Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Chris Moran wrote:

You seem to differ from Toby when it comes to density? That's significant. Toby's argument doesn't address density, from my reading, only "smoothness." If you argue that two pieces of bamboo have to be the same density you're making the argument for the other side of the debate.

In fact, Toby explicitly stated that "everybody is convinced that wall thickness and/or density makes a difference, but this is all untrue". I read it as a matter of trying to keep everything else unchanged so as to more readily identify the cause of a difference, if any. That is, test for a difference when thickness is changed (but keep density the same), and also test for a difference when the density is changed (e.g., change the material, but keep thickness the same). You could kill two birds with one stone by testing for both simultaneously, but if there is a difference, then it will leave you in the dark as to which one (or both) is the factor.

Eugene wrote:

Chris Moran wrote:

You seem to differ from Toby when it comes to density? That's significant. Toby's argument doesn't address density, from my reading, only "smoothness." If you argue that two pieces of bamboo have to be the same density you're making the argument for the other side of the debate.

In fact, Toby explicitly stated that "everybody is convinced that wall thickness and/or density makes a difference, but this is all untrue". I read it as a matter of trying to keep everything else unchanged so as to more readily identify the cause of a difference, if any. That is, test for a difference when thickness is changed (but keep density the same), and also test for a difference when the density is changed (e.g., change the material, but keep thickness the same). You could kill two birds with one stone by testing for both simultaneously, but if there is a difference, then it will leave you in the dark as to which one (or both) is the factor.

Just so. Thank you for thinking. The whole idea with science is that you try to control for things that might make a difference so that you
can observe the differences in the things being varied.

Also, Toby doesn't address 'smoothness', rather bore shape.

Toby wrote:

... the method of choice for so many down through the centuries for finding truth.

Toby wrote:

Strads get quite off-topic, but there are various theories about what makes them "special".

Yes, since were here again, I'd like to mention that I held two Stradivarius violins last summer when my neighbor had them on loan. His orchestra was given a permanent loan of about 20 Strad violins. They are circulated among the musicians for their artistic growth.

He gave me a demo on them and after wards I asked if he could hear the difference between a Strad and another fine violin. He said, to paraphrase, "there is no Strad sound. They just feel like very fine violins."

His opinion was shared by another world class violin player also in my building. Again, to paraphrase, "no one can identify a Strad sound by hearing it. They do not have a "Stardivarius" sound".

I've read that some makers believe the secret is partly in the varnish.

Think how great a shakuhachi made from it would sound ;-})

Toby

I made a lot of PVC flutes recently for a show. They sound pretty good!

Yungflutes wrote:

I've read that some makers believe the secret is partly in the varnish.

The movie The Red Violin had the luthier making varnish from his dead beloved's blood. And I believe it.

edosan wrote:

There is no doable 'test', because in order to do one, you'd need two shakuhachi with identical bores, but different wall thicknesses (and you'd need to assume identical bamboo density as well).

Back to the subject at hand. If there is no doable test, outside of some phantasy that you will find two absolutely identical bamboo shakuhachi --which you won't-- then you can quote theory until the cows turn pink and fly away on little blue gossamer wings, but you cannot prove that bamboo type, selection, thickness has no audible effect on shakuhachi.

You can make that assertion. You can "believe" it. You can start a new religion (see Wikipedia listing for L. Ron Hubbard). But your assertion is not provable.

edosan wrote:

Got any of those layin' around for the test, X?

The burden of proof lies on your shoulders to find the test subjects, create the environment for the tests, perform the tests, repeat the tests and submit the data for peer review.

Chris Moran wrote:

...but you cannot prove that bamboo type, selection, thickness has no audible effect on shakuhachi.

The scientific method never 'proves' anything, it just gets us closer to what's really going on, unlike our searching, fallible, subjective, needy,
willing minds do.

It's very easy and reasonable to generalize the data Toby has so eloquently elucidated here to bamboo windblown instruments. What is so
special and different about bamboo that obviates all of that information? Please do fill us in on that, X. Perhaps with your own collected
literature on the subject.

The resonant frequency of wood is even lower than that of the metal that silver/gold/platinum flutes are made of, so the data is even more
applicable to bamboo in terms of its material affecting the voice of the instrument.

Frankly, X, I do not trust your ears, nor mine, to make such judgments.

------

Besides, I only need to do one fairly simple test:

1) Get three or four competent players, all playing the same tune, each of them playing either a Yuu or my 1.8 Ichijo (a very high quality
shakuhachi).

2) Everybody gets in the same room, one with fairly dry acoustical properties, with a blanket hanging in the middle of the room, players on
one side, X and whomever he wants to bring along on the other.

3) The players are handed either the Yuu or the Ichijo, chosen at random by a disinterested method (not difficult to come up with, a priori) and they play the tune, which flute played being noted. The listeners are meantime taking notes on which flute they think is being played in each trial, Yuu or Ichijo.

4) After each player has played the tune at least two times (doesn't matter which flute is used), X and the rest of his doubting minions are asked to compare their lists with that of the person handing out the flutes to the players.

5) The listeners' list must agree with the 'real' list by better than chance to show that plastic sounds different than bamboo.

6) The prime weakness of this method is that the players are not also blind to which flute they are playing. My contention is that this will not matter enough to make a difference, although some effort could be expended to hide the type of flute from all players as well, even though this is more difficult to do than with metal flutes. A simple blindfold would help, although the players could probably still tell enough of a difference that bias could not be completely ruled out. The idea is that the tune gets played enough times that this bias is small.

7) A counter argument can be made that 'you're only looking at two jiari flutes' and not at all possible differences in bamboo wall thickness and density. I would reply that what we are looking for here is differences in ability to detect the material the shakuhachi is made of. If you can't tell the difference between two fairly similar flutes, one of plastic, the other of bamboo, how're you going to subjectively sort out ALL those other variables and produce an accurate accounting?

Last edited by edosan (2010-06-06 12:49:04)

Chris Moran wrote:

edosan wrote:

There is no doable 'test', because in order to do one, you'd need two shakuhachi with identical bores, but different wall thicknesses (and you'd need to assume identical bamboo density as well).

Back to the subject at hand. If there is no doable test, outside of some phantasy that you will find two absolutely identical bamboo shakuhachi --which you won't-- then you can quote theory until the cows turn pink and fly away on little blue gossamer wings, but you cannot prove that bamboo type, selection, thickness has no audible effect on shakuhachi.

You can make that assertion. You can "believe" it. You can start a new religion (see Wikipedia listing for L. Ron Hubbard). But your assertion is not provable.

edosan wrote:

Got any of those layin' around for the test, X?

The burden of proof lies on your shoulders to find the test subjects, create the environment for the tests, perform the tests, repeat the tests and submit the data for peer review.

Science rests on making reasonable assumptions from the data at hand (predicatable and repeatable). and as Popper points out in relation to falsifiability and science, it is impossible to conclusively prove anything: one can only show something to be false, never show it to be true, as there are an infinite number of cases to test for any given theorem.

So, based on the evidence science has collected so far, we propose a scenario which fits it, and proceed to try to find a case where new evidence proves the model lacking. If we do manage to do this, we refine the paradigm and then try again to knock it down.

Now, so far all the evidence for the non-significance of wall materials in woodwinds fits prediction. The model works. Through the years, there have been certain experiments which have seemed to show the opposite--that wall materials do have an influence--such as Miller's experiment with organ pipes in 1909. However all such experiments have, on closer inspection, been shown to contain methodological flaws. Therefore, the scientific consensus is quite firm on this particular point. In addition, other experiments have clearly demonstrated observer bias, which reasonably explain why people like you keep thinking that wall materials make a difference.

Whenever the doubters protest about the blockheadedness of scientists and the exquisite sensitivity of players in regard to this question, I like to direct them to this page, which shows that the human sensory system is not as infallible as they would like to believe. I suggest that you spend a bit of time here marveling at just how easy it is to fool your lying eyes:

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

Finally, given the weight of evidence that has accumulated over the past 150 years, it is rather that the burden of proof is upon you, since the tests have been carried out numerous times, by some of the best minds on the planet (who mostly were also accomplished instrumentalists), in methodologically-rigorous ways  that have passed strict peer-review.

Ed and I look forward to your efforts to falsify the present model. I am in contact with a number of eminent acousticians, and I am certain that they will be most interested if you manage to come up with something, since they are at a loss to prove it wrong.

Toby

Last edited by Toby (2010-06-06 21:05:03)

radi0gnome wrote:

Pure blasphemy. So we finally give in and acknowledge that Coperincus was right - http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art … QD9FS5R7O0 - and now you want us to believe that wall thickness and density doesn't effect the sound of a flute. When will it end?

Galileo was convicted of heresy by the Inquisition in 1633, and the Church did not finally drop all opposition to heliocentrism until 1835. So I'm thinking sometime around 2212 the idea might finally find some acceptance in the shakuhachi community...

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

Toby wrote:

Galileo was convicted of heresy by the Inquisition in 1633, and the Church did not finally drop all opposition to heliocentrism until 1835. So I'm thinking sometime around 2212 the idea might finally find some acceptance in the shakuhachi community...

I don't really have a horse in this race. I have actually used wooden shakuhachi frequently in recordings recently because if I need a certain key I'll use whatever flute plays in tune with the track which has been placed in front of me. And my wooden 2.0 and 1.7 are good for Western music. But I don't think those wood flutes (nice as they are) have the complexity of tone as my bamboo flutes, so I don't use them for honkyoku, for example.

This is what I feel for western music. I have practically NO experience in western music but was asked to do some recording with a Jazz Pianist and I felt that my wooden flutes for some strange reason were just in tone enough and tempered for that type of stuff my god bamboo flutes were ok but I felt they were either too strong or scratchy etc I had to play too soft in order to get t right and that pissed me off more so the wood flutes were just perfect for that.

tddy934 wrote:

I've tried only a few types of bamboo, and I was wondering which one to try next, I want one the sounds good and is easy to work with.

Ted,

What kinds of bamboo have you tried so far?

Hundreds, no, thousands of years worth of experience of shakuhachi makers seem to rate Japanese Madake as the first and best choice. Then Chinese Madake.

Quality differs.

Caveat Emptor.

All the best,

--X.

Jon Kypros wrote:

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

It seems like if it were possible to make great shakuhachi out of wood, plastic, carbon fiber or whatever, somebody would have done it by now. It would be very useful to have access to great instruments of synthetic materials. But they don't exist yet.

I could make them easily and for not much money. I could even copy a jinashi bore with perfect detail or the whole flute, inside and out. They could be lighter and stronger than a YUU and bamboo.

I personally value the uniqueness each bamboo bore provides. Even bores with the same volume and length can very greatly because of taper. Mother nature gets to pick all of that. It's pretty amazing to me. Any well made jinashi will trump a cast bore I think because jinashi are all unique. However you can copy and cast uniqueness too. It doesn't sit well with me though. Finding a totally unique irreplaceable flute that you connect with is great as many of us know.

On another note I had a fantasy about a flute library where I had copies of bores or whole flutes filed away for posterity It's very possible and wouldn't be that expensive however it just seems weird. Matrixy even.
"Computer, start zee process on zee Edo #5 and zee Shiro #2!".
All the copying would also not harm the bamboo or bore a bit with most flutes. Even a raw bore wouldn't flinch. They'd have to be examined for anything that would cause problems like a chip in the plaster or something.

Anyway it really seems boring in the end to me though compared to the infinite variety that lay ahead in all those bamboo groves! But it's all very possible, it's not really hard to do at all and it's pretty cheap.

John Neptune told me that he and Monty Levenson used an interesting computer probe to measure full bores to some fantastic precision, in preparation for preparing mandrels for cast bores. That would do your work for you. But of course it is the unevenness of a jinashi bore that makes it most interesting and complex, and it would be damn near impossible to reconstruct a jinashi bore.

Toby

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

Toby wrote:

Galileo was convicted of heresy by the Inquisition in 1633, and the Church did not finally drop all opposition to heliocentrism until 1835. So I'm thinking sometime around 2212 the idea might finally find some acceptance in the shakuhachi community...

The idea is popular..........just don't know if it's true.

Can you explain in simple terms simple things like:

Neptune's jinashi flutes sound better than his cast bore flutes.

Let's say the Yuu is the best sounding plastic flute. It sounds better than bad bamboo flutes but not better than good ones. Why not?

It seems like if it were possible to make great shakuhachi out of wood, plastic, carbon fiber or whatever, somebody would have done it by now. It would be very useful to have access to great instruments of synthetic materials. But they don't exist yet.

I don't really have a horse in this race. I have actually used wooden shakuhachi frequently in recordings recently because if I need a certain key I'll use whatever flute plays in tune with the track which has been placed in front of me. And my wooden 2.0 and 1.7 are good for Western music. But I don't think those wood flutes (nice as they are) have the complexity of tone as my bamboo flutes, so I don't use them for honkyoku, for example.

1. Any jinashi flute is going to sound different than a cast bore flute because the bores are not the same. Because of certain acoustical phenomena, vanishingly small differences in bore geometry can have very large effects on the final sound. You can't compare apples and oranges, and that is what cast bore and jinashi are to each other. Also, there are certain limitiations to cast bores: for example mandrels for cast bores cannot have negative curvature, or you would never get the thing out. The same goes for wood reamers.

2. If you took a Yuu and carefully altered the bore to be the same as a good bamboo flute, it should have the same sound, but who would be crazy enough to spend so much time on a piece of plastic, when you could just as well spend the same amount of time on a nice piece of bamboo?...Buffet makes professional clarinets in both wood and a composite (plastic) material. They craft the bores of the latter just as carefully as the former, and the "Greenline" series is generally considered fully the equal of its grenadilla siblings, and are much preferred by many clarinetists for their dimensional stability and lower maintenance. Many years ago the Haynes flute company, famous for their instruments, put out a silver clarinet. Up until this time, almost all metal clarinets were student instruments, and many were horrible, and the rest not much better. The Haynes clarinet, although exquisite, could never overcome the prejudice. I was told of one professional clarinetist who had one of the only three hundred made, who was forced to paint it black, since many orchestra conductors would simply not allow a metal clarinet in their sight. Now, where does this leave the chances for our plastic shakuhachi?

3. There is no reason to suppose that people would take the trouble to make instruments out of another material if the ones they make of bamboo suffice, especially shakuhachi, hobbled as they are by tradition. In fact, it would cost serious money to set up a factory to make plastic shakuhachi, and probably no player would take them seriously unless you built up a great reputation, which is anything but easy. And let's face facts: bamboo is a wonderful material that feels good in the hands, and the uniqueness of each instrument is one of the great attractions of the shakuhachi. It would probably not be very good business to try to make expensive shakuhachi out of anything but bamboo.

And to be honest, even if a plastic shakuhachi were a sublime player, most people with a prejudice against plastic probably would have the impression it was not really as good as an inferior bamboo instrument when they played it.

I certainly would not invest (from a business standpoint) in a plastic shakuhachi factory...

Toby

Last edited by Toby (2010-06-07 01:35:32)