Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Hi Chris.

I can tell you a little about Kokuryūs flutes.
Kokuryūis not a 'professional' maker as such - he doesn't make a living of it. But he is a passionate maker and a very good maker in his own right. He is in some strange and interesting way a product of Mejiro as he began taking lessons there and also learned shakuhachi making with the teacher there ( can't remember the teacher's name of the top of my head).
However, his real interest for making is to make jinashi. He told me in an interview that his passion was to make mostly, but not only, long flutes - totally without ji. But they were to be blown and played as if it was a jinuri/jiari. He also aimed for a sound that was more jinuri-like than jinashi. However, he loved the challenge of trying to make that with just the bamboo as material.
He saw it as making jinashi for the people who were trained to play jinuri....
Here we may have an example of an attitude where the material is very important...
Kokuryu was very nice and open about his shakuhachi making - unlike some other makers. He laughs a lot and is just very nice to be around. His passion about shakuhachi came across strongly and it was comfortable to be around him and this passion for shakuhachi. Not much of an ego attached to it.
I thought his flutes were brilliant. The ones I tried were well balanced and played well. They are pretty wide-bored (most of the ones I saw) and have a flared bottom hole.
Personally I might not quite understand why one should try to make a jinashi that sounds like a jinuri.... but that was his aim, and he is good at it and the flutes are good - so I have great respect for him!
I measured and x-rayed some of his flutes during my fieldwork stay in Japan.

Kiku Day wrote:

Personally I might not quite understand why one should try to make a jinashi that sounds like a jinuri...

Neptune does that.

Is Kokuryu's sound more or less "jinuri" than Shugetsu's?

I have had a long term relationship with a professional maker who makes jinuri/jiari flutes exclusively.  The interesting point to me in light of these discussions is that he has never explained his sound in terms of 'type of instrument.'  It was always in terms of the type of music that would best be played by his instruments.  So when I hear of makers who make their instruments to reflect a sound that is typical of the sound that a certain type of instrument is expected to play, I'm intrigued but a bit mystified (I also know that the mystification is probably related to my experience.)  'I try to make a jinashi to sound like a jinuri.'  Why?  To prove that one is unnecessary?  To suggest that sound generation is related to something other than what has come to be expected in terms of construction methods and technique?  I, like Kiku, am not trying to debunk these makers and I certainly have respect for their talents and conviction when that is evident, but I am equally interested to know why.

Kiku, does Kokuryu have any relationship to Nishimura Koku style flutes?

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So making a flute more jinuri-like or jiari-like, do you think this would be shorthand for describing a flute with

1. a more focused, as opposed to a more diffused sound ?
2. more volume/projection ?
3. modern tuning, hole placement and size ?
4. steeper (less angled, less perpendicular) utaguchi cut ?

p.s: Jeff, to veer slightly back to my original question, have you heard of Shunko or Shomei over yonder?

Last edited by Chris Moran (2009-05-06 16:07:18)

I don't have a lot of detailed info on Shoumei, but I've heard he is similar to Kokuryu, but more into a breathy, less precise tone, if that makes any sense. I wrote a review on Izumi Takeo (http://shakuhachiforum.com/viewtopic.php?id=2185) and on that CD he is playing modern makers of jinashi/jimori flutes and he uses Shomei a few times on the CD. If you have the chance check out the cd, I quite like the shomei sound. Shimura Satoshi uses his flutes, especially for a few over 3 shaku. Shomei seems to specialize in extra long flutes, when he can get the bamboo that is. I'll ask around about him and his offiliation with the Myoan style.

Josh wrote:

. Shimura Satoshi uses his flutes, especially for a few over 3 shaku. Shomei seems to specialize in extra long flutes, when he can get the bamboo that is..

If that's the one Simura had in Sydney, I played it and liked it a lot. Good maker.