Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

First: many thank-you's to Mujitsu and Tairaku for hosting the best BBQ ever, and to Perry, Kiku, Justin, and certainly others, for their thoughtful and persistent contributions. This forum is like crack to me.

I first became aware of shakuhachi through David Jackman's Organum and solo recordings. The combination of the instrument with bowed cymbals and other noise sources, or just looped to infinity, as in Sol Mara, made an incredible impact. I again encountered the instrument through Yoshikazu Iwamoto's contributions to the 1998 Such recordings (with John Tilbury and Eddie Prevost of AMM) and made another mental note to seek more. I eventually picked up a Watazumi record 2nd-hand without really knowing who he was; I just wanted to hear more of the instrument. And wow! Around this time the recordings of Sabu Orimo also started showing up on the experimental music lists I was reading. Ultimately, I loved the sound so much I was compelled to try it myself, and it stuck. I gravitate toward jinashi nobekan for not necessarily informed and probably irrational reasons. My approach is in-line with the above, and free improvisation in general: play to feel/feel to play. Nuance and technique are not lost on me, and I will forever be working towards those ends, but to my ears the shakuhachi does not make an unpleasant sound. I have also been exploring and really enjoying the traditional music of various schools, basically just trying to take it all in. -Ryan

Last edited by JR Haube (2015-01-06 11:21:48)