I have a friend here named Stephane, a French guy who who is a fellow Nikon owner and photo enthusiast. He takes great pictures, often processing them heavily so that, paradoxically, only the “essense” remains. I’m giving a very small-scale shakuhachi concert this Sunday at his house, and when I was there a few days ago to talk about it he snapped some shots of me preparing.
Today I turned 37. This is therefore both the first year of another 12-year cycle, and the year that I emerge from my late mid-thirties into my early late-thirties. Just by chance today was Maki’s day off work, so we went to Cosco and then the Patagonia outlet down near Osaka with everybody. It was a nice, relaxing family day. (Except that no outing with a 5 year old and a 2 year old is ever truly relaxing.)
Today I’m going to give myself the present of blogging. It’s something that I fall into and out of the habit of doing, and something I most definitely enjoy when I do, and yet for some reason when I get out of the habit it’s hard to break the barrier of inertia. A lot like shakuhachi playing, actually.
Which leads me into this picture. I had agreed to play for the old-folks’ group in our condo a few days after new year’s. I had done it last year, and it was fun. This year it somehow, without my knowledge, it turned into a general spring concert for whomever wanted to come. I happened to have a friend’s kimono on hand, so I wore a full formal kimono for the first time while playing. It definitely puts you into the mood to play, and I (of course) want to buy my own now, but (of course) they are incredibly expensive and require approximately ten different knots to put on (some in back of you). I was lucky enough to find someone in the building who knew how to dress me, because putting on one of these things is definitely a skill that takes some practice.
Today I played in a concert along with three other people, one playing the shou (a traditional Japanese instrument also crafted from bamboo, but more like a harmonica or a mouth organ), one crystal bowls (created from melted silicon computer chips), and one singing soprano. The venue was a cafe in a machiya, or traditional Kyoto house, with a nice garden to our backs.
To be honest I didn’t have very high hopes for the ensemble, not liking “fusion” music much myself and being more of a purist when it comes to shakuhachi. However, when I met the other three and rehearsed with them for the first time a few days ago, I was amazed at how well we fit together. Basically, the crystal bowls and the shou play background harmony to the shakuhachi and/or the voice, so it all came together well without everyone interfering with each other.
Jeffrey has some photos up already. Go take a look. I should be putting up a blog post as well as soon as I can get him and some other people to send me some photos.
So last week I took my shakuhachi and started playing on streetcorners for change. This was a big deal for me and I was pretty nervous at first, but I soon got used to it and now enjoy it immensely.
I’ve played on the street before, but just practicing and never “performing,” and certainly not for money. In fact, I’ve never played shakuhachi for money before at all. It’s kind of a sticking point with me, since my teacher, Yoshinobu Taniguchi, who has spent incredibly much time and effort teaching me not to suck, has never taken a yen from me (nor anybody else, as far as I know). When I play in hospitals and old-age homes it’s strictly on a volunteer basis (although they do give me “train money” that far exceeds any conceivable train fare, and one place in Oita payed me with a sack of sweet potatos and rice that I couldn’t possibly turn down). I’ve always figured that I’m in the lucky position not to have to make money from shakuhachi, so I will keep it, the largest extent possible, free of financial compensation.
So why play for change on the street? Well, for one thing, I don’t feel like I’m “charging” because it’s obviously strictly donations only. And, since the economy has killed my translation business, it does feel good to make a little money, even if the contribution I make to the family coffers happens largely in 10 and 100 yen coins. (How much do I make? It’s highly variable, but somewhere between pharmaceutical translation and waiting tables.)
It’s also, as I’ve found out, just more fun that way. When you are clearly busking (playing for change), then it invites interaction with passers-by. I’ve met and talked with lots of people doing this in the past few days, and that never happens when I just stand there and play. So far I’ve received a good-luck token for my wife (given to me by an elderly lady who had asked me all about my family here), a little toy frog (given to me by a guy who sat there and listened for a long time), and a used haori, or traditional Japanese shirt (given to me by the owners of the used kimono store near where I play).
In the past week that I’ve been doing this, I’ve learned a few things:
1. When you perform a little half-bow to someone who puts money in your hat (or shakuhachi case, for me), be sure to know where you are in the song, or you end up looking less-than-suave having to go back to the beginning of the phrase.
2. Donations come in waves. You can get nothing for an hour, then a whole bunch in the space of five minutes.
3. It’s better to play popular songs people are familiar with rather than classics, especially seasonally appropriate songs. Since it’s cherry blossom season, songs with that theme are a big hit. Luckily, there are no shortage of those.
4. You just can’t tell who is going to appreciate your playing, either in terms of sticking around to listen or donations. Sometimes the most appreciative people are the ladies in kimono you would expect, but often these types will walk by without turning their head while someone you would cross the street to avoid at night if Japan weren’t such a safe country will sit there and listen for a long time before dropping you a fat tip.
5. It feels really good when someone puts paper money in the hat (1,000 yen, or about 10 dollars). In the future return the kindness to other street performers you see.
Of course, it’s cherry blossom season, which means that Kyoto is full of tourists. I’ve never been really big on the “shakuhachi as quintessential expression of traditional Japanese culture” schlock that is pretty common both here and in the west (after all, does the piano have cultural baggage about Germany?), but I have to admit that playing under the cherry trees is picturesque as hell. And playing in veritable snow-storms of falling cherry blossoms is just a huge kick any way you look at it.
Tonight I’ve been fooling around with iMovie, playing around with editing my D90 video. Below is a little something I just put together from footage (interesting archaic term that, from when motion pictures were captured on lengths of film!) taken from my balcony. I handheld it, and this isn’t a bad effort for that, but I really would like to get a decent tripod with a video head for panning. It will have to wait, though. The music is me playing the intro to a piece called Izumoji on shakuhachi.
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.
The shakuhachi itself dates from the early 20th century, but the gold leaf (maki-e) was applied recently by a friend of my teacher who just happened to be the official maki-e artist of the Japanese Imperial Household.
Back hole
Root end. You can see the roots. The chrysanthemum motif you see in these last two is the symbol of the Japanese emperor, but it’s OK to use it as long as the number of leaves differs from the official seal.
Today I went and played shakuhachi at an old-age home about half an hour away. I know the accountant for this home from this place I go drinking occasionally, and he was nice enough to introduce me.
I’ve been so busy with work and kids that I haven’t had much time to play recently, so I was a little bit tentative going in. I managed to practice in the cold outside about half an hour yesterday after the kids went to bed, then about an hour today, but that’s all I’ve played for a few weeks.
I played mostly folk songs, lullabies, and tunes that would have been popular when my audience (in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, mostly) was young, as well as some more traditional pilgrim’s hymns.
They were very appreciative, clapping their hands and sometimes humming or singing along to songs they probably hadn’t heard for decades but which they remembered anyway. It takes a lot to get a 90-year old excited, but watching them be involved for the whole 40 minutes I played was very rewarding. It reminds me of why I like to play to begin with.
That being said, I still wasn’t very happy with my performance. It was fine, but that’s about the most you can say for it. I recorded it, and listening objectively after the fact I could pinpoint very few actual mistakes, but the fact that I’m rusty was apparent to my ear, anyway. Who knows whether or not it would have made a difference to my audience if I had played my best.
Here’s a picture I snapped while everyone was still congregating. This was about two-thirds of those who came, which ended up being about 60-70 people, or about half the population of the home. A good turn-out, I guess. Hopefully I can get myself invited back and then go play again when I’m better prepared.
These are scans of postcards created by my shakuhachi teacher, who is almost as amazing an artist as he is a shakuhachi player.
He is incredibly prolific, turning out small stuff like these postcards and much larger paintings and pieces of calligraphy at a rapid rate. I have a bunch of his stuff, much of which he painted especially for me, with my (Japanese shakuhachi) name and various and sundry words of encouragement. I’ll probably post some of that stuff later, but for now some smaller work.
The two main characters here spell out chikuzen, or “bamboo zen.” For hundreds of years in its history the shakuhachi was played almost exclusively by zen monks. All of the characters in red are from his formidable collection of hanko (stamps, chops, etc.). This, as the next one, is similar stylistically to traditional representations of Boddhidharma, who brought Buddhism to China from India.
This next one has the characters for zen and katsu, zen being zen and katsu being….er….I wish I were a better translator….let’s say, the vitality that you put into any activity that you really care about. The smaller words say: “Since you’ve been born a human being in this world this time around, live strongly strongly strongly strongly strongly strongly!”
Finally, another favorite subject of his is the Kannon, who is the bodhisattva of compassion and fulfills very much the same roll in Buddhism as Mary does in Christianity.
I have struggled long and hard many years to master a fiendishly difficult instrument. I have practiced diligently. And yet, only now have I penetrated the mysterious depths to discover the true secret way to mastery:
Drink three espressos before practicing.
I spent the weekend with my shakuhachi teacher, Taniguchi-sensei. It was nice to go up there, as I haven’t been up in about six months. I usually try to go every few months, but the birth of Zoe made it hard to make time. When most people learn an instrument they take weekly lessons, but I go up for 1-2 full days every few months. During this time we spend 6-8 hours each day playing, which I think is actually better than practicing together just for a little while every week. He puts me up at his inn, feeds me, brings me to hotsprings during the evenings, and spends the entire day or weekend teaching me, all for free. For this reason he has very few students. Probably less than five at any given time. So, I’m very honored to be one of them, especially because I think he’s the best player alive (and I’ve heard a lot).
I was particularly pleased this time because a piece I have been working on for the past seven years finally earned a star of approval from him. Of course, it’s the hardest piece in the repertoire and I began learning it when I could hardly play at all, but it’s always been my favorite song and the theory is if you can play that you can play anything. The piece, called San-An, or “safe birth,” is a centuries old piece played by itinerant zen monks for alms as a prayer for safe birth. When I first started playing it he said my version was more like “incredibly difficult labor,” but I’ve now clawed and scrambled my way up to a reasonably safe birth after all these years, and I’m very happy about it. To stretch the analogy entirely too far, if I am now at a 2-hour or so labor ending in a happy healthy baby (which, coincidentally, was how Zoe popped out), Taniguchi’s version is so good he’s about a 30 second labor resulting in Superbaby. Still, he said I’m now good enough to play in front of people without being embarrassed, and I can spend the rest of my life polishing, which is just what I intend to do.
UPDATE: Although I assume most people who visit this blog know what a shakuhachi is, I’ve now updated the entry with a link to Wikipedia. Also, here is an old recording of my teacher playing an old folk song at a recital at Oberlin when he was a guest professor there.
Taniguchi-sensei, his wife Machiko, and a 150-year old (estimated) happy and healthy woman who works at the inn.
The entrance hall, stuffed with various Buddhas and Boddhisatvas. I really want that big life-sized fat guy on the right.
The view right outside the inn, which is in the boonies. The sign reads “Don’t throw cans in the rice field.”
