Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

A few weeks back two tubes arrived at my post-office....
They were from Eddie (known as kyoreiflutes here at the forum)

Trembeling I walked there with the paperslip in my hand... "This is it!", I thought out loud. "This is it! I am finally going to meet a real shakuhachi!"
I have been looking at pictures, listening to records and reading building manuals off and on for 7 years, but I had never even held one in my hands.

I walked home slowly.. just enjoying to restrain myself from running like a drunk chicken waving the tubes around.
I unpacked the first tube, and there she was. Eddie's first root-end shakuhachi. I've been looking at his pictures for about three months.
It was even better than I had imagined! I picked it up at took some breaths down the tube before a bright, wonderful shaku-tone emerged out of the other end of it. I am from that moment completely hooked.
I played it all day, and when my family went asleep I just sat looking at it. I couldn't sleep properly for three nights. I had to get out of bed and just hold it and look at it.

I've played it every single day since than, the first thing after I get home from work.

In the other tube there was a Yuu. That was awsome too.


Now they are resting for the night at the top slot in my flutestand in the studio.
Here they are:

1. Eddie's root-end
2. Yuu from Eddie
3. A non-root 2.0 jinashi I'm currently working on. Is now curing from tung-bath
4. A rediculous, stupid crap-flute sold under the name "shakuhachi" to me by some amazon-seller. Usually sold as "CC shakuhachi".
    They said these are "rarely more than 12 cents off pitch". But this one doesn't even have the right scale. Is a major third on this one.





Here's my entire flutestand (missing a few whistles at the bottom)
From top to bottom:

1. Eddie's wonderful 1.8 root -end
2. Yuu
3. A non-root 2.0 in the works, by me
4. Crappy scrap-flute by amazon-jokers. Don't know why I keep it there.
5. Same as #4, just a bit smaller. This one is better than the other one, since it's smaller... so there's less of it.
6. Bansuri i got from an Indian music maestro that got too sick to play anymore.
7. The first sideblown flute I made. In D, made from a bamboo-torch. (Oops... it's backwards here... also the bindings are just experimental)
8-13. Same as #6
14. Tourist bansuri from Stockholm
15. Old bansuri that I fixed up for a friend. We ended up sitting on it and it cracked. So did we... I keep it to remind me of that moment.
16. Kena from Ecuador. My first bambooflute. Has a wonderful tone. I bought off a streetmusician in Norrköping, Sweden.
17. Kena, from Chile.
18. You can just see the top of it. I got this funny flute from a funny woman in a store. Has a rather weird kind of whole-tone scale.



Just wanted to share my great joy with you.
If you ever get a chance to buy one of Eddie's flutes.. do so! It's a great instrument.
Soon I will hopefully be able to go to Stockholm to get lessons from Gunnar Jin-Mei Linder. That will be awsome!

Have a great shakuhachi day.

// Chris the Swede

Last edited by Toffe (2006-10-18 16:25:27)