Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Jam wrote:

One of the teachers in my school leant me a book of Studio Ghibli pieces for the violin today, he wants to play some more duets, and while I can't read western notation yet I've been thinking about transposing into notation I can actually read, ie Kinko style.

Is this wise, or should I just man up and learn to read western notation? Both?

I would suggest using it as an entree to learning Western notation, working each of your parts out by writing the Kinko right underneath
their respective staff notes. That way you can get all the nuances (if any) down that you are already familiar with in Kinko, and some of
the Western will soak in along the way.

Thing is, to really get proficient in Western (which I'm not, on the shakuhachi), you've got to go pretty much cold turkey and work on
reading just Western, which is quite a bit more work than learning Japanese notation, because you're not learning fingerings, but pitches,
and you've got to make some decisions WHICH fingerings work best for voicing a given piece on shakuhachi. Sometimes it's straightforward,
sometimes it's not.

Why we all love Japanese notation

Jam wrote:

My colleagues here at school are baffled that I can read Japanese notation but not western, as they're the opposite!

Don't let them in on our secret, wot?