When it comes forth according to intention, or perhaps boldly and mellow with ‘no mind’, my new Miura flute is sounding very beautiful. I have been revising Honshirabe, adapting San’ya [Mountain Valley] and learning Shingetsu, and I have peeked at Koku which has much in common with Shingetsu and San’ya [Mountain Valley]. These are all fairly patient, round, slow pieces that require consideration rather than agility, immense breath control and understanding of the meaning and flow of the music. This might seem obvious to someone who plays Western music but deciphering and discovering further layers of meaning in Honkyoku [Traditional Japanese solo shakuahchi music] can take years, if not a lifetime. I spent four days in the tranquil countryside of my parent’s farm practising. My favourite time is the early morning before the other humans stir and before any domestic sounds commence. Listening for silence reveals how rich the plethora of natural sounds around the lake is: waterfowl, 3 or 4 different kinds of frog, screeching coots, crying lorikeets, black cockatoos, chattering starlings, the reeds in constant motion; occasional cows moo-ing and bulls roaring.Today, after that, the sound of my 2.1 is growing and sounding more comfortable and the physical familiarisation of the finger position and stretch is fading into insignificance.
Inspired by Ben’s shak-web-blog-travel site http://www.benjisan.blogspot.com/ I have included some more photos of the new shakuhachi on flickr: Benjisan's blogspot and Kyorei's Flickr photos
