Zach awry in Japan » Shakuhachi

A Great Day for Shakuhachi and Photography

Zachary — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 12:55:11 +0000

I don’t usually get much culture beyond poopy diapers and Thomas the Tank Engine, so sometimes it’s refreshing to go into Kyoto and indulge myself. As I had last year, this year I went to my favorite shakuhachi-busking corner at Kiyamachi below Sanjo, right beside a babbling brook and under a bunch of cherry blossoms, to play for everyone and hopefully make some change. That last is of course ancillary to the whole enterprise, but adds an element of fun and chance human interaction.

I played just to the left of where you can see in this photo. Lots of people stopped on this bridge to watch me play.

The scene
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These next three photos were taken by my friend Jeffrey, who dropped by with his son Anthony to watch and take photos before going to a photography exhibit (shown below).

Reminder to self: Iron shirt first next time
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One of my favorite things about doing this is talking to people. This time I met three old ladies, in their 60’s or 70’s. At first they stopped and listened for a few moments, then each gave me a 1000 yen (about 10 dollars) before moving on. This was remarkable for its generosity, and I gave them a bow-while-playing. A while later they came back again, and started requesting certain songs. At this point it was obvious that, although they spoke decent Japanese, they were definitely from somewhere else. I asked and they said they were from Korea. So, I played them the two Korean folk songs that I know by heart. It was very nice, although the entire experience was tinged by the knowledge that most likely the only reason we could communicate at all was because they had grown up in Japanese-occupied Korea, and had been forced to learn the language at school.

Just as I was putting my flute away an elderly Japanese couple approached and started talking to me. The lady said that she really liked shakuhachi, so I took my flute out again and began to play a simple song. At his wife’s urging, the husband began to sing along with me. It was a nice little impromptu duet, and I was glad to have Jeffrey there to capture the moment. Afterward, as I was packing up again, I learned that the lady likes exactly the kind of classical shakuhachi music I specialize in, which is pretty remarkable. It’s the kind of esoteric genre that only those who actually play it make an effort to listen to. (All the songs I play in situations like this street performance are purely shakuhachi arrangements of well-known, 20th century songs.)

First and last joint performance
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After that we all went to a photography exhibit by Sawa Kenji (佐和賢爾), a Buddhist priest and my photography teacher (although that implies a more formal relationship than actually exists). I had seen one of the photographs before, laid out on the floor of his temple, so I had lured Jeffrey out with the promise of an incredible show, and he wasn’t disappointed. I’ll let the photographs below speak for themselves, but in case it’s hard to tell each scene is covered in three or four exposures, which are combined to make unified images. We got there at the very end of the last day, and I just happened to have my flutes with me, so I gave a short impromptu concert there for him and everybody else before they turned on the lights and started taking the photographs down. It was a nice moment.

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Me playing in B&W

Zachary — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:17:25 +0000

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.

Stephane really likes the long flute, so I’ve prepared a couple songs for the occasion
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Me with the long flute by the window
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Happy Birthday to Me

Zachary — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:40:03 +0000

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.

Full regalia
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A Very Interesting Concert Indeed

Zachary — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:27:24 +0000

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.

My New Gig, or Combining the Secular and the Sacred

Zachary — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:46:09 +0000

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.

Under the cherry trees, by the stream at Kiyamachi south of Sanjo

“Err…How did that phrase go again?”

One look of about oh….10,000 that I received

My balcony at dawn

Zachary — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:05:27 +0000

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.

Shakuhachi Mini-Concert

Zachary — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:15:38 +0000

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.

Details of my shakuhachi

Zachary — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:21:11 +0000

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.

Shakuhachi Performance

Zachary — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:11:27 +0000

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.

Some Paintings by Yoshinobu Taniguchi

Zachary — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:06:48 +0000

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.