Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Elia wrote:

Hello, today I harvested a piece of bamboo 70 cm length for a 2.1 or 2.2 shakuhachi, but I'm not sure how to placing the holes. I found only the instruction to make a 1.8, but nothing regarding the other flutes lengths.
Thanks for any eventual response.

Ciao Elia, I think Ken has a good PDF somewhere that can help you calculate the placement for your flute.

For natural bore flutes, one of the most important factors in making a good shakuhachi involves choosing a proper piece of bamboo with a good aspect ratio ( length X diameter) that would work for an acoustically sound instrument.

Once you have that, you can measure the entire length of the flute then divide the length by 10.

Hole #1 (bottom front Tsu) is 2 /10's up from the bottom. #2 is 1/10 up (center to center) , #3 is 1/10, #4 is 1/10 and #5 (Thumb hole ) is 1/20.

This should put you in a rough ballpark for the ancient Towari tuning found on many old shakuhachi. To get it into Western intervals, you can take note of what's sharp or flat and make the adjustments on your next flute.

Let us know what happens! - Perry