Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Others will know better, but the tuning of chi- being high according to today's standards- was either due to the aesthetics of having equal-distant toneholes, and/or due to the tuning itself. 

One can play in just intonation using the shakuhachi as is, using meri and kari techniques.  There are many forms of "just intonation"- it is a matter of knowing how to play and tune at the same time.

axolotl wrote:

I have some tuning/tempering questions for the ol' blowstick.

I know that chi was (is?) often sharp on shakuhachi.  Was this for ease of certain notes, or due to the specific tempering of an historic Japanese scale?

Also--has anyone ever made just intonated shakuhachi?  Since a lot of stuff for shakuhachi is played in, basically, D minor, I was wondering if a just intonated shakuhachi would sound interesting.  This intonation would theoretically be only present in kari and could be adjusted slightly if one were playing with other people--which is probably what two players of equally tempered intstruments do anyway.

The story I got was that at one point shakuhachi makers started leaning toward making their flutes with a more normally pitched(lower) chis because people requested it but all the professionals complained because certain advanced techniques, such as san no oo( high strong Bb) became less viable.