishiyama argues that
the way of art is defined in terms of the somatic activity, karada no hataraki, by which art is created. For Nishiyama, the On the other hand, Nishiyama holds that
Way of Art is art put into practice; art is using the physical body to dance, act, paint, speak, pull strings, or whatever an advantage with kata is that anyone
activity the art form in question requires. The things that are created through the somatic activities are works of art, but will be able to bring forth a minimum
for Nishiyama, “a completed product or an objectivized artistic object has no relation to geidō.”6 The art is the activity, requirement of a fair reproduction of the
but the result of the activity is not related to the Way of Art. This viewpoint is closely related to an Event in a theory put piece by learning the patterns. This is
forward by the folklore scholar Robert A. Georges, who defines an Event as “the message of complex communicative however not the full story, because he also
events”,7 and includes the interaction (which could be kinetic, audial, paralinguistic, and so on) between sender and says that in great art, such art that affects
receiver in a social context, where all parties participating in the Event have assumed their respective roles. If we can us deeply, the kata also contain heart,
perceive an act of transmission as an Event it opens up for a variety of aspects at work in this act, which then would not spirituality, and mindfulness (kokoro), which makes the art come alive.10 Kikkawa has a similar idea. He says that the
be limited to verbal or meta-linguistic elements. performer should attempt to blend him- or herself with the kata, and “what should be respected is not the outer form,
but the spirit of the kata.”11
Transmitting a piece of music is akin to – but at the same time different from – a performance of the same piece. A
performance affects us, it talks to us, it makes us feel a certain way (happy, sad, weary, angry, and so on), or it makes In transmission, correct execution of technique is at the centre. This includes technique to control the pitch, play in right
us understand something, completely regardless of whether the performer of the music intended to affect us in any time, apply dynamics, change intensity, and so on. If the kata are fixed forms, these aspects should be easy enough to
way. We may say that we need the performance to have the experience, but the performance is maybe not that which understand by verbal explanations. From my own experience I would however conclude that this is not the case. As I
5 Blasdel, The Single Tone: A Personal Journey into Shakuhachi Music, 2008, 19. 8 Kikkawa, Nihon ongaku no seikaku, 1980, 155–60.
6 Nishiyama, Geidō to dentō, 1984, 142. Nishiyama is one of the great scholars on Edo-period culture. 9 Tsukitani, Shakuhachi koten honkyoku no kenkyū, 2000, 133–34.
7 Robert A. Georges, “Toward an Understanding of Storytelling Events,” 1969, 316. Earlier drafts of the paper were presented at 10 Nishiyama, Geidō to dentō, 1984, 46–7.
the Folklore and Social Science Conference in NYC in November 1967. 11 Kikkawa, Nihon ongaku no seikaku, 1980, 167.
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022 Shakuhachi Focus – Tradition, Transmission & Transpropriation: Some Thoughts on the Process of Transmission
have indicated in an article, in which I analyse the concept of kata, there are great variations you practice a lot. To play the same piece of say around ten minutes of duration each lesson for a full year
in how the patterns are executed, and these variations seem to be very much up to the is something quite different from having three lessons in a month on a piece of 20, 30 or even 60 minutes
individual performer,12 but not without having the necessary credentials, that is, a shihan of duration. Even if these examples may seem to be a bit extreme cases, a comparison between these two
license. aspects of transmission gives rise to an interesting thought, which I think is a possible and maybe slightly
extreme way of providing an answer to the questions I posed above: Yokoyama taught quantity by means
of quality, because the qualitative aspects of the learning (as with Kakizakai) would be useful in learning other
Transmitting Music pieces; it could make the learning process of other pieces quicker, and thereby increase the number of pieces in a
shorter period of time. Yamaguchi taught quality by means of quantity, because by playing a vast number of pieces
Contrary to a performance, in the act of transmission how the music affects the receiver should
in which the same or similar patterns appear in different contexts would make the student more able to adapt, and more
be less important; several other aspects become central instead. If we regard a performance as
able to realize the possibilities of making slight differences to the patterns depending on the piece and the place in the
an act of artistic communication, I believe that an act of transmission should be viewed as an act of
piece. The end result is probably the same, but the ways to get there are quite different.14 As stated in the Blasdel quote
cognitive communication. A student should learn the bodily movements that constitute the art, and therefore, what
above not so much about words, but a lot about playing many long pieces. To implement this aspect of the transmission,
a student learns, is a somatic understanding, and not necessarily an intellectual one. The intellectual understanding
there are other witnesses to the ‘lack’ of verbal teaching by Yamaguchi Gorō, that he would play rather than enter into the
of the piece can, and maybe should be, a later product of the somatic understanding: the student should know what
realms of explanations, or that both himself and his father, Yamaguchi Shirō, were people of a reticent nature.15
movements result in what sound, but why it does so may be a later revelation.
As I have indicated in the above-mentioned article on kata, a fixed set of sounds, a phrase, a fixed form, a kata, may
sound differently from time to time: different ornamentation, different dynamics, different tone colour, different
blowing technique ... A student should learn to adapt to these subtle variations of the same notated pattern. And I
believe that this is what takes a long time. As I mentioned above, I studied more than one hundred pieces before I
received my shihan, and the pace was one piece a month. In reality, due to Yamaguchi’s absence for concerts and so on,
I did on an average nine to ten pieces a year. Each piece was divided in three parts, and Yamaguchi taught each part by
first singing the notation and clapping the beats indicating the time intervals while I was playing, and then he would
play the same part together with me. No explanations, just playing and listening to his voice. A lesson was therefore a
moment of total concentration in order to be able to grasp the subtleties of the music. Yamaguchi never required that
the students had the pieces memorized for a lesson. But, needless to say, you needed to be well prepared. The fourth
time on the same piece, Yamaguchi would ask the student to play the whole piece, from the beginning to the end.
Normally he would play along, but sometimes he would take down his instrument for a little while, and listen. If he was
satisfied you would ‘receive’ the piece. Sometimes, for
me it happened once, Yamaguchi would tell the student
to play the same piece through once more, the week
after. That indicated that he was not satisfied with the
way the student was playing. After you had ‘received’
a piece Yamaguchi would not teach this piece again.
With teaching I then refer to dividing the piece in parts,
and him singing it. The first ten or so gaikyoku pieces are about seven to twelve minutes. Later pieces could be twenty The author’s shihan license
or twenty-five minutes, and the longest honkyoku of the Kinko School is one hour. There is of course no way you could
learn a piece of that duration in a month, and that was not the purpose.
The idea of “wordless” teaching is also reflected upon in a very interesting article by Kiku Day. In the article she says that
the method of mimesis – in short, imitating what your teachers does – felt “protracted or ineffective” at the beginning.
What then is the purpose? What could the intention be behind such a mode of transmission? Before giving my views on
She continues by saying that she later realized the potential of the method and noted how “the shakuhachi techniques
these questions, I would like to comment on a statement I heard from Kakizakai Kaoru during the Barcelona Shakuhachi
– flow, and means of expression – had, to my surprise, entered my body at a deeper level than I had expected.”16
Summer School in July 2013.13 He mentioned that at some time during his studies with Yokoyama Katsuya he had had
lessons with his teacher on the same piece for a full year. Yokoyama Katsuya, so I hear, required that the students had
The gaikyoku pieces taught within the Yamaguchi’s Chikumeisha guild are divided in four grades: shoden, chūden,
the piece they did for a lesson memorized. That means, of course, that the student had already put ample time to study
14 I do not know the details of how Yokoyama conducted the lessons, and this example is by no means meant as an evaluation
the piece before the lesson. The pieces taught within Yokoyama’s Chikushinkai guild are maybe not as long as the
of others or a comparison of different modes of transmission, but simply meant to contrast the way in which Yamaguchi
Kinko pieces taught within Yamaguchi’s Chikumeisha guild, but still, to memorize a piece of music does require that would teach.
15 Gunnar Jinmei Linder and Mizuno Kōmei in Tokumaru Yoshihiko, et.al., ed., Yūgen naru hibiki: ningen kokuhō Yamaguchi
12 Linder, “An Analysis of Form: The Concept of kata in Traditional Japanese Music,” in Živá hudba (Living Music. Review for the
Gorō no shakuhachi to shōgai, 2008, 221, 258.
Study of Music and Dance), Nr. 4, 2013. Prague: NAMU, 70–93.
16 Kiku Day, “Learning music aesthetics through imperfection”, 94.
13 During Kakizakai’s talk on “sound improvement” on July 27 at ESMUC, Barcelona.
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022 Shakuhachi Focus – Tradition, Transmission & Transpropriation: Some Thoughts on the Process of Transmission
okuden, and jun-shihan, covering seventy-two ensemble pieces. After that you would do the thirty-six honkyoku in Video Sources
order to finally receive a shihan. When you began with the honkyoku, you learned techniques that could be applied Nihon Sankyoku Kyōkai (The Japan Sankyoku Association). Ningen Kokuhō Kiroku Bideo (Video
when playing the gaikyoku ensemble pieces, and you could more clearly hear what Yamaguchi did in his performances Documentation of Living National Treasures), 1997.
of sankyoku pieces after you had learned the honkyoku techniques. Several of the other students around Yamaguchi
YouTube. [https://youtu.be/NCzZFUV6w08] Miyama Jishi : Yamaguchi Gōro
would say the same thing: it was not until they began playing the honkyoku that they really understood the gaikyoku,
and thanks to all the gaikyoku, they felt that they had more stamina to play through the honkyoku. Each of these two
Direct Communications
repertoires function in some ways as a kind of “set of etudes” for the other. By internalizing the music, not necessarily
memorizing all the pieces, a freedom of application suddenly appears. The pedagogic idea may not be explicitly Kakizakai, Kaoru ( ). “Sound improvement” during the ESS Shakuhachi Summer School. Barcelona: ESMUC, July 2013.
postulated but it is still at work: only by understanding the music at the level of sounds can you really say that you have
learned it.
Sources Quoted
Written Sources
Blasdel, Christopher Yohmei. The Single Tone: A Personal Journey into Shakuhachi Music. 2005. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2008.
Day, Kiku. “Learning music aesthetics through imperfection: The transmission of Shakuhachi music” in Andrew Hamilton and
Lara Pearson, ed., Aesthetics of Imperfection. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020, pp. 92–102.
Georges, Robert A. “Toward an Understanding of Storytelling Events.” The Journal of American Folklore 82, no. 326, Oct.–Dec.
American Folklore Society, 1969, pp. 313–328.
Kikkawa Eishi ( 1909–2006). Nihon ongaku no seikaku (The Character of Japanese Music). 1979. Tokyo:
Ongaku no Tomosha, 1980.
Linder, Gunnar. “An Analysis of Form: The Concept of kata in Japanese Traditional Music.” In Živá hudba (Living Music. Review for
the Study of Music and Dance), Nr. 4, 2013. Prague: NAMU, pp. 70–93.
———. Deconstructing Tradition in Japanese Music: A Study of Shakuhachi, Historical Authenticity and Transmission of Tradition. (PhD
diss., Stockholm University, Department of Oriental Languages, March 2012). Stockholm University, 2012.
———. “Shi, Yamaguchi Gorō no geijutsu” (The Art of My Teacher Yamaguchi Gorō). Tokumaru Yoshihiko, et
al., ed., Yūgen naru hibiki: ningen kokuhō Yamaguchi Gorō no shakuhachi to shōgai
(Mysterious Sound: The Life and Shakuhachi of Living National Treasure Yamaguchi Gorō). Tokyo: Shuppan Geijutsusha, 2008, pp.
221–222. Conventions
Mizuno Kōmei ( ). “Deshi-tachi no kataru Yamaguchi Gorō: Chikumeisha riji zadan-kai” Japanese personal names are given as they are used in Japan, with family name first. Long vowels in Japanese names and
(The Disciples Talking about Yamaguchi Gorō: A Conversation Between the Trustees of Chikumeisha) in Tokumaru words are indicated with a macron, except in the case of words for which there exist conventional spellings in English, for ex-
Yoshihiko, et al., ed., Yūgen naru hibiki: ningen kokuhō Yamaguchi Gorō no shakuhachi to shōgai ample, Tokyo instead of Tōkyō. Japanese words are italicized, except for the names of instruments, such as shakuhachi, sham-
(Mysterious Sound: The Life and Shakuhachi of Living National Treasure Yamaguchi Gorō). Tokyo: Shuppan isen, and koto. For romanization, I use the modified Hepburn system. All translations are mine unless otherwise specified.
Geijutsusha, 2008, pp. 258–279.
Nishiyama Matsunosuke ( , b. 1912). Geidō to dentō (The Way of the Arts and Tradition), Tokyo: Yoshikawa
Kōbunkan, 1984.
Gunnar Jinmei Linder is a scholar, shakuhachi performer and teacher. He holds a PhD in Japanology from
Tokumaru Yoshihiko, Tsukitani Tsuneko, Tokumaru Jūmei, Saitō Mitsuru, ed. Yūgen naru hibiki: ningen kokuhō Yamaguchi Gorō no
Stockholm University, a Master’s degree of shakuhachi as performing art from Tokyo National University of the
shakuhachi to shōgai (Mysterious Sound: The Life and Shakuhachi of Living National
Arts, and a shakuhachi shihan license from Yamaguchi Gorō (1933–99). At present he occupies the position of
Treasure Yamaguchi Gorō), Tokyo: Shuppan Geijutsusha, 2008.
Associate Professor of Japanese Studies at Stockholm University, and also teaches shakuhachi at the Royal
Tsukitani Tsuneko ( , 1944–2010). Shakuhachi koten honkyoku no kenkyū (A Study of Classical (koten) Music College (KMH) in Stockholm. www.nipponicom.com/shakuhachi/
Fundamental Pieces (honkyoku) for Shakuhachi). Tokyo: Shuppan Geijutsu-sha, 2000.
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MAeKAWA KOgeTSu
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022 Shakuhachi Focus – Tradition, Transmission & Transpropriation
DAN ShINKu
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SeIAN geNShIN
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022 Shakuhachi Focus– Tradition, Transmission & Transpropriation
MIZuNO KhOMeI
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TANABe ShOZAN
Hōzan Yamamoto
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fuRuYA TeRuO
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TWO TeAcheRS: fRee AS
The WIND, uNTeTheReD
fROM The WORlD
Yokoyama Katsuya, founder of the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan and one
of the undisputed master shakuhachi players of the second half of the 20th
Century remembering his teachers Rando Fukuda and Watazumi-Dōso.
Originally published in the Japanese Hōgaku Journal as a series of transcripted
conversations between December1998 and March 1999, we are delighted to Naming “Watazumi D ”
present as part of our look at ideas of transmission the (to our knowledge) first
English translation of the February and March texts where Yokoyama talks freely
about his student/teacher relationship with Watazumi-sensei.
Special thanks to Nick Bellando for taking on the translation task.
Watazumi Doso - The Man Who cut Ties With the Shakuhachi World
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Pragmatic Philosophy
The change of San’an
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To change, or to Be changed?
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“I have Nothing to do with Shakuhachi.”
eccentricities
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A lifelong Project Watazumi D so (Real name TANAKA Kend )
Yokoyama Katsuya
Acknowledgements
Yokoyama Katsuya: Remembering my teacher and my practice
Original transcripts: Kazumi Narabe; first published in Hōgaku Journal between # 12, Vol. 143,
December 1998 and # 3, Vol. 146, March 1999.
This extract is taken from, # 2, Vol. 145, February 1999 and # 3, Vol. 146, March 1999 respectively.
Our thanks to Hōgaku Journal © 1998/1999
BAMBOO’s special thanks to Nick Bellando for translating the original Japanese text into English.
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was based on intuition, I didn’t have many tools for how to transmit information, so it
ARAKI KODO VI was invaluable to see what language or methods he used to communicate the music
and technique. What I’ll always remember is my father’s use of humor during his
lessons. Even with me, if I had reached a particularly challenging aspect of a
There had been no real discussion of my learning the instrument. Just one day, when my father handed me a shakuhachi piece, he would do something to make me laugh to break the tension. He was
that unbeknownst to me was made by my namesake, Hanzaburō Araki, (Kodō Araki II, Chikuō Araki). He didn’t offer me endlessly patient with his students and never raised his voice.
any guidance in that moment, but I was loosely familiar with how to hold it from the occasional time I’d seen him play.
I put it to my lips as I had seen him do and managed a pure, clear tone. There was no fanfare, no outward reaction. I would do my best to mimic him down to the most minute nuance of
With a quick nod he said, “we’ll start tomorrow. Don’t be late.” his playing. Consistently, he was most critical of my tendency to play too
quietly. My father sent me for a lesson with his close friend and colleague,
I was never tempted to think of myself as “gifted,” or special in any way. Over the course of my time Inoue Shigeshi whose playing could get prodigiously loud. Mr. Inoue told
playing with my father, he would reinforce this by never offering compliments, only criticism. He me he used to practice on the roof of his school, and never in rooms with
was never cruel, or mean-spirited, but I grew to appreciate that criticism and even rely on it. It any acoustic quality. He also gave me beautiful descriptions of each note: Ro
was simply the response which I was conditioned to receive. Indeed, to this day, when anyone is the sound of a sleeping dragon; chi is the laughter of a little girl, etc.
compliments my playing, I assume they weren’t paying attention. I assumed my ability to play
from the earliest days was more a function of genetic predisposition. While my father would tell me the meaning of each piece and explain the story if there was one, he never
spoke of spirituality at all. In fact, he seemed to deliberately ignore the subject. It was very difficult for
At my first lesson, he showed me each note in the scale, what it was called, and how it was me to manage expectations of spiritual guidance from my own students until very recently.
fingered. He said each note should be its own piece of music, and no note was of greater or
lesser importance than any other. In the past four or five years, I have decided to take a more active role in upholding my family’s tradition.
This has meant making teaching more of a priority. In order to do so, I have looked back at my years
I didn’t speak Japanese at the time. Sitting seiza across a small writing desk from him, my father studying with my father. He kept up a furious pace with me, but it was only because he felt I could
wrote down the unfamiliar ro-tsu-re katakana letters that constitute shakuhachi notation; this manage it. To me, understanding the pace that your student learns is crucial. Also, not every method
he did to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair, and El Cóndor Pasa, songs which will work for every player, and sometimes a non-traditional (or non-Araki) workaround will be the best
he knew to be familiar to me. This became a method I would use with my own students (although way to achieve an enjoyable musical experience.
not Scarborough Fair).
To play shakuhachi, I don’t believe it’s necessary to learn Japanese, but I do think it’s important to learn at least the
Once he was comfortable with my grasp of these songs, he wrote out Kimi Ga Yo (the Japanese National terminology of shakuhachi music. And while I may commend someone for their own exploration in Japanese music by
Anthem) before moving on to something more traditional. He took out an orihon of my grandfather’s way of recordings and the endless hours of YouTube content available to them, it is a disservice to the music and tradition
arrangement of E Ten Raku. All of this—the notation, the “dots” for measuring time—made sense to me in a way to eschew having a teacher. There are far too many subtle elements that comprise this music to get from a book or a video.
western notation never did. Most of the notation I used at that point was from either his father or grandfather
(Kodō IV and III) from their personal hand-written books that he had inherited. In those early lessons, I am not a staunch traditionalist—that is to say I don’t believe that the shakuhachi can only be played by Japanese people,
I appreciated the notation of Satō Seibi for it’s clarity, but once my eyes had gotten used to or that it can only be used for Japanese music. I believe that for the sake of its survival, exploration and collaboration
reading the shakuhachi scores, I grew to prefer my family’s notation which allowed for is vital. However, I do think that fundamental shakuhachi technique and repertoire is essential before taking the
more expression while still offering structure. instrument in a different direction (I believe this to be true for any traditional musical instrument). Because without
that, there is very simply no reason to play the shakuhachi versus a Western concert flute.
Given that breathing method and embouchure came naturally to me, he was able to
focus his instruction on the music. He could demonstrate the fingering for tsu meri But most importantly, one must have impeccable foundational knowledge of traditional shakuhachi technique if
for example, and I would mirror it exactly. Same for more complicated technique they intend to present themselves as a teacher and transmit their version of shakuhachi. Play whatever you want,
(tsu meri - ru, for example). Over that first two weeks, he taught me Sanya Sugagaki, but if you want to teach, do it properly. To do otherwise has grave consequences for a proud musical history.
Kumoi Jishi, as well as sankyoku pieces Kuro Kami and Rokudan.
I’ve read many essays wishing to address the question what can be done to preserve the shakuhachi? I don’t believe
We would play together until he was sure I had it, then I’d play it alone into a the shakuhachi is in danger. Rather, it is the tradition that faces extinction. Most anyone with access to a library and
tape recorder which we would listen back to together for him to critique. He had an internet connection can teach themselves how to play just about anything, shakuhachi included. But what are the
an old Sony reel-to-reel tape machine with many old recordings that we would listen things that make that music unique? What drew you to that music in the first place? If your first exposure to shakuhachi
to as well. All in all, my lessons would be at least six hours, every day. was a video game or a samurai movie, I salute your desire to dive deeper. But consider why this instrument was used
in that game or that film, and be mindful of the generations of musicians who kept the tradition alive through the
Once I was in Japan, it was a great experience to watch him teach his other students. Because so much of what I did upheaval of history and ravages of time.
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My experience of Transmission of the Shakuhachi in Reibo-kai
break off and develop in a different direction. On the plus side is that there are many of
Aoki-sensei’s recordings, as well as the whole Kinko-ryū honkyoku repertory, recorded by
In 1978 I began to study the shakuhachi with the Reibo-kai branch of the Kinko School under Sano Reihi, a senior Yamaguchi Gōro, which students can study.
disciple of Aoki Reibo, at Wesleyan University in the US. It was a 45- minute bus ride from Yale, where I was a graduate
student in Chinese art history. At the time, Wesleyan had a flourishing and well-known Japanese music program Based on my studies with Aoki-sensei, I aim to pass on a certain kind of shakuhachi sound,
in which Namino Tori taught the koto, and the ethnomusicologist Tsuge Gen’ichi taught the subject of Japanese and a certain approach to timing, emphasis and ornamentation in the pieces. Beyond
music, and arranged for shakuhachi teachers to come and teach. that, it’s up to the students to incorporate, or not, as they wish.
I did not meet the head of the school, Aoki-sensei, until the following year, when he came on a US tour, The situation in Japan now in shakuhachi music is that younger players prefer western
and I heard him play for the first time. I had been interested in the shakuhachi before, but now I was was style pieces to the old classical ones, or are simply not interested in traditional music at all.
totally smitten. Aoki-sensei arranged for me to stay with a koto accompanist of his in the summer of The interest in the many different branches of traditional shakuhachi from all over Japan
1979, and I spent the summer in Tokyo playing the shakuhachi, taking two lessons a week, one each represented by the shakuhachi players in the ESS gives hope that there are others who will
with Sano-sensei and Aoki-sensei. This system continued for years, which allowed me to improve at a keep these ancient musical styles alive.
good pace.
In fact, I was very lucky to have started with Sano-sensei, who was of a younger generation, and had
just spent two years interacting with American students. Thus he was a kind of a buffer between me
and Aoki-sensei in the beginning, as I was totally ignorant of certain matters of etiquette towards
the head of a school, for which Aoki-sensei was a stickler. Sano-sensei’s lessons were longer, and I
could ask questions. Aoki-sensei did not allow them. I was to play, and that was it. I was not to make
mistakes, and I was to keep up with him. (All unsaid!) I had to have a kind of fierce concentration - it
was completely different from Sano Sensei. With Aoki-sensei, I was always on my mettle.
Which brings me to what we were playing. Not honkyoku, but sankyoku, ensemble music. I did not
play honkyoku with Aoki-sensei until preparing for my shihan or master’s concert in 1984. So for about
three years I only played sankyoku. But lessons were the same, just play! There were occasional pauses
when Aoki-sensei modified the music, and played the parts he was changing. The notation was typical Kinko
style notation which he gave me or I bought from shakuhachi music shops at the time. There were also Meian scores
in his hand, and Nezasa-ha notation which he had collected and passed on. The only indirect reference to the spiritual
side of things was a huge calligraphy: “Sit in silence”, on the wall of our lesson space, which I assumed was an allusion to
meditation. There was certainly no discussion of it.
As I began to improve, there were many opportunities to perform honkyoku solos, at the regularly scheduled concerts
at a favorite concert hall in Nihonbashi, for example, or at small concert spaces Aoki-sensei appeared at. A particular
patron of Aoki-sensei would also invite us to perform at his house, for example, when I visited Japan, which gave me
another chance to play in front of an audience.
When I went to Japan in 1998, I knew that I was getting close to my Grand Master certificate, as all the young men of the
school of my age had already received theirs. I was working on Koku (Emptiness) and set out for my first lesson of the
summer. The advantage of Aoki-sensei’s adherence to just playing and following him in the music without any chat was
that the lesson could become a kind of mental fusion. That day I received my dai-shihan.
elIZABeTh ReIAN
The rough treatment of students in the traditional Japanese arts is famous, and still used. It gets results. But I could
not use this technique on my American students. A teacher who didn’t answer questions? Not likely. As for material
available on Youtube, if you have a student industrious enough to start playing along with recordings found online - the
BeNNeTT
shakuhachi embouchure is so difficult at the start - the more practice the better. At a certain point, a student may have
to decide which direction to take, so there is a chance the student might
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When I was 18 years old, I moved to Japan and spent the next 18 years as a member of the Taiko song. I also start with a warm-up and then have the student play the honkyoku. I give a few pointers on the song and
group Ondekoza that connected me with Yokoyama Katsuya. Very limited information corrections and go over some passages. At times, find that singing or chanting the passages (as Yokoyama-sensei did)
was to be found on Shakuhachi, even in Japanese, as we did not have internet yet. helps me better understand the phrasing. I play the honkyoku once or twice together, so the student gets a better idea
of the flow of the honkyoku. I also try to open the students to other aspects of Japanese culture or give them info on
I lived in Nagasaki prefecture and would travel to Tokyo once a month to take some books that might help them in the honkyoku study.
shakuhachi lessons. I was not allowed to practice indoors in Ondekoza,
I needed to be able to project and play without amplification when we Yokoyama talked about similar points, that honkyoku is not only what you hear. The interpretation of it is just
played in large concerts halls. I practiced daily for hours on end outdoors the tip of the iceberg. There is all the work that goes behind it, that gives it its depth and beauty. The study or
in all seasons rain (snow) or shine. understanding of honkyoku does not end on the page, it’s the whole work behind it, your lifestyle, your daily
practice, etc. I complemented my study by seeing Kabuki, Noh theater, Kyogen, and Japanese art, which helped me a
Yokoyama-sensei had about 4 days per month set for lessons – students lot in understanding some of the Japanese concepts such as ma, Kyōjaku (strong and soft), wabi sabi, etc. Being able to
would come for a lesson on those days and would wait their turn. It speak Japanese did help me tremendously in the study. honkyoku came originally from older forms of songs or religious
allowed students to hear different songs being played by others and that chants. I find the rhythms in the honkyoku similar to speech patterns. Japanese language has a flow and the intonation
was part of the learning process. becomes very useful in the study ( for example Kabuki or Noh actor’s speech pattern).
Furuya-sensei would teach me earlier on, as Yokoyama-sensei was busy. The lessons Yokoyama had an openness that went beyond the limitations of the traditional iemoto system. He was very open
were done kneeling (seiza). We would also talk about different subjects at the lesson. I was to having students check out other honkyoku styles. He was a protagonist of more freedom of learning and
already playing shakuhachi professionally after a year with Ondekoza, and I was hungry for any collaborating in traditional music.
extra information that would help me. Yokoyama was very helpful in giving me hints about
Japanese arts and recommending what artists to check out that would help with my study of A lot of changes have occurred with the internet, but not always for the better. Videos of all levels of playing
the honkoyku repertoire. I had heard of Watazumi-sensei, who was still alive at the time (but I are being uploaded on the internet. In a way, it has become more confusing for new students to weed
never got to meet him). I did find some recordings and listened to his music to help me better through it all and I feel it is mostly a disservice to their studies.
understand the honkyoku. I was surprised to hear the differences between Watazumi’s and
Yokoyama’s rendition of the songs. I liked Yokoyama’s interpretation. I spent many hours Yokoyama told me that it was my duty as an ambassador of the honkyoku to pass it on to new generations
with Yokoyama-sensei and Furuya-sensei talking about shakuhachi, books, art, etc. Hints of players. I have since shared my knowledge and Yokoyama’s passion with others worldwide. I try to go
about playing could be found everywhere. The study of the shakuhachi did not simply teach in areas that usually don’t get much exposure to his music and try to be supportive of dedicated
end with playing and learning songs. In Japan, there is an “interconnection” of religions musicians that sometimes don’t have the means to study.
(Shintoism, Buddhism, and Christianity) that has permeated daily life, I think that is why
not so much was explained about the honkyoku except the general idea of the honkyoku It took me 14 years before I felt I was ready to do a solo recording and
without giving much information. still felt unsure. Your whole life is dedicated to the study of honkyoku. A
recording is an interpretation of yourself at the time. Yokoyama taught
I was never given any music from Yokoyama, but Furuya-sensei had transcribed a lot of the me that it is a living art form. Your interpretation changes and will
honkyoku, which I got when I studied with him. Memorizing the songs was encouraged, but having evolve in the course of your life. I feel very blessed to have been able to
a score was helpful to take notes during the lesson. I usually warmed up with Yokoyama-sensei and experience his music and his energy and which has fueled my passion
then I would play the song on my own and he would give me some pointers. We would then play the for honkyoku.
song together. I would try to get as much as I could during that time to understand the honkyoku. He would
encourage you to make the honkyoku your own, as long as it made sense the way you played it. He would point out the Yokoyama at one point moved to Okayama. It was a beautiful setting in
mistakes in phrasing, tuning, etc. In Japan, you are first taught to copy the teacher until you grasp the song. a very remote town. I went a few times for lessons there, and he showed
me his recording studio and the Shakuhachi Kenshūkan. A few years later
You will only start to understand the honkyoku after playing it hundreds of times (with some guidance from the teacher), the first shakuhachi festival was held there and I was invited to perform and
little by little it reveals itself when played over and over. It might be a long process, but I find it is the most effective had the honor to share the stage with Yokoyama-sensei.
way. Each time, I would come back to a honkyoku after a year, Yokoyama had made some adjustments. That made me
understand that a honkyoku is a living song, it changes with time through the process of playing it. As to the techniques
and details of the song, I learned the most from Furuya-sensei. Yokoyama-sensei would play phrases and segments of
the songs that were difficult but never gave too much info. It was really up to you to pay attention and try to recreate
what you heard and saw being played.
My teaching is similar to the way the honkyoku is taught, I do give a little more information on technical passages of a
MARcO lIeNhARD
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The Chikumei-sha repertory consist of seventy-three gaikyoku followed by thirty-six honkyoku. Completing all these
chRISTOPheR YOhMeI BlASDel pieces meant the student must spend up to nine years for a shihan teaching license. Attaining the shihan rank was
arduous and required a significant commitment of time and money, and Yamaguchi made sure that those who achieved
shihan status were competent and skilled players, ready to continue the transmission of his musical guild (Chikumei-
Lessons with Yamaguchi Gorō – My journey into shakuhachi music began in 1972–exactly fifty years ago this fall–when sha). The contemporaneous dai-shihan ranking, which is often seen in the bios of shakuhachi players today, was not
I was a college student in Tokyo and introduced to Yamaguchi Gorō. Only thirty-eight years old at the time, Yamaguchi necessary and simply did not exist back then—at least not in the Kinko style.
was already one of Japan’s leading young performers, especially in the field of traditional music. He had recently
returned from a year of teaching at Wesleyan College and was considered progressive and internationally-minded in Like many young Americans at the time, I was attracted to the spiritual aspects of the shakuhachi and its relationship to Zen
his teachings, however in essence his instructional method was based on the old, pre-war styles of his father and other Buddhism. Yamaguchi was respectful and knowledgeable of this aspect of the shakuhachi, yet whenever I asked questions
hōgaku players of the early twentieth century. In that sense, he was one of the first generation of shakuhachi players regarding spirituality, his answers were succinct, and in response he usually just handed me another piece to play, as if to
who straddled both pre and post-war sensibilities. say, “master the basics of the music first.” When I pressed him for a discussion, he gave the pithy but wise answer, “Work on
yourself.” At first, I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, though it slowly became clear to me.
Yamaguchi’s lessons were done on a first-come first-served basis—there were
no appointments. On lesson day students arrived, sat down in the tatami- I would love to teach today the same way Yamaguchi did—with an
matted lesson room and waited their turn before playing in front of abundance of relaxed time for all my students to gather and spend
the teacher. Depending on how many students were already there, hours playing and listening to each other (I also took lessons from
one might have a lesson right away or have to wait their turn. Myōan-ryū teacher Okamoto Chikugai. The social aspects of
Although the wait could be long, the upside of this system those gatherings were similar to Yamaguchi’s lessons, though
was that it allowed even beginners like myself to listen to with much more chatting and tea drinking….). However,
the other students and become familiar with the pieces. social conventions have changed dramatically in the
ensuing years and one must adhere to the times. Like
Yamaguchi required his students to study the entire a doctor’s appointment, I schedule lesson times for
gaikyoku (sankyoku) repertory before beginning the each student to fit our respective schedules. I also
Kinko Style honkyoku. This was done, I was told, to have come to recognize the value of remote lessons
make sure that the student acquired the necessary through such platforms as Zoom, however unfulfilling
technical skills in order to advance into the highly they may seem. Like Yamaguchi, I also prefer not to
demanding honkyoku. dwell too much on the so-called spiritual aspects of
the shakuhachi and when asked, I usually answer by
Beginners started with basic koto and shamisen works giving the student a difficult passage to work on. This
like Rokudan no Shirabe, Kurokami and through the is because the technical discipline one must undergo in
years progressed to the more demanding compositions like order to perfect the shakuhachi—or any instrument—is
Yaegoromo, Aoyagi, and Zangetsu. Although I was eager to begin precisely the kind of training one needs to heighten one’s
the honkyoku as soon as possible, in retrospect it was good to work awareness of the supersensible aspects of the world we live in.
exclusively on the gaikyoku for so long. It prepared me for an effortless
transition into the honkyoku while teaching me the beauty of song. Aware of the shakuhachi’s relationship to Zen, people often ask me if do
zazen meditation. My answer is always no. Instead, I work on perfecting my
We usually worked up one piece in three or four lessons per month. The actual instruction consisted of tones, pitch, musicality and the memorization of pieces. Music is my spiritual training, and it is as deep
the student playing a section of the piece together with Yamaguchi, then alone (while Yamaguchi sang the shakuhachi and meaningful as any sort of austerity discipline a dedicate Zen monk may undergo. In other words, music is the Way.
part), then together again. The last lesson of the month was for playing the entire piece without stopping. Animating and informing this realization is the knowledge that music is undertaken not for the sake of oneself, but
ultimately for the sake of others. I know of no greater joy than pleasing an audience through a fine performance. We are
Yamaguchi’s mother was a well-known shamisen and koto master of the Ikuta-ryū. Before she passed away, she often sat just the vessel for the music, and the more we work to improve the vessel the greater is our gift of music.
nearby and sang, in her exquisite voice, the lyrics of the pieces we played during the lessons.
Humility, hard work, reverence and morality are the building blocks of spirituality. This is what Yamaguchi meant when
Though Yamaguchi did his best to answer any questions I had, few words were exchanged during the lessons, which he told me, a half-century ago, to “work on myself.” It is also the message that I wish to pass down to my students.
mostly relied on repetition and following the teacher’s lead. Unlike my western music teachers in the U.S., Yamaguchi’s
generation of hōgaku players did not possess particular verbal skills to explain the music. However, this non-verbal For a more detailed account of lessons with Yamaguchi in the early 1970’s, please refer to The Single Tone—A Personal Journey
approach to learning music was a revelation to me, since it forced me to rely on the act of listening, mimicry and other into Shakuhachi Music on Amazon Kindle books.
non-intellectual perceptions to experience the music.
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and modeled each piece clearly and patiently both with his flute and his voice. He also had a
lARRY TYRRell remarkable memory. I’ll never forget the day he took some hotel stationery from a Brazilian hotel
out of a drawer and with two different pens wrote out a beautiful score of Hifumi Hachigaeshi
completely from memory including all the annotations.
Miyata Kohachiro had been a presence in my life from the time of his 1977 recording on Nonesuch
Thoughts about shakuhachi oral transmission incidentally, the best selling shakuhachi recording of all time. An accomplished composer and capable
The oral tradition is the original conduit for musical transmission. The process is as simple as koto player as well, his studio also had many koto players eager to study his
it gets. Listen, watch, imitate, emulate, commit to memory. Narau yori nareyo music. He was able to sing all the parts of often complicated pieces during
(Rather than learn, acculturate.) Simple...but time consuming. their lessons.
All musical traditions retain aspects of oral transmission and oral transmission takes many forms. My His playing was masterful, elegant, lyrical and compelling. I
grounding in music came from learning music from recordings of popular and folk music as a child, thanks studied with him in Tokyo from 1985-87. He was a very exacting
to the great recording boom of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. I began by singing along with records and becoming attached to teacher who modeled precision, nuance and command. His
that magical process of not just listening to music but making it a part of me. musicianship and beautiful tone had an enormous influence
on me. I still often hear his sound in my head.
Records were effectively a new form of the oral tradition. I embraced the chance to listen to any music I could and
brought home dozens and dozens of LPs from the public library. To me World Music meant all the music in the world. Yokoyama Katsuya was a force of nature–passionate,
Then came shakuhachi. charismatic and grand. He embodied the the music he
played to the utmost. Every time he played, he created the
The first shakuhachi recording I heard was Yamaguchi Gōro playing Hifumi Hachigaeshi no Shirabe from the first of music anew. I never heard him play the same piece exactly
a set of LPs released in the 1970’s. Here was playing of beauty so exquisite, simple and moving. I remember a sense the same way twice. Studying with him gave me a different
of recognition, wonder and displacement. I had found a tradition expressing a sonic world I aspired to, using only a sense of the oral tradition, a sense in which each piece is a
bamboo flute. living, evolving thing.
I heard Yoneya Iwao next. His groundbreaking recordings of solo shakuhachi min’yō were exotic and I was privileged to study with him in Bisei-cho, Okayama-ken
soulful to me. It reinforced my sense of the shakuhachi being an instrument of great affective range from 1991 to 1994. When I once asked him whether I should use the
and depth and drove me to learn to play it. first hole or the second hole to repeat a ro in the classical honkyoku,
Koku, his simple answer was yes... adding that, ultimately, the music itself
will teach you how to play it.
The oral tradition in the shakuhachi world
I have been blessed with the rich experience and great gift of the opportunity to study with five The teaching path
teachers on my path of shakuhachi. Although each teacher had a distinct approach, the common
thread was teaching by example. Not only that–every teacher I have had could sing from memory or From my experience as a student, as a teacher my goal has always been to bring students directly to sound
sight-sing any shakuhachi score. I think this is an essential thing to understand about oral transmission– as it is. I encourage students to catalogue how each note feels to play, so as to begin to embody each
the importance of developing your inner voice. sound, not just produce it. I try to provide a framework for integrating breath and body awareness with
sonic sensitivity so that the sound they hear, or remember in their inner ear, is that sound they play.
Masayuki Koga was my first teacher, starting in 1981, and influenced me enormously with the purity of his
vision and commitment to shakuhachi. He emphasized playing every single day. His lessons were very much in the What are those qualities each sound has? The fingering x,Tsu no meri (Kinko-ryū), on a 1.8 flute has a
oral tradition model– listen, imitate, listen again, emulate, absorb. He trained his students’ perception. nominal pitch of E-flat. But E- flat is not a quality–it’s a measurement. (Incidentally, Masayuki Koga once
told me, teasingly, that using a pitch meter was, “Very good training – for your eyes!”)
Takenawa Jakuzan was my first teacher in Japan in 1983 in the city of Okayama. It was he who inculcated in me the ethic
of narau yori nareyo – rather than learn, acculturate – mentioned above. To study with him was to not only learn to play The qualities are what we feel when we play. To me tsu no meri is shadowy, yearning, complicit, recessive and yin. So,
and sing the music but to become a family member with lessons mixed with social time. how do we find and register those qualities in our bodies, in our breaths? Rather than pitch discrimination, it’s more like
affective discrimination. Each nuance of affective expression has a distinct kinesthetic signature as unique as the faces
Iwami Baikyoku V was a very elegant, accomplished man– engineer, composer, musician and holder of the iemoto of each of our friends. In this way the path of oral transmission must lead students to both increased sensitivity and to
seal of Baikyoku bequeathed on him by Araki Kodo IV. I met him in 1984 in São Paulo, Brazil. He had an acute ear embodiment of these signatures.
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The essence, then, of embodiment is that the music itself resides in the body, immanent, until the music calls on you
to play it. This runs counter to the idea of perfecting technique. The body, mind and memory are imperfect things that
grow, decline, change and evolve such that your instrument, your embodiment, is not fixed. The goal of training is to
achieve consistency but it is impossible to avoid the paradox of the oral tradition–the tradition, like ourselves, is always
clIVe Bell
forming, always evolving.
My lesson experience
More about contemporary oral tradition We all gathered on Thursday evenings at our teacher’s
house in Tokyo. The atmosphere was loose and
The shakuhachi path, like the other paths of traditional Japanese culture, is fundamentally based on in-situ oral informal, but the setup was clear: all students
transmission. But while direct experience with a teacher is irreplaceable, the skills and experience gained apply well together in a waiting room, then one by one
to other, virtual, informants. For example, although I regrettably never met Yoneya Iwao, I have made numerous summoned through the sliding door into the
transcriptions of his recordings by listening until I could sing the piece, then playing until I could play it, including the teacher’s presence.
nuances and ornaments, and only then transcribing it.
The essence of the teaching was the moment
While many of us have taken advantage of on-line resources like YouTube and on-line lessons it’s important to note when the teacher demonstrated a passage.
the limitations of these technology-driven pathways. Using Zoom or Skype is not the same as an in-person lesson. I’ve This was the model to copy, and my failure to
learned that lesson the hard way. Due to the built-in automatic level control in Skype, I once taught a student on-line for do so was my problem. Any analysis of poor
months not realizing that he was playing at too low a volume. I also was sad to discover, when I resumed teaching in- playing was thin on the ground. I recall my
person lessons recently, that even my long- time students had lost rather than maintained ground despite continuous teacher asking another student to come and
on-line lessons during the pandemic. try to explain why my playing was so bad. Heads
were shaken and sympathy offered.
Yokoyama’s Dream I soon realised that almost no one did any practice.
A student would perform a piece that he clearly had not
Transmission is only the beginning of the journey. Embodiment is the destination. It is that ideal combination of looked at since last week. The students loved the teacher and the
experience, immersion, deep, intuitive and conscious understanding that you seek recognizing yourself as the social occasion. Their laziness was a tribute to the teacher’s brilliance - just
instrument and finally arriving at a place where you neither recall the music nor beckon it come to you–it is you. being present would surely improve matters. I was in a hurry to learn
and practiced furiously, randomly. I was the only foreigner present
The shakuhachi takes your breath and reflects it back to you with clarity and honesty. It - this was 1976 and I was a rare bird. My teacher was reluctant to
gives you a mirror of your mood, emotions, intentions and aspirations. It provides accept me as a student, fearing that I was a dilettante, about to
your spirit a musical vehicle and idiom. flit off to study koto or ikebana.
Yokoyama Katsuya told me a story, also published in his first Love for the teacher was expressed in gift bottles of whiskey.
autobiography, of a dream that he had as a young man in his twenties These might be shared. “Would you like a cup of tea?” I was
in which he heard the most astounding and perfect shakuhachi asked mid-lesson. The delicate blue and white teacup held
sound. I remember thinking that it was a good description of his spirits, but I was confused; maybe this was a special tea,
sound at that time. However, he concluded the story by saying served cold. After a few sips my playing disintegrated into a
that he, then at the peak of his career, was still searching for feeble gasping. My teacher was mightily amused.
that sound. Twenty years later, I only truly understand the
story now. The approach to the repertoire was pragmatic. First we learned
folk tunes, to get the notes straight. Then a lot of sankyoku chamber
music, good for rapid reading and stamina. I could play
along with a cassette tape containing koto and shamisen parts. Finally
the pinnacle of solo honkyoku appeared on the skyline. These were approached in the same direct manner as the folk
tunes. It’s all music. New age spirituality and associations with yoga had not yet been invented, or imported. Perhaps my
teacher was unusually informal and down to earth. But it was hard to test this theory, as the one thing you could never
do was take lessons from someone else.
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Time passed until one day I attended a concert in Paris in which Fukuda-sensei was participating. I was very
DANIel SeISOKu impressed by the virtuoso and brilliant playing of this musician. I asked him if he would agree to come to
France to teach a small group of French people who were passionate about shakuhachi. He answered that
he would think about it...
lIfeRMANN In 1999 he informed me that he was coming for a concert at UNESCO in Paris. He agreed to come and teach for
a weekend on this occasion. For this first master class we were about ten students and, although he had not met
us before, he made us play with him on the UNESCO stage. What a proof of confidence! This was the beginning of a
partnership that continues to this day. After more than twenty years of collaboration, La Voie du Bambou has become the
The first time I heard the sound of a shakuhachi was forty years ago on the radio. It
French branch of the HijiriKai school, founded by Fukuda-sensei (the Dutch branch having been created by Hélène
fascinated me. I thought that only Japanese people, born in Japan, could play such an
Seiyu Codjo and the Italian branch by Fiore Seichiku De Mattia).
instrument. At that time it was very rare to hear traditional music from the Far East. But life had
many surprises in store for me, because I had the opportunity to go to Japan in 1983 and to finally
Like all traditional musicians, Fukuda-sensei teaches through direct imitation, but he does not
cross the path of the shakuhachi.
hesitate to give many explanations on the spirit of the pieces as well as on the technique. He
insists on the quality of the sound, its colour. For him, the whole body participates in the
Back in France, I met a Frenchman who had spent a long time in Japan and studied shakuhachi
production of sound. This is the beginning of a vibratory quest pushed to its paroxysm. It
with Yokoyama-sensei. Franck Noël (a high level aikidoka) was my first teacher. We were a
is a global body-mind approach that requires extreme concentration and presence to
very small group around him. He spoke little and his teaching was essentially based on
oneself.
direct imitation. After five years of learning I was beginning to manage and it was then
that he suddenly decided to stop teaching shakuhachi, too busy with his activities in his
As a teacher, my goal is to bring a student to discover his own sound. To do this, I do not
aikido dojo. Being the most advanced, he told the other students that if they wanted
hesitate to give a lot of explanations, especially on the physiology of breathing. I have
to continue studying, they could do so with me. So here I was, becoming a teacher in
seen how little we know about our anatomy and how our bodies work. From my own
spite of myself. However, I took up the challenge and formed a new small group of
experience, I was able to measure that it was the body that learned to play and not the
students. But I was far from finished with my apprenticeship and was desperate to find
mind. The first contacts with the instrument are very important. I
a teacher with whom I could continue to study.
remember this person who, during his first lesson, burst into
tears when he produced his first sound. It was amazing!
As luck would have it, I came across Iwamoto sensei. This was doubly fortunate as he was
himself a disciple of Yokoyama-sensei and he lived in nearby England. I had the opportunity
I usually start my lessons with a warm-up in the form of
to organize master classes for seven years under his direction within a group of about ten
spun sounds and then come the study of the honkyoku.
students that would later become the association La Voie du Bambou. Iwamoto-sensei was
The honkyoku has a very constrained form and the
a musician of extreme refinement and a rather introverted, very discreet temperament. In
disciple must try to play like the master. This leaves
his teaching, he could talk about spirituality, Japanese aesthetics or
little room for freedom. However, it is in this tiny space
philosophy even before starting to study pieces. The honkyoku were
of freedom that the disciple will be able to blossom and
studied phrase by phrase with great precision, each ornament seen
find his own way, thus enriching the tradition. Technique is
in detail. He also explained the Buddhist context. Once, working
important, but the spirit must guide the playing. Each piece,
one-to-one with him, I came up against a difficult section, and
each phrase, each note tells a particular story, which is why I
there he said to me in a stern, almost angry tone: “It’s a matter
leave the student free to interpret it as long as the piece is not
of life and death!” and he wasn’t kidding! During the master
distorted.
classes we alternated between group work and private lessons.
Sometimes during a break we would hear him playing in the
The majority of my students are attracted by the meditative character of the shakuhachi and
distance and these were magical moments. Once I got up early and
often have no musical training. It is therefore necessary to propose a teaching that combines the study of
found him outside, playing alone in the early morning mists. I walked
honkyoku and the basics of music (reading, intonation, rhythm, etc.)
up to him and he told me he was going to teach me a new piece. He
played, I repeated and so on. I will remember for the rest of my life that
To conclude, I would say that the key word in the transmission of shakuhachi is “wonder”. I remember my amazement
hour when, just out of sleep, I received the most extraordinary lesson (“mind
the first times I heard this flute. And it is this wonder that I wish to transmit to my students whom I thank for all that they
to mind” as they say in Zen). The last time I met him was at the WSF in Boulder,
have taught me.
Colorado (1998). And then, overnight, he disappeared.
Here I am for the second time in search of a master and in charge of an association dedicated to shakuhachi. Photo: Masterclass of the Bamboo Way 1998 conducted by Fukuda-sensei and Kineya-sensei (shamisen) at Moulin de Flée, France.
New students joined our group. I passed on in turn what I had received from Iwamoto-sensei.
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I brought a portable cassette recorder to the next lesson. I asked Yokoyama if he minded
RIleY lee – ShAKuhAchI if I tape-recorded his playing of the phrases in question. “Of course! Good idea!”, he
immediately replied.
Going home after the lesson, I thought that I might finally have a chance of success. I had
PReSeNce / BeINg the music on tape. I could listen to Yokoyama’s playing over and over again. Surely I would
get it right this time. I listened to and played along with the cassette recording many times
leading up to our next lesson. I was quite confident as I played the phrases for Yokoyama. As I
played, he leaned his head to one side, eyes shut, as if going to sleep.
WITh A BAMBOO fluTe Almost before I had finished, he sprang to life, exclaiming, “No, that’s not right!”. What? How could this be?
At the risk of being impatient and possibly sounding like a disrespectful gaijin (foreigner), I asked if we
could please listen to the recording of his playing the same phrases, from our last lesson.“Good
idea, let’s hear it.” Once again, while the recording was played Yokoyama shut his eyes,
appearing to concentrate on the recording of his own playing. To my astonishment, as
soon as I turned off the cassette player, he nearly jumped up, pointed triumphantly at
listening the cassette player and declared, “NO! That’s still not correct. Now, listen while I play
it for you again!” At that point, I gave up expecting to get it ‘right’, or expecting to
I remember a spell of lessons in the 1980s in Tokyo I had with Katsuya Yokoyama, my shakuhachi teacher. gain Yokoyama’s approval, though I never stopped trying. All I could do was listen
Yokoyama was teaching me a traditional piece called San’an (Safe Delivery). I couldn’t seem to get it right. Using to his playing as intently as possible. I began to learn to listen carefully to my own
typical shakuhachi methods, Yokoyama would play a phrase or two. We would play them together, and then I’d playing. If I couldn’t hear objectively what was going on in my own playing, I would
play them on my own. never know if I was playing my phrases as I heard Yokoyama play them.
“Fine,” he said, possibly after deciding that, though I couldn’t really play the phrases yet, intellectually I probably Yokoyama’s playing, which I was trying so hard to imitate, subtly changed from
understood how they should be played. “Now, go practice and play them for me in our next lesson.” lesson to lesson, yet it always sounded ‘just right’. I tried to stop analysing what
And so I did. was happening. I accepted that I would most probably never ‘get it’. How could I
ever replicate with my shakuhachi all of the subtleties of Yokoyama’s ‘right’ way of
At the next lesson, after considerable practice in between and with some confidence, I played the phrases on my playing, when the ‘right’ way constantly changed, yet always seemed to sound ‘just
own. “No,” he said patiently, “that’s not how they go. Please listen more carefully.” right’?
Sure enough, I was able to hear some subtle differences, bits I might have I realised that I was basically trying to accomplish the impossible. Yet, I still enjoyed the
missed previously, but which I now could hear, perhaps because I had played process, even more so once I realised that I was striving to do the impossible. I did my best at
the phrases many times already. Great, I thought. I went home for more replicating Yokoyama’s playing. Knowing that I never could made me less anxious. I always expected
practice. The same thing happened at the next lesson. “No, that’s not correct. to be shown how I wasn’t playing correctly, and was seldom disappointed. I wasn’t just learning how to play
Please listen more carefully.” the shakuhachi. I was learning to be completely and totally in the present. I was learning to listen.
I tried ever more earnestly to pay attention to how he played the phrase during Years later, I realised that the ‘right way’ of playing the piece encompassed more than what could be recorded on a
our lesson. I was totally in the present, attempting to identify what I wasn’t cassette tape. It required an awareness of more than what one could hear with one’s ears. It required insight, a sensitivity
hearing in his playing that made my playing not ‘right’. As always, I immediately and an ability to respond appropriately to the unique circumstances and environment existing at each specific moment
went home and began practicing while Yokoyama’s notes were still fresh in my of the playing, I also realised, much later, the benefits of Yokoyama having set a goal for me that was basically impossible.
mind’s ear. Next time, surely I would get it right. Had the goal been possible and had I finally achieved it, what then? I realised that the fact that a goal is impossible does
not diminish its value as a goal. Yokoyama might have put it this way, “A goal that is anything less than impossible
At the next lesson: “No, you’re not listening. I’ll play it again for you. This time, you must listen.” is not worth striving for.” He would have been talking about big goals, lifetime goals, which by definition take one’s
Not yet despairing, I became more determined to get it ‘right’. I don’t remember how many times entire lifetime trying to achieve. On the way towards these lifetime goals, one can and probably should have numerous
Yokoyama admonished me for not listening before sending me home yet again to try playing the phrases achievable goals, but like rest stops on a long road trip, they are not final destinations.
‘correctly’. At each lesson, I was certainly hearing ever more subtle dynamic and tonal changes, embellishments
and emphases, and especially variations in timings. But I never seemed to succeed in playing the phrases correctly. What was the goal that Yokoyama set for me? It was, depending on your definition, the goal of being consciously
I decided that I needed external help. aware of my essence and everything around me, using my shakuhachi as a focal point. Yokoyama set for me the goal
of ‘presence.’
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listening for Absolute Timing - Zettai no Ma Yokoyama so patiently tried to encourage me to understand in my story of lessons with him, related at
the beginning of this essay. There is an absolute right way to perform San’an today, but that won’t be
the absolute right way to play it tomorrow or next week. Each performance has a uniquely ‘right’
Thomas Hoover1 reminds us that Zen arts taunts our logical mind and toys with ourperception. ma. The ‘presence’ of each performance is determined by its environment.
The art of playing shakuhachi honkyoku is no exception. Zen messes with your mind, though
for a good cause. As with other ‘Zen arts’, the shakuhachi honkyoku attempts to put us in touch Traditionally, lessons are one to one, though they are not private lessons, per se. Anyone can
with our non-rational, non-verbal side. In doing so, and irrespective of the insights gained by the sit through anyone else’s lesson. Lesson times are not booked. Students show up on lesson
player, it makes for good music. Rhythm in honkyoku illustrates this. day and wait their turn, listening to the lessons before theirs, and frequently staying on after
their lesson. This method allows everyone the valuable opportunity to either preview pieces
In western musical terms, pieces that do not have beats or pulses have ‘free rhythm.’ As mentioned they haven’t learned yet or review pieces already learned. Eventually, experienced students,
above, shakuhachi honkyoku typically do not have beats, but neither do they have ‘free rhythm.’ Honkyoku some teachers in their own right, learn by watching and listening to their teacher teach the
may sound freely or rhythmically improvised, the rhythm or rather the timing of every musical event in same piece to different people.
honkyoku is anything but ‘free’. I was taught to play close attention to my timing when playing
honkyoku. I had to play every note, embellishment and phrase, and take every breath My lessons usually started with my playing a piece for my teachers (Chikuho Sakai II and from 1984
with what is described by the Japanese term, zettai no ma. Katsuya Yokoyama), which I had previously learned. As is appropriate for a largely oral/aural musical tradition,
I was not allowed to leave a piece until I could play it, without notation, to my teacher’s satisfaction. This could take
The word, ma translates as ‘space’ both physical and temporal. Ma is the quite some weeks/months; I would often be playing the same piece for a number of lessons. Then, we would begin the
empty space between the black ink on a stark Japanese brush painting, piece being worked on at the moment.
and it also the space that the black brush strokes inhabit. Ma also
translates as ‘timing’. Each phrase, note, embellishment, inhalation and I learned the honkyoku mainly through imitation, or more precisely, though listening. We used notation, but primarily
pause between the end of one exhalation and the beginning of the as a mnemonic tool. The notes on the page were there only to remind me what I learned by previously listening to my
next inhalation, that is, every musical event in a piece, all have ma. teacher. I learned the music by using my ears, never with my eyes, looking at the score. The scores frequently did not
Entire pieces also have their own ma. This concept is central to much correspond to what I was hearing. Because of the inconsequential or peripheral nature of the notation, most teachers
of the Zen Buddhist-inspired art forms in Japan. have little incentive to edit or correct ambiguous or incorrect scores, which they might have inherited from their own
equally disinterested teacher. Needless to say, sight- reading was not practiced; it does not even exist as a concept in
The Japanese word, zettai means ‘absolute’. Therefore, zettai no ma the honkyoku tradition.
means ‘absolute timing’. Honkyoku should be played with ‘absolute
timing’. All of the notes, rests, breaths, etc., must all be played with the Pieces are learned phrase by phrase. It might take months to get through an entire piece. For a set of ten advanced pieces,
absolutely correct timing. How can this be done, when the pieces have at the beginning of each lesson Sakai wrote out the phrases he would teach me that day. This was far more elaborate
no pulse or beat? The short answer is that the player has to be absolutely a task than you might imagine. Traditional shakuhachi notation is based on Japanese characters developed when all
present, to pay attention with absolute concentration. writing was done with brush and ink. Itself a lesson in ‘being present,’ Sakai would first rub the ink-stick meditatively on
the ink-stone, up, down, up, down, until the water turned into jet-black ink, with just the right consistency.
How does one learn to do that? Do I just listen to my teacher perform a piece
so many times (easy to do now with recordings) that I eventually memorise how Only then would Sakai lay down the ink stick and pick up his brush. He would write out two or
many seconds or fractions of seconds he gives each musical event? This would imply three lines of the piece that we would go through during the lesson. By the time he had finished,
that ideally every performance of a honkyoku is always played exactly the same length, with the there was little time left to work on the music, but I was not complaining! After the concentrated
absolutely right ma. silence while Sakai made the ink, and wrote down the notes of the phrases, my ears were all the
more attuned to Sakai’s playing once we picked up our shakuhachi. The hand- written set of ten
If ‘absolute timing’ is the same thing as ‘one single correct timing’ or ‘the single best timing,’ then you should be pieces is now one of my most prized possessions.
able to measure that timing. If there was a single ‘best’ timing for a particular note in a particular phrase of a
particular honkyoku, it could, for example, be measured as being exactly 4 seconds long. Add up the one When honkyoku are taught traditionally, the shakuhachi teacher plays each phrase before the
and only correct timings of all of the musical events in a piece and you get the single correct length of the student is even allowed to try. How could a student play anything without hearing it first? As
entire piece, for example, 8 minutes. Any deviation, say 8 minutes and 3 seconds, would mean the piece mentioned earlier, learning the honkyoku is learning how to listen.
had been played incorrectly. Fortunately, honkyoku does not work in that extremely mechanical, non-
musical way, as Yokoyama amply demonstrated to me while teaching me the piece, San’an. My teacher would play a phrase while I listened intently, trying to make sense of the inconsistent, often
vague and sometimes inaccurate and incomplete score. Then I would try to play the phrase together with my
‘Absolute’ implies infinite or universal. In this sense, zettai no ma suggests that there are an infinite number teacher. Finally, if the teacher thought there was a minor chance of success, I was allowed to play the phrase on my
of ‘right’ timings or durations when playing shakuhachi honkyoku. This is, I now believe, what Katsuya own. I would then be corrected, or more often just told that I hadn’t played it correctly, but not why or where, and the
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process would be repeated. Yokoyama and I were going through this process in my story, above. The notion of honnin no kyoku implies that in order to play honkyoku I have to make it mine. While this is useful for a
It suddenly occurred to me, over a decade later, after I had taught numerous students of my own, that Yokoyama might shakuhachi player whose interests are limited to the musical element of the honkyoku, for those players who are also
have been trying, amongst other things, to encourage me to hear and experience zettai no ma for myself. Zettai or attracted to the Zen Buddhist aspect of this repertoire, there is more to it than that. As James H. Austin2 explains, the
absolute also means ‘infinite’. The absolutely correct timing for a phrase implies an infinite number of right ways to play concept of I, me and mine, in which I am the subject, object and/or the owner of virtually everything in my universe, is
it, depending on the situation. something that people spend literally years of meditation attempting to break down.
The above description of the final stages in learning a honkyoku alludes to a not-I, not-me, not-mine state of being,
when the teacher and student disappear, and consequently, the differences between their playing does too. What
honkyoku and honnin no Kyoku remains is just the piece, just the playing.
Honkyoku, the term for traditional shakuhachi pieces associated with Zen Buddhism, is made up of two characters
or words. The first part of this compound word, hon means ‘main’ or ‘original’. The second part, kyoku means ‘piece’.
Honkyoku are the main or original pieces for the shakuhachi. They date from the fifteenth century or earlier, and are Footnotes
largely aurally transmitted. 1 Hoover, Thomas Zen Culture (1977) Randon House NY, (Kindle version), chap 17,par. 1
2 Austin, James Zen-Brain Reflections (2006) MIT Press Cambridge (Kindle version),
There is an implied meaning of honkyoku which relates to the notion of presence, that of honnin no kyoku. Honnin can chapters 5 and 7
be translated as the ‘main person,’ the ‘person in question,’ so honnin no kyoku can mean, ‘the piece of the person
in question,’ that is the piece of the performer. When I play a honkyoku, I must make it my own piece, not by Extract from the longer article Shakuhachi Presence: Being with a Bamboo Flute.
changing the notes or the rhythm or by playing it with my own musical interpretation, but by imbuing the © 2015 Riley Lee
piece with my presence. In order to play a honkyoku as honnin no kyoku, and with zettai no ma (absolute
timing), I need to know who I am and what my ‘presence’ is.
While playing a piece with my teacher during a lesson, my ‘presence’ is that of a student, and I express
my ‘student essence’ by playing, or trying to play the piece exactly like my teacher is playing it. For me at
that moment during the lesson, playing the piece as honnin no kyoku, as ‘my own piece’ paradoxically
means mimicking my teacher’s way of playing it to as subtle a level of sound and nuances as possible.
Conversely, while playing a honkyoku with his student during a lesson, the teacher plays the piece as
honnin no kyoku by playing it in a way that is most likely to encourage the student to learn the piece.
If both student and teacher are playing honnin no kyoku, they will be playing the piece differently
because student and teacher are different honnin. Yet, the actual sounds they make with their flutes are,
ideally exactly the same. Theoretically, this is possible, but in practice, this never happens. Even if it did, each
would be playing different honnin no kyoku, because one is playing it as a student and the other as teacher. Their intent
is different, and therefore so is their ‘presence’.
When playing a piece with an intention to play it in a way that is most conducive to the student’s learning the piece,
the teacher must listen with all of his being to how the student is playing and must constantly adjust his own playing
accordingly, though these adjustments may be inaudible to a casual listener. The student, of course is required to listen
as carefully as possible to his teacher’s playing and adjust his playing accordingly too. As the student becomes better
at playing the honkyoku, he doesn’t have to try so much at being a student. As concentration, awareness and technical
ability increase, less effort is spent trying to play exactly like teacher and more effort is directed to just playing the piece.
Eventually, the teacher doesn’t have to adjust for the student as much either. The teacher can also concentrate more
on the piece itself and less on the student’s rendition of it. As teacher and student begin to drop their ‘teacher essence’
and ‘student essence,’ the differences between the honnin no kyoku of the student and that of the teacher decrease until
ideally, they disappear. At that point, the student is no longer student and the teacher is no longer teacher. Both now
have the same intent. Their ‘presence’ or ‘essence’ has merged.
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What do
Shakuhachi sounds mean to me?
MY leSSON eXPeRIeNce from the moment I first heard the sound of shakuhachi, I have been
inseparable with my flutes. They gave me an opportunity to explore, which
eSS Members gives energy and fills me with meaning.
for me, the sounds of shakuhachi are the eternal love of nature to everything that has been created.
It is the strength of wind in the mountains, the leaves in an autumn forest, the sea breeze, the beauty
of the storm… It is the communication of animals and birds, the smells that bring about audio memories...
I have noticed that playing shakuhachi changes the diapason of colors you see in the world. The practice of
concentrating on a sound vibration when you play this magical nature instrument gives an opportunity to hold
concentration overall and be in the moment. That gives a chance to be ready for changing and moving forward,
transforming.
“ I n
2016, I met my current I feel that the world of shakuhachi holds a few directions. One of them is the connection with teachers that you develop
teacher via the Internet and asked him to through music, and for me it has always been a priority. That is the spiritual part of sharing wisdom. My teacher Serhii
teach me. he built me a flute and the lessons began. Maksymenko has been playing in Zensabo tradition, and our mutual practice has been going on for over 10 years. My
After I could play the first piece (Kyorei) to some extent, he started world of shakuhachi is a circle of friends and connections with interesting people. It is an opportunity to give magical
with the second. And so it went on. I asked him if I shouldn’t play a sounds to other people. And by giving joy to others you enrich yourself too.
piece correctly first, he told me: “That’s not important. You will never be able
to play a piece “correctly”. What matters is that you keep starting over.” And Another important direction is my own practice, learning and following the sound, how it changes. To advance the
when I asked about finger exercises or beginner exercises, he told me, “every piece practice, I have been trying to play every day for 1-1,5 hour. even now I feel I have a lot to learn. It’s interesting
you play is a finger exercise, a beginner exercise. You don’t need anything extra.” to explore how different the vibration of the sound gets in different places in nature. up in the mountains,
shakuhachi is always especially magical. I have seen and will always see shakuhachi as an opportunity
And so I played piece after piece from our temple repertoire. And when we had gone to improve myself.
through all of them, it started all over again. This time more subtleties were added. here
a little more meri, there a little more kari, here a little more radiant and there a little less This year I had to leave ukraine. But despite current distance between me and my
punchy, and so on. teacher, shakuhachi practice is and will always be an important part of my life.
In our notation, such hints are hardly to be found.
everything takes place in direct exchange from teacher to student.
And I also got hints to the pieces, from where they came and which situations
and or feelings should be expressed. I was virtually introduced to the “world
of images” of these pieces. And so this teaching continues to this day.
Over the years, my game has changed.”
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honkyoku
/ lesson experience and memories
Already a first, single self-blown, sucessful note on the shakuhachi gives
the student an idea of what could eventually became a melody some day. That`s
motivation.
I was taught traditonally. This didn`t seem strange to me, even familiar after ten years of Kyudo practice. In
the end it was a different parallel instead. The student of shakuhachi is busy on different levels. Breath out, breath
in. Blow until a sound is heard. The student`s eyes move back and forth between sheet music – if such is already avail-
able – and the teacher observing and imitating. listening to the sensei`s flute ans his/her own.
first there are musical fragments, sentences, then a whole piece. An introduction that seems to be a long way away from the goal
of learning honkyoku. Being at this point my modest desire arose to being able to play at least one piece of honkyoku completely.
But it turned out differently than assumed. Before I really «wholy» and reliably felt the first played piece, I went on to the next and again
My first teacher. to the next one. This was repeated again and again - until finally, after a few years all 36 pieces on my certficate bear the teacher`s stamp
In the beginning, somehow, I discovered (hanko, inkan).
Darlington hall was holding a summer school for beginners
playing the shakuhachi, led by Yoshikazu Iwamoto, who recently Now it`s diving into the depths of honkyoku. concentration, no thinking, «beeing there» every split second and playing the shakuhachi. Is that
had taken up a post in residence, his teaching manual, luckily seamed Zen? Only after so many years? No, even before there had been moments full of harmony. These moments made me long for more and kept
straightforward. (I was a complete novice ). Those five days changed my life. me going and going. There were hardly any verbal explantions from the teacher as I was used to from western music lessons. It was always
Yoshikazu played those elementary pieces so meaningfully. The first impressions of his played in unisono. Only later on, when I was more advanced, I was allowed to play a passage on my own from time to time.
sound have stayed with me, engraved in the feelings.
I was so lucky ! Playing honkyoku and practicing Kyudo are closely related. The technique must be practiced and refined over and over again.
later in london, a handful of us clubbed together; including, Richard Stagg, Depending on one’s state of mind, this “deep” existence in the «here and now», this “resting in oneself” arises - or not - which is to be
to pay for Yoshikazu to come to london for a day of lessons. accepted.
he would begin by playing a piece all through, i.e. Kuro Kami, Then he played phrase by
honkyoku is a kind of “mirror of the soul”. every emotion is often expressed through the Shakuhachi.
phrase, he would play, I repeat and so on, culminating in us both playing through together.
In the arts, there is the expression “shin-gyô-sô”, which in its content also accompanies playing the shakuhachi.
( SOMehOW ! )
he was so kind and patient.
shin (form with truth, fact), should be correct
I remember being present while students of different abilities, took their lessons too.
gyô (form with action), following the principles
In the beginning, The personal struggle, going through the fire. Really helpes
sô (form as nature), integration into one’s personality,in harmony with all things
teach compassion for others. Passing through the same struggle. shin-gyô-sô is only partially consciously striving for. In order to attain sô, a natural develop-
I feel this struggle; unites us. ment is required, which describes the following wisdom:
I was so lucky. You cannot pull blades of grass to make them grow faster.
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WORlD MuSIc:
Transpropriation
How about when a master musician from an Asian culture willingly and intentionally agrees to teach his
traditional music to foreigners, as has been doing Japanese shakuhachi master Kurahashi Yōdo II, who has
APPROPRIATION OR
been teaching that bamboo flute yearly in the US for close to 30 years, and with whom I am still studying
today. Are his non-Japanese students appropriating his music that he intentionally share with them?
In other words, is he handing purposefully his knowledge as a shakuhachi master for non-Japanese to
appropriate? Is it really a question of appropriation? I want to propose here a possible way out of this
TRANSPROPRIATION?
“conundrum.”
A rarely used, and relatively unknown term that gives a contrasting viewpoint on appropriation for our
understanding of cultural encounters, is transpropriation.12 This term is used in diverse scholarly fields
such as philosophy, philosophy of law, environment, though surprisingly not in music, ethnomusicology,
anthropology, social sciences, fields studying cultural and social encounters. In fact, this term has not yet found
Canadian shakuhachi performer and independent ethnomusicologist Bruno its way into current English and French dictionaries.
Deschênes looks at the question of cultural appropriation within the field of
In Europe, the term transpropriation has been used regularly since the 1990s to refer to common goods that can be used
world music with a focus on shakuachi playing and performing.
in multiple situations by multiple holders, as proposed in particular by Belgium philosopher of law and jurist François
Ost,13 about the collective ownership of heritage lands or properties, or for environmental questions, for example.
Transpropriation in this context refers, among others, to managing collective heritage sites, monuments, places, lands,
Appropriation natural environments, regarding the cultural and/or historical meaning it may have for a community. Earlier, American
philosopher Edward S. Casey in a 1971 article defines transpropriation as a way to make something one’s own through
Appropriation is generally defined as the act of attributing something to oneself. It is about acquiring or taking one’s relationship with other people. In his view, it transcends confrontation, since it does not create a dialectical
possession of something for one’s exclusive use or aims. From a cultural or artistic viewpoint, it is about adapting identification between people.14 Transpropriation thus refers to reciprocal relations between human beings regarding
something for a particular use, aim or objective, or making a particular knowledge one’s own. This definition implies something, though it appears that his call for the use of this term remained unheeded.15
that it takes place without necessarily asking and/or getting consent from those being appropriated. It can even be at
times taking or withholding something without the authority or the right to do so. In world music, musicians can at My reason for proposing to use transpropriation in ethnomusicology concerning world music is that appropriation
times show a high degree of complacency in taking a song, an instrument, a genre from a particular culture without appears to be interpreted as a natural and all-encompassing state of affairs of cultural and social communications
consent, this without studying with the people from which this music originated, and without having a native from that and encounters between people, as if it does not have, or “does not need” to have an opposite. I do not believe that
culture in the group.1 It is as if any music is there “for the taking,” without considering if that person or culture consents all human encounters either social,
of such taking. This occurs especially when a music is considered traditional, outside the bounds of copyright laws.2 political, cultural or otherwise can be
Appropriation is about taking to suit one’s needs, wants, assumptions, presuppositions, even prejudices, for example, viewed and understood solely from
without considering the people from which one is taking. As philosopher James O. Young indicates, originally that word the viewpoint of appropriation and
referred to taking something from nature without any moral stigma attached to it,3 a mindset that, to a large extent, its underlying usurpation. There are
appears to be maintained today in world music. encounters that, though they might
appear oppositional or antagonistic
According to Simon Frith, the scholarly discourse on authenticity in world music played and still play a role in exoticizing on the surface, they would make
non-Western musics, as much from scholars, musicians, and public alike, though for the industry these musics are better sense if one takes the viewpoint
mainly raw materials to be commodified.4 Connell and Gibson note that music is both global and distant, local and of transpropriation.
deterritorialized, being attached to a place,5 as if culture and place are closely linked. This is not always the case if we
consider the diasporas found all around the world, some of which created genres of music outside their places of origin Surprisingly, the anthropological field of transculturality does not use that term, yet the meaning of transculturality
(e.g., Andes music created in Paris, or the salsa created in New York). For these two authors, world music exemplified clearly applies to transpropriation. Anthropologist Afef Bessenaieh defines transculturality as the creation of relational
a »fetishi- zation of marginality« and an essentialist identification of cultural practices distant from one’s own.6 For webs and flows of shared significance and reciprocity woven by human practices and representations, between
Marjorie Kibby, appropriation ignores and even deni- grate the cultural autonomy of the cultures being appropriated communities, either ethnic, political, ideological or otherwise. Transculturality is not about distinction and polarization,
by reifying and essentializing them. As well, appropriation can be a critique of our contemporary social world, a desire it is about relatedness, commonality and mixedness of shared and coherent cultural practices and meanings.16
to go beyond its constraints.7 As for Steven Feld, appropria- tion is as much a homage, a source of connectedness, According to German philosopher Wolfgang Welsch, in transcultural situations, abstract understanding matters less
creativity and innovation, as a mean of domination and of maintaining asymmetries and divisiveness. Appro- priation than pragmatic interactions between people, either in real-time or virtually through social media. It is what allows for
can be direct, subtle, arrogant, dominating, complex and contradictory.8,9 a commonsensical and multi-meshed transition between the polarity of cultural viewpoints, thus going from what
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distinguishes and distances to what binds people together. According to Welsch, transculturality, contrary to what it transpropriation, these prior assumptions, presuppositions, myths, including orientalist beliefs we may have are of course
may seem, does not create homogeneity. The permeation of boundaries grows into more diversity; different layers of conspicuously active in the background. They are in fact what entices us to go beyond one’s cultural boundaries to
communication are created for the needs of each group thus formed. These webs of shared practices do not have to be appropriate what cater to them. However, if with appropriation we impose on an Other our presuppositions and myths, with
delineated by geographical, territorial, ethnic, cultural, social or even national exigencies, but follow instead individual, transpropriation we have to accept to confront them. Through transpropriation, we might be forced to acknowledge that
practical or common cultural interests, among others, as can be found in the everyday use of social media (e.g., we find there is a reciprocal misinterpretation about what we want to appropriate from the other, a respectful acknowledgement
virtual communities about martial arts, of orchid lovers, of fans of a pop star, among so many). For Welsch, transculturality which could gradually transform into a new understanding. In this regard, I would suggest that my learning of Japanese
is about relatedness and entanglement in the reality of a pluralistic, hybridized and complex modern world, in which music showed me that I received more from my teacher by taking an attitude of transpropriation, than one of appropriation.
personal interests interpenetrate to form virtual communities through social media, or real communities in daily multi- He is more willing to share his knowledge if I show a transpropriative attitude than an appropriative one.
cultural social encounters, beyond national or cultural boundaries. 17
One ethnomusicologist who raised
Transculturality goes hand in hand with transpropriation, although that field does not use that term, at least the authors a few issues that could help validate
I cite here. I suggest that transculturality is possible because of transpropriation. In “transpropriative” situations there the use of transpropriation in
must be an intersubjective awareness that during an encounter a group of people is involved in is harbouring a shared ethnomusicology is Veit Erlmann,
form of identity through which everyone can have a commonsensical communication and entanglement, thus everyone though he does not use that term.
can understand each other sensibly, not only ideologically or socially, as suggested by Wolfgang Welsch. Such a shared One of the key points of Erlmann’s
form of identity does not mean everyone behaves and/or thinks the same, but that a form of mimesis and intermeshing work is about uncovering a
shapes the encounters.18 The prefix “trans-” in both transculturality and transpropriation thus refers to a transfer of new modern aesthetic, one that
reciprocal and pragmatic experiences, a sharing which could be cultural, ideological, social, political, artistic, personal reconfigures not only all the
or otherwise, in the sense that when two or more persons are intermingling, they are all mutually in an experiential and musics of the world, but everyone’s
sensible state of receptivity and sharing toward each other. The most important is not necessarily what is shared, but musical space, cultural identity
more how and why it is shared. Transpropriation, I would suggest, occurs at an individual level, between two or more and viewpoint about music.19
persons, while transculturality, as it is defined by Bessenaieh and Welsch, is more about an intermingling from which a Especially, as he suggests, world
community can take form. Everyone is individually involved to put into place a sense of commonality, even though it music is not the music of the non-
might be just a few persons. In other words, transpropriation determines one’s involvement in the collective aspect of Western world, but is a historical
creating transculturality. Although transpropriation between few individuals or groups of people can never be even- moment of our globalized world,
handed, and that there are obviously differences, disagreements, expectations as well as power struggles, one thing in which time and space become
to consider is that everyone undefined, imagined, dispersed
participating is willing to and cut loose, and that is based
relate to the others through on some fetishized, mythologized,
an intentional and mutual orientalized and deterritorialized The author with his Matsu Take Ensemble, performing in Montréal.
interrelatedness, beyond local traditions, in large part
each one’s positions and thanks to the music industry.20 As one result of this convoluted situation, a musician can identify and thus can play a
differences. music from a particular culture, from a particular historical time, from a specific place, from which they are detached,
yet one that defines her or his identity as much musically, culturally as socially in today’s modern world and time, within
In this sense, in particular, concerning a musician who wants to master a music from a culture in which he was not her or his society or culture. In Erlmann’s view, essentialization, differences, romanticization and mythologization, to which
born in, transpropriation is “bidirectional,” not one-sided. It is not about blindly and self-consciously fulfilling oneself as can be added reification, play a crucial role in any musician’s desires to master a music from a culture in which he was not
appropriation is usually defined, but is about crossing over one’s cultural boundaries toward this other culture, and in born. The aims are to create more opened identities, as well as new aesthetics beyond one’s own culture, an aesthetics
the end, giving back in return for what has been intentionally shared with us. It is about showing a willingness to learn that mix modernity and essentialized traditions that deserved to be uncovered. In this line of thoughts, transpropriation
something from another culture by getting down from one’s cultural ivory tower, so to get a reciprocal willingness of a could be viewed as transversality, to use one of Erlmann’s terms, from which the play with differences is a way to create
master to teach us. We must show respect right from the start, not only a hunger to “grab” anything that passes by for one’s differences within one’s social and cultural space, including creating a tradition within the current modernity that
“the taking.” As importantly, there must be an equal willingness to give back in one way or another. At times we might one could call one’s own. The transversal play with differences is a way to define and thus individualize one’s identity in the
not be able to give back, but we must at least show reverence to the person who shares her or his art with us. The face of a social space that has become too restrained, too complexed and too hybrid.21
intentions are not solely on satisfying our own personal interests or curiosity, it is as much about paying respect to these
persons who are willing to share something of themselves and their culture with us. One crucial question must however be asked: Can all cultural encounters, no matter the arts and no matter the situation,
be solely appropriation or transpropriation? Right from the start, my interest in Japanese traditional music and the
To a large extent, appropriation maintains a distance between oneself and those who are being appropriated, paying shakuhachi primarily took the form of appropriation, a music not much known outside of Japan in the 1990s. Over the
basically attention to differences. It is also about presumptuously taking what corroborates and substantiates the years, my appropriative attitude had to be reshaped to take the form of transpropriation, the reason being that I gradually
assumptions, the presuppositions, the orientalist views and the myths we have about what is viewed as Other. In recognize that simply appropriating that music (i.e., learning to play that instrument, its repertoire and its theoretical
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underpinnings) was insufficient, especially that I aim to play that bamboo flute and its repertoire like a Japanese with her. I started to learn that bamboo flute in 1995 with a retired Japanese man living in Montreal. My growing interest
musician, which I am fully aware will never be attainable. With today’s unavoidable transcultural and entanglement of in that music and in particular a traditional music that is so distinct from European classical music incited me to dig deeper
cultures and individual interests, no cultural encounters can be purely or solely appropriation, at least in world music. into that music, its history as well as its aesthetics. From the start, I was appropriating that music for my self-interest,
When musicians dig deeper into learning a music from a culture in which they are not born, their appropriative attitude combing the Internet, libraries, journals and bookstores in search of anything I could put my hands on about traditional
almost invariably leads to some forms of transpropriation. If appropriation is about the surface of thing that please Japanese music. Aesthetically, this proved totally insufficient. I had to learn from a Japanese musician.
our presuppositions and assumptions, transpropriation is about what is under and beyond that surface, which implies
crossing over one’s cultural boundaries In 1998, I got in touch with an American shakuhachi player based in New York, Ronnie Nyōgetsu Seldin, with whom I
and attenuating at times the hold took few lessons. Thanks to him, I was able to take a lesson in 1999 with a Japanese master from Kyōto, Yoshio Kurahashi
one’s native culture has on us, so that (known today as Kurahashi Yodo II) who has been visiting the U.S. twice a year since the beginning of the 1990s. My
we do not simply appropriate, but we meeting with Mr Kurahashi radically changed my perspective on learning that bamboo flute. What I found on the Inter-
“transpropriate” with the music of that net and in books, and what he taught me did not entirely match. After few lessons with him (including inviting him
“Other” respectfully. to give classes and concerts in Montreal on three occasions from 2000 to 2003), I was forced to realize that technical,
historical or theoretical questions were obviously inadequate to grasp what it means to properly play the solo repertoires
for that bamboo flute as it was composed by a sect of zen Buddhist monks during Japan’s Edo era (1603-1868). Since
the aesthetics of that particular music differs largely from European classical music, solely appropriating a technique
Appropriation vs. and a repertoire was insufficient. It was obvious to me that making one’s own the Japanese aesthetics could only be
Transpropriation done beyond and over the technique of that instrument and the theory of its music, and especially beyond my scholarly
training in classical music, since I was trying to learn that music from the standpoint of my classical training.
To world musicians like myself whose
hope is to master a music from a culture Going “beyond” my appropriation of this music, which was and still is coloured by my enculturation in European
in which I was not born, am I doing classical music, meant and still means basically this: to make my own the Japanese sense of aesthetics, I had to give
solely appropriation? As well, are Asian up something of this enculturation. I could not learn that aesthetics by solely relying on my Western music training
musicians taking on Western classical and way of making sense of music. I realized early on that that prior training was interfering right from the start with
music appropriating it? Where does my learning of that particular Japanese music. I was confronted with a different way of not only thinking but feeling,
appropriation “start” and “end”? At making sense of and embodying music. I could not simply grab for myself what was taught to me and appropriate it,
which point does appropriation become and then impose my Western way of thinking upon it. Mr Kurahashi became for me a role model to emulate. I had no
transpropriation? Are they distinct choice but going beyond my personal and native cultural enculturation to take on, even if only partially, the Japanese
The author performing with shamisen and koto players in a church viewpoints or do they overlap? If they traditional aesthetic way of thinking, which is not an easy task, since it involved de-identifying with ingrained cultural
(with a baroque ensemble in the back). do lap over one another, at which point and musical enculturation, and re-identify with a different way of making sense of that particular music.24 I, of course,
does this happen? Are they both social do not play today the solo pieces for the shakuhachi like a Japanese musician, far from it. I will surely never do, no matter
or cultural states, or should they be viewed more like processes of socio-cultural encounters that define and delimit how hard I try. But I try my best to be as faithful as possible to that aesthetics. However, an unsuspected outcome of
these encounters but at different degrees, depending on who appropriate or “transpropriate” what, as well as why and my transpropriation into Japanese music has been that my appreciation of any music, in particular Western music, has
how it occurs? changed. I can no longer enjoy any music solely as I have been initially trained as a classical musician. Japanese music
forced me to have a different grasped on all musics, not only Japanese music.
I propose here a possible answer to these questions (though many more could, of course, be raised) about transpropriation
by presenting very succinctly how I became a shakuhachi player. To start with, I received my shihan, master licence, in This is to a large extent what transpropriation is about, as I define it here: a willingness to go beyond one’s way of thinking
shakuhachi in 2016. Interestingly enough, I did not get it from a Japanese master, but from a Canadian player living near and making sense of music, as well as cultural boundaries and enculturation to intermesh with the one of
Vancouver, Alcvin Ryūzen Ramos, who has received his shihan and dai-shihan (great master title), both from Japanese another culture, no one way of thinking dominating the other, no one way is better than the other,
masters.22 Can getting such titles from a culture from which one was not born in be considered a form of appropriation? no one way imposing itself. This means losing some of the grips one’s cultural way of thinking has
The discipline that is involved in learning such a difficult instrument,23 as much technically as aesthetically, shows that on me, to give space for that other one to reach me. If we view the other solely from our native
getting such licence or title must imply more transpropriation than appropriation. Learning simply a technique is not enculturation, as is typically the case with appropriation, we look at any music from a distance,
sufficient, one must embody what it is to play that music properly. we see only what we want to see, i.e., from the viewpoint of our presuppositions, prejudices,
assumptions, romanticization, myths, reification and essentialization of that culture. By
I was trained as a classical musician. Around 1988, my Japanese wife started to learn the koto, the Japanese table zither. partially de-identifying with our enculturation to allow that other culture to get “in,” so to
Since she never studied music before to learn the koto, I helped her decipher that music, the notation of which is different speak, we have no choice but to change, something that is often refused or ignored through
from Western notation. Though with major differences, there were some similarities (influenced by European notation) I appropriation. I would even suggest that one aim of appropriation is to avoid being changed
could rely on. I discovered a music that was almost unknown in Canada at the time. I also discovered along the way that by those we judge as “Other,” while transpropriation is the reverse, an intentional willingness
there existed a large repertoire of duet pieces for koto and shakuhachi. I saw an opportunity that would allow me to play to be changed by it.
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To conclude transculturelles — Transcultural Americas (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2010), 19-24.
17 Wolfgang WELSCH, Transculturality – the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today, in Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash
Much more could be said on the matter. My hope here has been to show that by taking (eds.), Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World (London: Sage, 1999), 194-213. Also available on-line: http://www2.uni-jena. de/
the stance of transpropriation, we can discover that there is “life” beyond appropriation. In welsch/Papers/transcultSociety.html. Accessed 12 January 2018.
other words, cultural encounters of any kind do not have to be viewed purely from that particular 18 The question of mimesis can be quite complex in transcultural situations. Space does not allow to develop that
viewpoint. The transnational and transcultural encounters in today’s modern world show, I strongly aspect of cultural encounters regarding appropriation and transpropriation. My use of the term mimesis here refers to Merlin
believe, that appropriation is an inappropriate viewpoint to make sense of them. I humbly suggest that, in DONALD, Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
today’s world, transpropriation is a much more fair, honest and unbiased one. 1991) for whom mimesis is a form of communication and relatedness.
19 The question of identity, including authenticity, also plays a crucial role in transpropriation. For a question of
space, I must also leave it aside. For a discussion on my views regarding identity, see Bruno DESCHENES, The Interest of
Westerners in Non-Western Music, The World of Music 52/1-3 (2010), 69-79; Bi-musicality or Transmusicality: The Viewpoint of a
Non-Japanese Shakuhachi Player, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 49/2 (2018), 275-94.
20 Veit ERLMANN, The Aesthetics of the Global Imagination: Reflections on World Music in the 1990s, Public Culture 8
(1996), 468, 475-79.
21 Veit ERLMANN, The Politics and Aesthetics of Transnational Musics, The World of Music 35/2 (1993), 5-7, 13.
22 Shakuhachi players can receive three titles: jun-shihan, teaching licence; shihan, master licence; dai-shihan, great
Footnotes: master title. Both jun-shihan and shihan are granted when an apprentice has reached determine levels of proficiency. Dai shihan
is an honorary title for career accomplishments.
1 For example, there are a good number of Roma music groups in Canada, none of the musicians being from the Roma 23 The shakuhachi is considered by a large number of musicians as quite possibly the hardest flute to play in the world.
culture. 24 Cf. Bruno DESCHÈNES, Bi-musicality or Transmusicality: The Viewpoint of a Non-Japanese Shakuhachi Player,
2 One is reminded here of Herbie Hancock’s use of a pigmy song in his piece »Watermelon Man«, recorded by French International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 49(2), 275-94.
ethnomusicologist Simha Arom in an album released in the 1960s. Hancock has been criticized for one thing in particular: After
the release of his album at end of the 1970s, several artists wanted to use that pigmy song. Hancock received rights on that song
from these artists, without giving back anything to the pigmies who are singing it, or to the ethnomusicologist who recorded it Acknowledgements:
(Cf., Steven FELD, Pygmy POP. A Genealogy of Schizophonic Mimesis, Yearbook for Traditional Music 28 (1996), 1-35).
3 James O. YOUNG, Cultural Appropriation and the Arts (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), 18. This article is an extract of Bruno Deschênes: World Music:
4 One is reminded here of Herbie Hancock’s use of a pigmy song in his piece »Watermelon Man«, recorded by French Appropriation or Transpropriation?, originally published in
ethnomusicologist Simha Arom in an album released in the 1960s. Hancock has been criticized for one thing in particular: After International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music
the release of his album at end of the 1970s, several artists wanted to use that pigmy song. Hancock received rights on that song (IRASM) 52 (2021) 1: 3-22
from these artists, without giving back anything to the pigmies who are singing it, or to the ethnomusicologist who recorded it Special thanks to Stanislav Tuksar / IRASM,
(Cf., Steven FELD, Pygmy POP. A Genealogy of Schizophonic Mimesis, Yearbook for Traditional Music 28 (1996), 1-35). Croatian Musicological Society, for granting permissions to
5 James O. YOUNG, Cultural Appropriation and the Arts (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), 18. re-publish.
6 Simon FRITH, The Discourse of World Music, in Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh (eds.), Western Music and Its Others
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 308.
7 John CORNELL and Chris GIBSON, World Music: Deterritorializing Place and Identity, Progress in Human Geography 28/3 (2004),
344.
8 Ibid., 356.
9 Marjorie D. KIBBY, The Didj and the Web: Networks of Articulation and Appropriation, Convergence 5/59 (1999), 62.
10 Steven FELD, Notes on World Beat, Public Culture Bulletin 1/1 (1988), 31, 35.
11 As much in ethnomusicology, in cultural studies as in anthropology, among others, appro- priation implies questions of political
power. My aim here is to present appropriation and transpro- priation from the practical viewpoint of musicians, not the scholarly one. Bruno Deschênes is a Canadian composer, musician and independent ethnomusicologist. As an
12 The terms »trans-appropriation«, »transappropriation«, or »trans appropriation« are also used. My preference for ethnomusicologist, his two fields of study are the aesthetic of Japanese traditional music and arts, and what
»transpropriation« over the other terms is that the »ap« of appropriation is replaced by »trans«. he calls transmusicality, about musicians, like himself, who takes on the music of a culture in which he was
13 François OST, La Nature hors la loi, l’écologie à l’épreuve du droit (Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 1995). not born, in his case the Japanese shakuhachi. He published in 2017 Le shakuhachi japonais, Une tradition
14 Edward S. CASEY, Man, Self, and Truth, The Monist 55/2 (1971), 247-49. réinventée (Paris, L’Harmattan, in French), as well as Une philosophie de l’écoute musicale (Paris, L’Harmattan,
15 It has also been used by such philosophers as Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas and Gianni Vattimo (following in French) in 2019. His last book is Transmusicality, Mastering a Music from Another Culture, Zagreb, Croatian
Heidegger’s), though their use of that term implies differences and at time antagonism. Musicological Society, 2022). www.musis.ca/
16 Afef BENESSAIEH, Multiculturalism, Interculturality, Transculturality, in Afef Benessaieh (ed.), Amériques
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ShAKuhAchI, QuO VADIS?
Illustration by Thorsten Knaub
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SHAKUHACHI IN SOUTH AMERICA: BRAZIL
geNeRAl OVeRVIeW Of
The ShAKuhAchI IN
BRAZIl
Rafael Hiroshi Fuchigami traces for us how the shakuhachi came to Brazil with the
first wave of Japanese immigrants and took hold in their community, and how in the
last decades the shakuhachi spread beyond the Japanese community in Brazil.
first Immigrants
Fig.1 Kobayashi playing shakuhachi for an unknown man, in 1957.
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022 Shakuhachi in Sounth America : Brazil –General Overview of Shakuhachi in Brazil
Iwami Baikyoku and Kinko-ry
Brazil’s Tozan-ry
Fig.2 First public appearance of the Group for the Fig.3 Shinsen-kai group playing shakuhachi, during the 1st Concert of the
Study of Japanese Music and Dance, in 1939. Koto-no-kai group, in 1983. Later, Koto-no-kai became Grupo Seiha do
Brasil (Seiha of Brazil Group).
1 The term “Nikkei” refers to Japanese immigrants and their descendents who permanently reside outside of Japan. Fig.4 Tsuna Iwami. Fig.5 Iwami playing the piece Sue-no-chigiri with Reiko Nagase (koto) and Yuko Ogura
(Shamisen) during the 12th Concert of the Miyagi-kai of Brazil group in 1994.
2 Miyoshi Juzan.
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Spring/Summer 2022 Shakuhachi in Sounth America : Brazil –General Overview of Shakuhachi in Brazil
The Shakuhachi in Min’y folk Song The emergence of Non-Nikkei Shakuhachi Players
Fig.8 Nishaku-kai group, led by Akio Yamaoka, who the members are Fig.9 Online Workshop led by Rafael Fuchigami, organized by
mostly non-Nikkeis. Henrique Sulzbacher.
Fig.6 Kōji-ryū of Brasil, 2014. The group is led by Toshimi Fig.7 Kaito Shamidaiko min’yō’s group is led by Tsukasa Kaito
Shinohara (fourth person from left), Akira Shiono (fifth (Shakuhachi), with the participation of his family and friends,
person), and Tsukasa Kaito (sixth person). and has been active for almost 30 years.
conclusion
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AKIO YAMAOKA:
A JAPANeSe TeAcheR Of
ShAKuhAchI IN BRAZIl
Bibliography
Fuchigami, Rafael Hiroshi.
2014 Musicological and cultural aspects of the shakuhachi in Brazil. (Campinas: UNICAMP) Daniel Ryugen conducted interviews on June 29 and August 21, 2022 with shakuhachi
2020 Burajiru ni okeru japonejidadesu keisei toshite no shakuhachi gakushū. player Akio Yamaoka, below Daniel gives us his impressions of shakuhachi activities
(The process of learning shakuhachi in Brazil as a construction of the Japonesidades) (Tokyo: Tokyo College of Music) in Brazil.
Hosokawa, Shuhei.
1995 Samba no kuni ni enka ha nagareru: ongaku ni miru Nikkei burajiru iminshi.
(Sound of the enka in the country of samba: The History of Japanese Immigration in Brazil observed through the
music) (Tokyo: Chuokoron-shinsha) Over the past year I’ve become friends with a Brazilian maker of shakuhachi named Luis Lepre who currently lives in
Olsen, Dale. Argentina. He told me about his shakuhachi teacher in Brazil, a player named Akio Yamaoka. I was interested to know
1982 Japanese Music in Brazil. Asian Music 14/1, 111-131. about Yamaoka sensei’s history of shakuhachi playing and teaching in Brazil so I contacted Yamaoka-sensei and asked
2004 The Chrysanthemum and the Song: Music, Memory, and Identity in the South American Japanese Diaspora. (Florida: University if it would be okay to interview him over Skype. Over several days in the summer of 2022 I talked with him about
Press of Florida) shakuhachi and put together a short account which I’d like to share with the European Shakuhachi Society Newsletter
as those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere may not know much about shakuhachi activities in South America.
Satomi, Alice
2004 Dragão confabulando: etnicidade, ideologia e herança cultural através da música para koto no Brasil. (Salvador: Universidade
Federal da Bahia) Akio Yamaoka was born in Akita prefecture in 1941. After his father returned from the battlegrounds of World War II,
Akio moved to Sao Paulo in 1955 with his family; they left on a ship from Kobe, crossed the Pacific Ocean and eventually
sailed through the Panama Canal, but not before encountering serious weather on their route - a typhoon forced the
ship captain to sail up to Alaska before heading down to the Panama Canal. The sea voyage took 45 days. At the time
Akio arrived in his new homeland of Brazil, he was 13 years old.
As a child he often saw his father play the shakuhachi; his father played min’y on a 2.4 shakuhachi, but he wouldn’t
teach it to his son, though Yamaoka eventually inherited the flute when he was 30 years of age. Yamaoka-sensei ended
up breaking the 2.4 apart as he found it too long to play; paradoxically, this event sparked his interest in making flutes
and also in playing the shakuhachi. In his early thirties, Akio began studying under a shakuhachi teacher in Brazil named
Sagara Yozan . Like Akio’s father, Yozan had been in the Japanese military during World War II, and had been a prisoner of
war in Siberia for eight years before leaving Japan for Sao Paulo. When Yozan taught Yamaoka-san the Tozan repertoire,
he did not charge anything for his lessons, a tradition that Yamaoka-sensei continues today. When learning Tozan pieces
for the next 14 years, Yamaoka-san did a weekly lesson, learning solo shakuhachi pieces and gaikyoku pieces with koto
Rafael Hiroshi Fuchigami is a Doctor of Philosophy in Music Education (PhD) from Tokyo College of Music (TCM) and shamisen. Several decades ago, Yamaoka-san began teaching his own group of students.
and a researcher in the Institute of Ethnomusicology at TCM. His shakuhachi teachers are Kaoru Kakizakai and
Kuniyoshi Sugawara. In 2019, he received the shihan license by The International Shakuhachi Kenshu-kan. He is Today Yamaoka-sensei uses a combination of Japanese scores of Kinko, Tozan, and Myōan pieces, and adds what he
a shakuhachi player of the Pro Musica Nipponia (Nihon Ongaku Shudan), member of JSPN (Japan Shakuhachi terms secret instruction to the written notation he gives to his students. As an adult he has returned to Japan a number
Professional-players Network) and member of Tenpuku Dōkō-kai of Kagoshima. of times and from 2007-2009 he lived in Saitama, Japan and studied shakuhachi with Maezono Fushou, a teacher of
http://rafaelfuchigami.blogspot.com/ Myōan shakuhachi. Currently Yamaoka-sensei teaches all of his students in Portuguese. Instead of robuki, he begins his
lessons with something he calls sankie, which is based on the ancient chanting of Japanese monks known as shomyo;
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Spring/Summer 2022 Shakuhachi in Sounth America : Akio Yamaoka: A Japanese Teacher of Shakuhachi in Brazil
Yamaoka-sensei plays a shakuhachi melody based on an ancient chant for three times as long as the original monk’s
chant for his students’ warm up on the shakuhachi. According to Yamaoka-sensei, his sankie incorporates phrases of
several notes and it is also a good exercise for developing meri. Yamaoka-sensei has compiled a kind of a dictionary in
Portuguese of Japanese shakuhachi terms such as nayashi, for example, to help his students decipher the Japanese
shakuhachi notation.
According to Yamaoka-sensei, many Brazilians who now play shakuhachi were attracted by the sound of the flute and
also the ideas of Zen Buddhism. As to the question of what kind of people are studying shakuhachi in Brazil today,
Yamaoka-sensei explained that he has both male and female students and that his students include musicians who
already play musical instruments such as saxophone, transverse flute, Indian flute, and guitar, two members of classical
music orchestras who play flute and clarinet, a 50 year old nisou, (female Buddhist priest), an industrial engineer, a
college student, a public school teacher, a master of both aikido, kendo, and sado , a mechanical engineer, a professor
of oceanography, a piano instructor, an architect, a graphic designer and painter, an agricultural engineer, an auto
mechanic, and an administrator of a Tibetan Buddhist temple. Most of Yamaoka’s students are Brazilian, with just one
student of both Brazilian and Japanese heritage and two nikkei among them; the two second generation Japanese
students are doctors, one of whom continues to practice shakuhachi at age 89. Yamaoka-sensei teaches ten students
in Sao Paulo and another ten students in the adjoining prefecture of Minas Geraes. He says that many students play for
Yamaoka-sensei with his students therapeutic reasons, and there are also some who are interested in expanding their sonic vocabulary.
Yamaoka trying out a new shakuhachi
Below: Yamaoka with his students playing at the Peace Bell Park in Santa Catarina This summer, in the Brazilian winter, Yamaoka-sensei collected madake bamboo in the Brazilian rainforest with several
of his students, phyllostachys bambusoides originally having been brought by Japanese immigrants to Brazil more than
a century ago. When he attempted to shorten his father’s shakuhachi a half century back, Yamaoka-sensei became
fascinated by the rudiments of making flutes and now he has three students who are so skilled at that work that he
says that he no longer feels compelled to make shakuhachi though he will repair them if necessary. One of Yamaoka’s
students, a 27 year old industrial engineer, recently presented him with expertly crafted 2.0 and 3.0 shakuhachi, which
Yamaoka-sensei plays frequently. Akio uses madake not only for shakuhachi but also for other items, such as a bedframe
he recently constructed from bamboo.
Yamaoka-sensei feels called upon to teach shakuhachi to those who want to learn how to play or make the bamboo
flute; the sensei teaches on a voluntary basis and does not charge fees for his instruction, though he will accept
donations, as the Edo Period komusō did on their shakuhachi pilgrimages across Japan. He does no advertising so
all his students hear of him through other students or those who have heard of his connection with the shakuhachi.
Yamaoka keeps a very active schedule for someone of his 80 years. This past June he took part in the 55th Festival
de Musica E Danca Foclorica Japonesa in Sao Paulo where he played together with the Miyagi Michio Society of
koto players in Brazil and with shakuhachi masters Danilo Tomik Baikyou and Shen Ribiero Kyomei. Yamaoka-sensei
performed this August with three of his Brazilian students at a ceremony paying respects to the victims of the atomic
bombing of Nagasaki at the Peace Bell Park in Brazil’s state of Santa Catarina where there stands a bell that was cast
400 years ago and given to the Japanese immigrants in Brazil by the Japanese government more recently in memory
of that terrible tragedy, thereby performing shakuhachi in the context of the bell sound that inspired the legendary
creation of the bamboo flute and for world peace. I was impressed by Yamaoka’s account of his activities of making
and teaching shakuhachi to people of many different ages and occupations in Brazil and hope that he will continue
to inspire the people of his new homeland with his work with the bamboo flute.
Daniel Ryugen, a player and teacher of shakuhachi who received menkyo kaiden in Myōan shakuhachi in May
2022.
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Spring/Summer 2022
lessons with David Wheeler and Kakizakai Kaoru, and workshops with all the
luIgI ANTONIO IRlANDINI other teachers. I composed two pieces for the shakuhachi in 2008: Ho-oo
and Metagon , and decided to learn to play them. It took me four years
to be able to play my second composition, Metagon (which is not an
easy piece), in public! It was only in 2013 that I started to learn honkyoku
As part of our look at Shakuhachi in Brazil we talked to Brazilian composer Luigi privately with Kakizakai Sensei on Skype. In 2019, I attended the KSK
Antonio Irlandini. Below is a short introduction to him and his work with shakuhachi. shakuhachi workshop in Chichibu. Honkyoku repertoire is now a part of
my research and performing work.
BAMBOO: You started to compose in 2008 for shakuhachi (Metagon) - what was
it that you draw to the shakuhachi to be used in your compositions?
BAMBOO: Tell us something about how you started your career as a composer, your
attraction to different styles, instrumentation, concepts? LAI: Metagon is a spiral-like figure created by Swiss designer Max Bill. It starts in the
center with a triangle, then grows outwards by adding polygons around the previous
Luigi Antonio Irlandini: I was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and ones, by adding one side to each: square, pentagon, hexagon, etc. The music is a non-tonal monody that grows in a
my interests have always been very international and intercultural, similar way, adding one note at a time while its phrases grow longer and longer, like an expanding spiral. I have several
including music, philosophy, and spiritual traditions such as Vedanta compositions that work the idea of spiral time.
and Zen Buddhism. I was trained both as a concert pianist and a
composer. The shakuhachi came later. As a music professor at the BAMBOO: In 2018 you released the worked Akasa, an electroacoustic piece in three movements for solo shakuhachi, amplified
State University of Santa Catarina in the city of Florianópolis in and with reverberation, and fixed media. Tell us a bit about the process of developing this composition?
Southern Brazil, I develop research activities dealing with
circular, cyclic and spiral musical time and the issue of the LAI: Akasa (pronounced Akasha) has elements of North Indian music and cosmology. Most of the time it uses the same
presence of non-Western and ancient contents in 20th- pitch collection as the mother scale (that) of raga Purvi, but it does not follow the melodic rules of that raga. Initially,
and 21st- century music composition. I meant the piece to be performed in a cave with lots of natural reverberation, but later decided that it would be
I write orchestral, choral, and more practical to make it with digital reverberation. Reverberation evokes Akasa because it is, according to Vedanta,
chamber music, as well as music Samkhya and Vaisheshka philosophies, the first and subtlest element (space, ether), and can only be perceived through
that I can perform on the piano our perception of sound, since sound is its specific quality. The acousmatic portion of the music is made of nature and
and the shakuhachi. instrumental sounds, with a minimum of digital processing.
BAMBOO: How did you discover BAMBOO: For Ho-oo Bestiarium vol. 1 no. 1 you re-worked the 2008 arrangement for shakuhachi, guitar, two violins, viola,
the shakuhachi? Do you have a violoncello into a solo-shakuhachi version in 2021. What was your inspiration here to re-arrange the composition in this way?
teacher? What shakuhachi school/
style you are/were following? LAI: In 2020, I decided to perform Ho-oo again and, while practicing alone, I started hearing the piece as an
unaccompanied solo. I found out that the shakuhachi line does stand by itself as a solo piece, so I embraced the idea.
LAI: I discovered the shakuhachi The ensemble version is for D shakuhachi, but the solo may be performed on any size; I’ve played it on my C shakuhachi.
sometime in the beginning of the 1980s,
but real access to the shakuhachi only BAMBOO: What are future compositions projects / what are you working on in the moment (shakuhachi or otherwise)?
happened in 2006, when I was living in
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, and read, in the LAI: I have recently finished Roar of Tiger Causing Wind, a piece for D shakuhachi and koto, written and dedicated for
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, that the Rafael Hiroshi Fuchigami (see article page), and inspired by a tiger painting of the same title by Maruyama Okyo.
shakuhachi had been very much alive outside My current composition project will have two originals, since they are both being written at the same time: one for
Japan for at least the mid-1990s! I found out about symphonic orchestra and the other for shakuhachi solo.
the nearby Shakucamp of the Rockies and that was
when I decided that the shakuhachi
would be my second instrument.
I was 48 years old, then.
I attended Shakucamp
both in 2006 and
2007, and there I had
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022
IMAGES OF JAPAN
The BIggeR PIcTuRe
Mount Fuji near Lake Yamanakako Nagaike as seen through a
webcam on 18 November 2022 at 08h00 JST
© live.fujigoko.tv
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Fuan Yoshimura Sōshin, the 40th kansu (head) of
Myōan-ji, Kyoto. Photograph taken in December1970.
Photo courtesy of Seian Genshin
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Gyokusui I, Gyokuzan (left) and Gyokusui II (right) and Sakai Chikuho II (back)
Photo taken early 1970s at Gyokusui workshop,Osaka.
Photo courtesy of Riley Lee
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Cover illustration from a booklet of Kinko-ryū
Shakuhachi children’s songs, 1920.
Photo courtesy of the International Shakuhachi Society
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A young Yokoyama Katsuya practicing
with a Watzumi score in his room in Tokyo
Photo courtesy of the International Shakuhachi Society
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022
Araki Kodo II with one of his students, ca. 1876
Photo courtesy of the International Shakuhachi Society
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SHAKUHACHI RESOURCES
The techniques of the
shakuhachi: 1.8 shakuhachi
overtones chart
The ongoing project by Ramon Humet to provide a comprehensive guide and
reference to expanded techniques on the shakuhachi continues. In this issue we are
introduced to Humet’s classification of shakuhachi and its overtones.
Introduction
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BAMBOO – Autum/Winter 2022 Shakuhachi Resources – The techniques of the shakuhachi: 1.8 shakuhachi overtones chart
Accidentals
Example 1: Ro with a quite harmonic overtone series
Meri / kari
Example 2: Tsu with inharmonicity on the upper overtones
Example 3: different tuning changes of the lower partials between the normal and meri position. The upper partials remain unchanged
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Study of some particular cases
Example 6: by opening the fourth hole a little, partial C appears
Example 4: change of harmonic structure depending on the degree of opening of a half- hole
Example 7: partial D appears when shading the fourth hole
Example 5: change of harmonic structure depending on the direction and pressure of the air flow
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1.8 Shakuhachi Overtone chart
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Notes
1 Humet, Ramon: 1.8 shakuhachi fingering chart. BAMBOO, European Shakuhachi Society Newsletter. Autumn / Winter 2020, pp.
33-35. Humet, Ramon: 1.8 shakuhachi quarter tone fingering chart. BAMBOO, European Shakuhachi Society Newsletter. Spring /
Summer 2021, pp. 63-67. Humet, Ramon: 1.8 shakuhachi timbral trill chart. BAMBOO, European Shakuhachi Society Newsletter.
Autumn / Winter 2021, pp. 39-49
2 Castellengo, Michèle and Fabre, Benoît: The Contemporary Transverse Flute and the Shakuhachi: Convergences. Contemporary
Music Review, 1994, Vol. 8, Part 2, pp. 217-237
3 van Cleve, Libby: Oboe Unbound. The Scarecrow Press, 2004
4 Levine, Carin & Mitropoulos-Bott, Christina: The Techniques of Flute Playing. Bärenreiter, p. 18
5 Pascal Gallois’ expression of ‘even more lip pressure’ to achieve the harmonics of the bassoon is remarkable (Gallois, Pascal: The
Techniques of Bassoon Playing. Barenreiter, 2012). Rossing also states that ‘to sound the second register, the player moves the
lips...’ (Rossing, Thomas D.: The Science of Sound. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1982, p. 227). Minoru Miki says that ‘in
the second overtone series, the tension in the lips increases and the sound is extremely bright and piercing.’ (Miki, Mimoru:
Composing for Japanese Instruments. University of Rochester Press, p. 42)
6 A particular case of overtones that are produced in a different way to regular overtones are the so-called ‘whistle-tones’,
characterized by a much more relaxed embouchure and subdued dynamics. Whistle-tones are not the subject of this study.
7 Microtonal accidentals do not have a standard notation. As stated by Gould: ‘No pitches other than twelve chromatic degrees
of the octave have standard notation’ (Gould, Eliane: Behind Bars. Faber Music. p. 94). Quarter-tone sharp and flat signs are quite
common. Arrows can have various meanings depending on the composer. In this study, the arrows change the pitch an octave-
tone.
Bibliography
Castellengo, Michèle and Fabre, Benoît: The Contemporary Transverse Flute and the Shakuhachi: Convergences. Contemporary
Music Review, 1994, Vol. 8, Part 2, pp. 217-237
Gould, Eliane: Behind Bars. Faber Music
Levine, Carin & Mitropoulos-Bott, Christina: The Techniques of Flute Playing. Bärenreiter
van Cleve, Libby: Oboe Unbound. The Scarecrow Press, 2004
Gallois, Pascal: The Techniques of Bassoon Playing. Barenreiter, 2012
Miki, Minoru: Composing for Japanese Instruments. University of Rochester Press
Rossing, Thomas D.: The Science of Sound. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1982
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to Kakizakai Kaoru sensei for his teaching. I also want to express my special gratitude to
Horacio Curti, for his encouragement and generous support.
Ramon Humet is a composer and shakuhachi performer based in Barcelona, Spain.
www.ramonhumet.com
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Min’yo
Miyazaki Prefecture
As part of our shakuhachi resources we travel around Japan to present a new
min’yō song in each issue so you can practice, play along or simply enjoy the
flavour of min’yō music.
This time we welcome shakuhachi performer Véronique Piron who leads us to
Miyazaki Prefecture to tell the story behind Kariboshi kiri uta.
About min’y
.
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Kariboshi kiri uta /
The shakuhachi should played that piece as a simple melody, quite expressive, even sabishiku (“with sadness”), as
This song belongs to the min’yō of the West part of Japan. We are here South-West, in Miyazaki prefecture on Kyûshû notified on the notation, using portamento and yuri in some places. Playing the miyako-bushi scale version, the shaku-
Island. This is the hot part of the country : many pieces have a slow tempo and a nonchalant feeling. hachi doesn’t need to use korone (”double hitting”) even if the singer, naturally, sings in an melismatic ornamental style.
It has been programmed in a set of three min’yō pieces taught in middle schools in the 1970’s : Kokiriko bushi, Saitara The traditional notation proposes an additional solo shakuhachi phrase to be played in between the verses of the song,
bushi, Karobishi kiri uta. They have been therefore songs widely diffused, great “classics” of that genre, with Kariboshi whereas the piece should stop at the end of the last phrase of the text.
kiri uta being one of the first songs approached belonging to this region of Japan, including for min’yō contests
programms. In the recording I’ve been playing that notation all the way through. (see ESS members’ area)
The context is agrarian: harvesting, drying and cutting. In the olden days farmers cut bamboo grass or miscanthus
(silvergrass) in order to feed their cows and horses, and to thatch their roofs. They used to sing that working song while
cutting, using a scythe.
lyrics
As it is originally a solo voice with no instrumental accompaniment, while played with a shakuhachi, the flute will fellow
the voice as accompaniment or just play as a solo piece, in a free rhythm style.
There are two versions of that song. One is using the classical miyako bushi scale, which has a minor atmosphere. An-
other version, more local, is using the ritsu scale, which has a major atmosphere. As the first version might produce a
sensation of hard work, the second one might reflect a sunny bright atmosphere. But historically, it seems to be impos-
sible to know which one arised first.
This kind of songs, subject to evolution, either by a change of mode (scale), or by a change of text induced for exemple
by a displacement of the song of a region towards another can be classified in various categories. One can be consid-
ered as the ”truthful one”, which can either be the oldest version or oppositly the most recent one, and can even switch
in the course of history. This is part of the evolution of traditional music wherever in the world.
That’s why while searching after that song you might find sometimes the designation seichô/seichou ”authentic” com-
ing with the title.
This piece is coming with two notations. One is a traditional shakuhachi notation, gakufu, and the second one, provided
Véronique Piron is based in Brittany-West of France and has been a shakuhachi performer-teacher for 30 years in
by the NHK (shakuhachi no subesu, 1981), is combining staff notation (for D shakuhachi) with Kinko and Tōzan notations.
the style transmitted by Yokoyama Katsuya (KSK). She is moving between tradition and creation, and as a licensed
Both of them are using rhythm notation to indicate the flow of the melody, but is played in a free rhythm. There is one
conservatoire professor for traditional music, she is introducing Japanese music, including Min’yô, and traditional
phrase as an instrumental introduction fellowing by the 4 phrases of the song. Those phrases can have a long flow so
world music in France. www.veroniquepiron.com
that you need to pay intention to the breath to be able to manage long blowing.
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Kariboshi kiri uta (gakufu notation) (gozenfu notation: below; gozenfu notation: left)
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SHAKUHACHI EVENTS – ANNOUNCEMENTS The Music faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (HAMU), is our festival center and official partner of the festival.
All courses will, thus, take place in HAMU`s renaissance palace in the historical Prague city center. The evening
14th INTeRNATIONAl ShAKuhAchI program of the festival will show you some of Prague’s most beautiful concert venues, in ancient churches and
modern architectural jewels.
feSTIVAl PRAgue JuNe 1–5, 2023 Beyond the festival: shakuhachi making workshops
Three days before the festival and three days after the festival, you will have the outstanding opportunity to build
your own shakuhachi under the guidance of professional shakuhachi makers, Kinya Sogawa and John Kaizan Neptune
Every two years Prague welcomes top shakuhachi players from Japan and around
(respectively), at NEIRO Studio in Prague. Each workshop is open to six participants, bamboo and tools are provided.
the world. Five days of workshops, focused study groups, lectures and concerts
bring together traditional and new music for Japanese instruments. Don’t miss this unique event. The following International Shakuhachi Festival Prague will happen in June, 2025.
From Kyoto Myoanji to Prague
The special guest of ISFP 2023 is the current kansu, main player, of the Kyoto Myoanji temple Sakai Seian Genshin.
Kyoto Myoanji temple is one of the few places in Japan where spiritual shakuhachi playing is practised to this day.
In two study groups open to five students only, Genshin will teach Takiochi no Kyoku and a special, very rare Myoanji
version of Shika no Tone. In a dedicated concert ZEN: Sound and Silence (June 2nd), Genshin will perform the core
pieces from his temple’s tradition.
New sounds for the shakuhachi
The shakuhachi festival in Prague has a long successful tradition of presenting and commissioning new music from
Czech and international composers. The ISFP 2023 will be adorned by a new piece for shakuhachi and orchestra by
Jan Jonáš Starý (performed by Akihito Obama and the BERG Orchestra, June 5th). Another unquestionable highlight
will be the European premiere of Dai Fujikura’s Shakuhachi Five, which the ISFP had co-commissioned together with
the Japanese all-star ensemble Shakuhachi 5 and James Schlefer (June 4th).
Jazz and improvised music are also represented at the festival in various forms from conventional to more outgoing.
The festival aims to give spotlight to famous veterans as well as to the up and coming creative youngbloods that will
shape the shakuhachi world in the years to come. If you want to share your music, you can apply to perform in one of
three festival’s Curated Open Mic concerts.
Learning & Understanding
It is a rule of the festival that the main guests teach as well as perform. The main guests of the ISFP 2023 are Kinya
Sogawa, Naoko Kikuchi, Sakai Seian Genshin, Akihito Obama, John Kaizan Neptune, Ichiro Seki and Jean-François
Suizan Lagrost (more to be confirmed). Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to learn from these world class
players.
Furthermore, the festival features a symposium on June 1st focusing on the topic of Music and Altered States of
Consciousness (see the Open Call at www.isfp.cz). Academics, composers, therapists and performers will present their
research and experiences.
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REVIEWS Lee is also a musician who has fully embraced new age-ism. His last release, in 2015, was Shakuhachi Sleep Music. A
page on his website enquires “Would you like an hour of calm?” - the kind of question that makes me anxious. So this
Hildegard set arrives from a musician steeped in new age for the past forty years. Other approaches are available: try
cD ReVIeWS Hildegard (2012) from Stevie Wishart (another Australian artist) for a quite different take.
Medieval music is mysterious in its religiosity, and each generation finds there something that suits its current
12th century liturgical melismatic hymns, ambient shakuhachi pop, blues-inspired concerns. Whether Hildegard would have enjoyed ‘an hour of calm’ is an open question, but Lee has created a very
beautiful record.
jam coloured by gospel organ and thunderous electroacoustic cosmological
compositions, Clive Bell is all ears to examine how the shakuhachi copes within
these musical contexts.
Breath of the earth / Songs of hildegard by Riley lee
Hildegard von Bingen is an extraordinary figure from 12th century Germany. She not only composed more music
than anyone else in her day, she also travelled on preaching tours of Europe, wrote extensively on medicine and
visionary theology and even invented her own alphabet. We know little about how exactly her music was performed,
but it is monophonic and melismatic, with repeated use of melodic material, and so could be compared to honkyoku.
Riley Lee, originally from Texas but long resident in Australia, has for many years been acknowledged as a leading
shakuhachi master. He studied with Katsuya Yokoyama, and continues
Yokoyama’s concern with a beautiful sound as the foundation of his
playing. Lee has now recorded over three hours of Hildegard’s music,
available as a triple CD set. Many of these pieces are quite short, but
some push up to the 13 minute mark.
Lee’s approach is simple, almost ascetic. He plays these melodic lines
gently, in a reverb which is long and warm but not intrusive. There’s a
hint of breath colour in the sound, which is never harsh nor too pure.
Like a master electric guitarist he realises that first you sort out your
sound, and this he has done. Everything comes in Western scales of
course, but with some traditional shakuhachi ornamentation - again,
it’s not intrusive. There are no drones, no departure from the script,
no experimental moments. Variety comes from different pitches and
moods: O Ignee Spiritus I is on a lower flute, while version II is higher.
Item De Virginibus is a lively song, about young girls maybe? This is less
formal, and for a moment we step outside the cloister. On O Clarissima
we can hear Hildegard’s ecstatic joy. Everything is performed with Lee’s
impeccable musicality.
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022 CD Reviews
Shakuhachi And electronics by genkaizan (frank genkaizan Schäfer) –Akasa
– ‘ by luigi Antonio Irlandini
Genkaizan is Frank Schäfer, a German shakuhachi player now resident in the Nagoya area of Japan. He has released a Born in 1958 in Brazil, Luigi Antonio Irlandini is a shakuhachi player and contemporary composer, with a strong
seventy minute album on YouTube, a lively and often enchanting mix of assorted pieces, from honkyoku to ambient research interest in ancient and non-European content in contemporary composition. He has studied with British
pop. composer Brian Ferneyhough among others, and holds a teaching post at a Brazilian university. He has also taught
music at several Steiner schools, and is trained in Steiner’s anthroposophic pedagogy. Now he has a CD available,
The opener is Miyama Higurashi a 1927 piece about cicadas by Fukuda Rando. Usually played solo, with an a kind of retrospective of his composing career, with three major pieces on it. The one we’re concerned with here
improvisatory feel, it’s a throwaway bagatelle full of freedom, and Schäfer’s gurgling synth maybe anchors the flute is Ākāśa (pronounced ‘akasha’), a 22 minute electroacoustic piece
too much. Still, his playing is fine and it’s an interesting attempt to push Fukuda into ambient pop. Better is Genkai featuring Irlandini’s shakuhachi, which he performed at the Prague
which borrows a theme from Norwegian ambient specialist Geir Jenssen, aka Biosphere. This really is ambient pop, International Shakuhachi Festival in September 2021.
as the shakuhachi drapes melodic phrases across Jenssen’s chords. Schäfer is trying out several ideas on this album,
but for me the most successful are these lighter pop tracks, with their faint smell of Ryuichi Sakamoto. Tai Kyoku Like the poet TS Eliot and the atom bomb physicist Robert
Ken is another, a gentle tai chi- Oppenheimer, Irlandini is strongly drawn to the Vedic hymns of
inspired dance. Le Soleil? C’est Sanskrit and Indian cosmology. In that cosmology, Ākāśa is the
Moi! layers several shakuhachis subtlest of the five elements - sometimes translated as ether, it is
over a beguiling rhythm, and perceived via sound.
even has a moment of French
poetic rap. Later on there’s an Ākāśa begins with simply Irlandini’s shakuhachi (in C), bathed
homage to soundtrack legend in a generous reverb. His initial impulse came from practising
Maurice Jarre, flute across synth in reverberant stairwells. A pity maybe he didn’t feature those
arpeggios. As Schäfer introduces stairwells, but he has opted for digital reverbs that give him more
his synthesised handclaps you control. In fact, he tells us that this particular reverb corresponds
can tell he’s having fun. to a subway tunnel in Amsterdam, while later in the piece he uses
one that “reproduces the acoustic conditions of the Wembley
Sazanami is more upbeat and Stadium in England.” I love this kind of detail - it enables us to
tropical, with a kind of Okinawan enter into the composer’s excitement. The Vedic hymns might feel
gamelan effect. Shakuhachi carry a little recondite, out of our grasp, but I can immediately relate to
the tune amidst swooping synths, the guy in the studio trying out reverbs from a digital library, and
perhaps illustrating the flying thinking, okay, Wembley Stadium…
fish. A snarling electric guitar
introduces The Moon In My Mind, For the second part of Ākāśa Irlandini introduces an accompaniment of ‘fixed media’, or what we used to call tape.
a blues-inspired jam coloured by A tremendous thunderclap explodes - no distant rumbles, this is terrifying. Single brass notes, deep digeridoo notes
gospel organ. and howling wolves build up a choir, over which the shakuhachi bravely perseveres. This is dramatic and great fun,
though I confess I found it slightly comic book, with the fury of an anime soundtrack. The third section introduces dark
Elsewhere Schäfer presents Tamuke as a solo on a larger flute (full disclosure: I may have taught him this piece long twangs from a stringed tampura. Deep drones build a fierce and colourful soundscape. Meanwhile the shakuhachi
ago). I like his version here: we can hear freedom in the playing, and that the player has found his own voice. proceeds at much the same pace as before, and is perhaps limited by sticking to one scale. More timbral exploration
from the flute might have felt more responsive to the backing; as it is, there’s a feeling that the flute is running out of
The arrangement of Arvo Pärt’s well known 1977 composition Fratres is a strange experiment. Schäfer writes that ideas. But you can’t argue with Irlandini’s thunder, and everything ends with a mighty crash.
“the shakuhachi goes through a learning process”, failing to match the expressive power of the violin (on Pärt’s
original) before returning to its meditative nature. Maybe this rather uncomfortable piece is itself a meditation on
what music the shakuhachi should be playing. Schäfer also enjoys presenting Zen life advice on his YouTube channel,
spiced with humour - elsewhere he has a video of slapstick flute players battling aboard a rural railway train. On this
album too there’s plenty to enjoy.
Clive Bell is a musician and composer specialising in Far Eastern music. He studied the shakuhachi in Tokyo
with Kohachiro Miyata. Bell is based in London, UK.
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BOOK ReVIeWS
Bruno Deschênes’ new book Transmusicality – Mastering a Music from Another
Culture explores issues of cultural appropriation, authenticity, identity and orientalism.
By focusing his research on the musicians themselves, their motivations and individual
stories, we are introduced to concepts of transpropriation and transmusicality, and
what it might mean to ‘master a music of culture one is not born into.
Certainly worth reading for shakuhachi players who wonder sometimes about question
of authenticity, tradition, cultural appropriation and how to approach and understand
a traditional instrument and its music being themselves from a different culture. Through
the interviews with ‘transmusical’ musicians we glimpse also the practical reality and
process of identifying and immersing oneself into the other musical culture.
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eVeNT ReVIeWS
Swiss Chikuyusha Annual Concert 2022 by Ursula Fuyûmi Schmidiger
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SHAKUHACHI HUMOUR, POETRY & MORE
hA-hA-RO
Welcome to the lighter side of the shakuhachi world. Here we collect contributions
from our members to offer personal reflections, share artworks, poetry, writings,
musings, etcetera, etceteru...
Cartoon by Thorsten Knaub
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Drawings
by Tamara Rogozina
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022 Ha-Ha-Ro: Clay Komuso
I double-check everything is connected. I exhale, take a deep breath
and blow...
by Laonikos Psimikakis Chalkokondylis
What does it feel like to share the same air, water, and soil with all the animals and plants of this place? What does this
land sound like, and how can we blend in, in a playful and creative manner, not as visitors but as residents too?
These are some of the thoughts in my mind as I walk to a nature spot in Hackney Marshes, east London, where I can
safely cross the thicket of nettles and bramble and onto the northern banks of River Lea. It is 4am and this is a place of
immense local beauty and serenity. In these early hours I seem to be alone—or, rather, the only human around, but in
the company of many animals. I have come here to participate at Soundcamp Reveil (French for “awakening”), a 24-hour
live broadcast of the sounds of dawn across the globe: I’m one of over 100 people setting up “soundcamps” globally,
streaming the sounds of dawn from 4.53am and for about half an hour, the duration of sunrise on this day.
After the “clean” stream is finished, I pick up my shakuhachi and walk over to my laptop and microphone. I am about to
being livestreaming an improvisation with shakuhachi and live electronics and birdsong to whoever is tuning in. I pause
to listen—I can see and hear kingfishers, herons, gulls, blackbirds, wrens, blue tits, great tits, pied wagtails, chaffinches,
turtle doves, ring-necked parakeets, robins, geese, coots and many others. Some mallards land in the water, ruffling the
calm surface of the water; a heron spreads his wings dramatically to scare off a gull from his territory. But beyond these
occasional foreground brushstrokes, there is just the distant sound of the motorway and the occasional train, or the
footsteps of very eager dog walkers on the south banks of the river — a soft balance of sounds where human and the
more-than-human coexist fairly peacefully, as residents of the land around River Lea.
I double-check everything is connected. I exhale, take a deep breath and blow, doing my best to blend in and offer my
own sounds in this morning’s dawn chorus.
Link to video: https://youtu.be/cXzcd9AWn0I
Laonikos’ album ‘loess’ was released in October 2022 by the Netherlands-based Slow Tone Collages, and you can listen
to it here: https://slowtonecollages.bandcamp.com/album/loess
Laonikos is happy to offer a free download code to the first ten ESS Newsletter readers who ask for one via email.
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ESS MEMBERS’ AREA - WHAT’S NEW?
DuBlIN 1 on 28/29 MAY –
VIDeOS
Dublin 1 was an exciting collection of pieces from classic honkyoku to modern
compositions, as well as tips on technique, a talk, a musical taster of Dublin and of
course some ro-buki sessions. The teachers Araki Kodo VI, Shiori Tanabe, Horacio Horacio Curti –Shika no Tone solo version (KSK)
Curti, Nina Haarer, Philip Horan represent a variety of schools/style ranging from
Kodō-kai/Kinko-ryū, Tozan-ryū, Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) to Chikuho-ryū.
Videos are now uploaded for further study. Enjoy!
Araki Kodo VI - Tsuki no Kyoku
Araki Kodo VI - Talk Kodo lineage
Shiori Tanabe – Mine no Tsuki (Tozan-ryū)
Shiori Tanabe – Tips & Technique
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Nina Haarer–Oshu Nagashi (Chikuho)
Shiori Tanabe – Kari (modern)
Araki Kodo VI - Dokyo (modern)
Araki Kodo VI - Tips & Technique
Philip Horan – Tips & Technique/Irish theme
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HOW TO BECOME AN ESS MEMBER HOW TO GET IN TOUCH WITH THE ESS
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BAMBOO – Autumn/Winter 2022
ESS NEWSLETTER CONTRIBUTOR’S GUIDELINES
The next ESS Newsletter is published on June 1, 2023
There will be a call for contributions nearer the publication date, but please do
not hesitate to contact us in the meantime with any questions or suggestions.
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STAY TUNED !

THE NEXT EUROPEAN SHAKUHACHI SOCIETY NEWSLETTER IS PUBLISHED

JUNE 1, 2023