8 July 2008 Shakuhachi Mini-Concert
Today I played shakuhachi at a new place, a “day care” facility for the elderly. This place, as with the other places I play at, have all been introductions from the (as with everything else in Japan) neighborhood watering hole I visit a couple times a month.
Unfortunately this place has lousy acoustics, so it seems like the sound dies as soon as it leaves the flute. Still, I had a good time playing. Someone took pictures, which I will post later, but right in front there was a hunched, frail wisp of a woman, probably about 90 years old and suffering from at least advanced osteoporosis if nothing else, who was energetically (well, relatively) clapping and singing with me the whole time. So, I just pretended I was playing for her alone, and didn’t worry about how I sounded to everybody else.
After coming back I recorded the clip below. These are about 1/4 of the songs I played today. The first two are old folk songs, with the rest being more recent (early to mid-20th century) popular melodies, the kind that my audience today would have known and loved when they were young.