Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Tairaku wrote:

One of my former students, Jeff Jones in Chicago, is now studying with a bona fide Myoanji player who is located in Chicago. His sensei does not use shading. Jeff if you're reading this would you care to comment upon what pitches you guys get and whether you are aiming for a particular pitch?

I find comparative styles to one of the more fascinating in shakuhachi studies. It would be great to hear Jeff Jones' experience.

Studying briefly as I did with Yoshizawa Masakazu, I sensed his bias in teaching was (as Jim Thompson pointed to) learning a note like Tsu Meri as Eb first, pretty strictly, and then moving on from there according to stylistic preference. Masa's preference was, to paraphrase, Flatter and softer is preferable to sharper and louder when it came to a tone such as Tsu Meri.

-- BUT it was also Masa who first showed me the 3-cassette collection of Taizan Ha Meian (Myoan) master Tanikita Muchiku, a set of recordings which he obviously valued .. not to mention that they cost $100

That did present certain contradictions between what he was teaching me at the time and what I later heard on the Tanikita Muchiku tapes. The recordings certainly reflected a different approach to meri notes which I did not hear on more modern Japanese Kinko and Dokyoku recordings.

The short version of my story is that Masa and I never did get to discuss this and I think he was reticent to get into the nuances of the 'older' sense of pitch with a beginner.

I could understand that point, from the perspective of a teacher, that playing "Meian style" might be misunderstood for playing free of accurate pitch, which it is not (it is, I think I'm safe in saying, a different understanding of certain pitches and the techniques used to achieve them).

Hence, although I told him that I wanted to learn Meian honkyoku, he said: "First Kinko, then Tozan, then Meian."

(That was Masa's preference. Not mine. But he was the teacher, not me. I have always personally liked my music more "raw" -- less refined. I'll take the Minutemen over REO Speedwagon any day ...)

Either I have discovered a radioactive subject here or my writing is entirely incoherent. -- cheers, cm

Last edited by Chris Moran (2008-01-17 18:19:35)