A Beginners Guide to the Shakuhachi HD

hello my name is Elsa Van Heusen Ramos and today I will be sharing with you the shakuhachi Japanese bamboo flute today I'll be talking a little bit about the history the philosophy the way to play it properly how to approach the practice of the flute and an introduction to a basic Zen piece we call home kill group or solo shakuhachi music the shakuhachi history is Valen mystery some say that it originated from Egypt and India the Middle East but historians do know for sure that the origins of the shukaku you have come from China and in the in China the shukaku was known as the don't shout or the shell and that was a very thin shakuhachi and much thinner than this Chuck RT that we know today and it had six holes sometimes seven and they were all in the front there was no thumb hole on the shell around the 6th century the shukaku was imported from China into Japan at that time in history the Japanese were heavily studying the Chinese culture and brought back many things and the Shao Kahn she was one of them so the Gagaku shakuhachi was used not for a very long time in the orchestra maybe a hundred years or so and then it got phased out and then in the 16th century the shakuhachi came back and was taken by the these koopa beggar monks were called cold morsel or the rice straw priests and they used that the shukaku as a tool for their mid their begging and for their type of meditation that they did then around the the 17th century the the Zen monks got hold of the shakuhachi and they transformed it into the shape that we know today using the root end and composing pieces that we play as the foundation of our practice in today's world there are various schools of shakuhachi for example the Kinkos school the toes on school and the muon school or me on school but the me on school or me on school of shakuhachi is the school that's directly connected to the cold musel monks or the monks of emptiness and nothingness which forms the historical basis of the shakuhachi and the coma so monks were the ones that transformed the flute into the shakuhachi that we know today they are the ones that discovered the root end of the shekarji and how it was developed it it made a really beautiful tone due to its tapered bore and the actual name of the chakashi means one foot eight inches one shot coup in Japanese ikkaku eight sooner hustlin so they just shortened the word to shakuhachi and so this length 50 4.5 centimeters is just the name of the chakra it's a very generic term and there's also various other names that cha cha Chi that shakuhachi practitioners gave it for example there's they're also called pocket which means bamboo or kill Taku empty bell or hoe chiku bamboo of the Dharma these are just a few of the romantic names that people have imbued cha cha cha with so the coma so monks of the 17th century were the founders of the originator of the shakuhachi that we know today and in those days the shock gachi or was going through many changes and and developments along with the the culture of Japan and the the political system of Japan there were many many samurai that lost their jobs their positions as one of the highest levels in society because at that time the Shogun of the country of the ruler of Japan at this time so to speak took away a lot of the power from the samurai and so they the samurai looked for jobs in different areas of the country in different levels of levels of society to sustain themselves because they had more work and a lot of these the samurai went into sects of Zen such as the Combe soul sect they call foo keshu or the the phuket sector of zen buddhism and the the phuket sector of zen buddhism was a very small Zhen sect based in the rinse I tradition and the lot of the the monks are the samurai were not very spiritually conscious and so they took a lot of their rough training from their samurai days and they developed many many stories of the samurai using the blunt end the root end of the shakuhachi as a weapon it's because it was replacing their swords since their swords were taken away from them and so there's this this history of this shock Archy as a martial instrument because of this the the samurais training and but there of course there are lots of sincere shock Watchi people who were focused on the peace and the playing of shocking as a spiritual tool which i will be talking to next the practice of sui zen in the practice of meditation in Japan Zen is the most popular practice that you know that has been exported from Japan Zen basically means meditation and in spiritual practice in Japan there are many kind of Zen there's for example sitting Zen where you sit in a lotus or half lotus position like this and then you focus on your breath and you attain various levels of awareness from sitting that's called zazen and through the through from zazen branched out many kind of Zen for example the there's walking Zen there's a Zen that is standing Zen there's martial artists have imbued their practice that zen and the martial arts have merged and the practice of martial arts itself is a practice of Zen and with that the shakuhachi with the influence of Zen that deeply influenced the Japanese culture the practice of Suez and came to be and silly Zen is basically means blowing sin and when we you practice the spiritual shakuhachi that's basically what you're doing you are blowing and you're focused on the experience of the moment you're highly concentrated on following your breath through the shock Archy the sound on how you how your body is positioned all that so that you're intensely focused on the moment and so this is basically a practice of Susan and through Susan the monks composed these these pulpit own poems so to speak that were compositions based on the these particular sounds that came from the shakuhachi and they formed the basis of the whole gilko or the original pieces of the shakuhachi and the video started out with one of the basic pieces of home kioku that you eventually learn in the practice of shockwatch II and this is intimately tied to Susan blowing Zen the practice of home kill coup and the your mind or your how your mental state is when you play the shakuhachi you can actually practice Susan without knowing hongki oh cool you can blow just a straight tone like like this just like that and this is soo easy this is blowing Zen but just historically the home killed who are the foundation of learning how to to get deeper into and concentrate into the sound of shock watching so a great way of developing your plane is to learn Susan and to learn the home kioku and to do it in various environmental and situational circumstances such as going out into nature and playing in cold or in by the ocean into the wind and on top of a mountain this is our excellent ways to practice Susan and to develop your plane you're playing skill as well as being exposed to different circumstances so that you can control your body and you can control your mind so that you have a stable and and relaxed sound when you play and even playing in front of an audience is part of citizen in my opinion many people in the old days the the shakuhachi was not supposed to be a tool for performance so to speak it was only relegated into the temple and for austerity austerity purpose like begging but today the shakuhachi has developed into a performance instrument and so the performing in front of an audience is I feel a very great way to develop as well so he's in and you're concentrated mind and relaxation in of your mind in any circumstances it's a great practice I feel fundamental to all Japanese art forms from martial arts to flower flower arrangement to tea ceremony and especially shakuhachi is your body and its posture so when we practice shakuhachi you want to make sure that your your spine is is erect and straight imagine you have a string like dancers do pulling up on your top of your head so that your spine is as elongated and stretched your shoulders are relaxed and like in meditation zazen you want to feel that there's this curvature to the bottom of your spine so you feel that they're okay and you want to sit at the edge of your chair when you sit on a chair so that you don't slouch like this it's it's not it's not good for your whole posture and your breathing system so you want to have this openness so that your your lungs are expanded and you have room and you want to feel that your diaphragm has has a room to expand so so make sure that yeah you have good posture when you place a kolache so the next thing I'm gonna talk about is how to hold the shakuhachi so the shakuhachi form itself the root is the bottom the bail and it with the Gucci or the seeing edge the blowing edge is the top the flute and there are five holes the first hole number one is the very bottom hole number two number three number four and the fifth hole on the back is number five okay and most players even if they're left-handed the right hand is on the bottom okay and when you hold the shakuhachi the first in the second hole in between your middle finger goes of your right hand goes and the thumb at the back of the bamboo so you want to have this balance like that in a joint shakuhachi the this middle joint is here between the third and the fourth hole and your middle finger of your left hand is there and your thumb of your left hand is at the back so then have this balanced holding position and when you play you don't want your hands to be like this it will create lots of tension and it's very bad ergonomics for your hands so you want to have it really relaxed but see how my hands go like this so it's kind of it at an angle it makes it nice and easy and you won't have this nice flow not like there's lots students start like this no you want to relax have your arms floating in between your body and your elbows and just have a nice relaxed pose like here so this 45 degree angle is a kind of a natural positioning of shakuhachi okay so this is the whole how to hold it now comes the blowing so when we start out with blowing shakuhachi we want to keep three things in mind the first is how you form your ear lips your embouchure and the first point to to try to make is a very concentrated airstream and the way we try to to achieve that is to imagine we have a mouth full of seeds the size of a millet or sesame seed and you want to spit each little seed one by one out put a little spittle at the end of your where it starts to turn away hear your lips and just start to make a tiny Airstream and it has to be one Airstream some people have two sometimes three it if you have more than one you will not make a sound guarantee so you have to make it saw a really fine and make a one single Airstream or the little hole in point you can go into the mirror and look at how if you're doing it correctly okay so the second idea you need to to to get is the what one of my teachers call the the cartoon kiss because it's you want to imagine these big lips with your bottom lip extending out like Bugs Bunny cartoon hmm yeah make a sound they kill that bottom lip going out okay that's important when you start to do what we call card Ibuki or blowing up words okay and which is the next the third idea which is blowing up words so with blowing up words you want to imagine first try to blow stick your bottom lip out and your jaw and feel the airstream touch your nose and then once you feel that on your nose here and put your hand here and feel the airstream going on your hand okay now next is a combination of the millet seed opening and blowing upwards but you want to push a little harder the airstream so that you will see if you go into the mirror your airstream will turn to or like a noodle a flat noodle and so you want to imagine that flat noodle going up to the sky because we're starting to blow up well you focus on you feel the air up here okay so those are the three basic principles of blowing properly kadhi Buki we see in Chuck our terminology cardi means blowing up words or sharply and that is the standard position of blowing your basic note so many is a opposite many means flat and you want to avoid blowing your basic tone medi because it's not a very efficient way of blowing so with these in mind I'm going to start you on another exercise the basic way to to get into the card position easily and naturally so you want to I'm going to do this from the side so that you can see it easier so the shakuhachi horizontal like this so you want to have a good position of your back and then this is horizontal just above horizontal you want to place it here but you want to make a sound from this position and this is going to be achieved by sticking your jaw out because that's the only way you can make a sound from here so you want to get this and mind you this is only an exercise this is not the the way you should blow when you're in standard position okay this is just for the exercise so to feel khadi buki and the bamboo here is touching your cheeks and you want to press it just enough in so that and you want to focus and aim the airstream up so that it's catching the edge that's the only way you can make a sound I want to get that consistently you want to pull which I call Qi down to your 45 degree angle but you want you want to hear your pitch rise and that's the key you want to hear the pitch rise so I'll go back to first position and from the front so my guy is going back into my mouth into my head so it's not staying here yeah put it into your normal position okay but hear that pitch rise and if you hear the pitch rise you will get to the tonic or the fundamental note in open hole position which is basically a D you know in western notation or the roll pitch this is perfect Connie Buki position okay so please work on that once you get that basic tone pitch you feel comfortable with that then you can start to close all the holes and work your way down to earth soon oats ro which is a lower register roll so that is car Ibuki it's the basis for making the best sound you can on your shakuhachi and there are many reasons why it's because there you leave lots of space here between your Airstream and your hooter Gucci that space creates that volume partly and it gives you enough space to to go into your many position to your diameter if it's too many you have no room to go deeper but if you have space you can get deep deep deep deep that's the reason why you Ducati buki okay and you can get the big sound row is the fundamental tone of your shell gotcha with all holes closed and you want to practice this with intense concentration and awareness how your sound is being produced and when you enter a role you want to do it from the soft from silence and then catch it softly and then go to the maximum of your energy and your sound and then you trail up you want to decay nicely back into silence and this is the the practice of a row buki or blowing roll it is the what will make your sound great and and powerful and increase your dynamic range in all aspects of your playing because the role you can apply this size to every note that you practice now I'm going to talk about the basic fingering or shakuhachi so starting from the bottom of the flute which is 2 the root first hole is the bottom hole 2nd 3rd 4th and the thumb holes the 5th so the fundamental tone is roll are all and that's what all holes closed second note is soup and we open the first finger next note is that we open the second finger the next note is cheap with the third finger next note is G we close one and two open three and four and five so this is a this is our oats to register the next octave up we call Khan and Khan is played by pushing more air through your your embouchure so more stronger air pressure plus pushing the bottom out bottom lip out just a bit so that you can automatically pop up to the second register or the Khan register and I'll demonstrate just how it is next no it is Sir can't rush me girl thing second figure or retcon for a heat this is the octave re we close one and leave 5-pole open and then for this next note we want to close all those clothes and crack the thumb just a bit and we're going to Mehdi or going off and our we're a little bit many on the top on your home shirt so I'll play the whole scale again from the top going bottom to the top going to the bottom again okay what's Khan Khan going down also going down breathing is very important in shock watching so I'm going to talk about how to breathe properly in playing shock watching when we play cha cha Chi we breathe in through the nose and mouth at the same time and taking in the air deep into your stomach and then we want to heat we want to feel our stomach expand and then our diaphragm pushes up the air while the stomach contracts and then we blow there is in-breath there's out-breath and there's no breath so all those create your whole cycle of breathing and I'll also show you how my spine is interacting when I breathe in and out so our back is straight with the curve right when we breathe in the spine goes a little bit down as you inhale and as you exhale the spine comes back up so you have this constant H top of the spine still remains straight it's just the base of your spine Shh it's flexing with your diaphragm contraction and expansion you want to feel the air fill up your stomach and decide you're in constant cycle when you breathe in and out so now I'm going to show you how to properly clean your flute after you play so first you need a cleaning cloth we call see you toshi which is basically a large cloth like a cheesecloth absorbent cloth with string attached to one corner and a weight at one end and how you properly clean it is you hold your thumb at the little Gucci or the blowing edge you protect it by covering it like so and the weight weighted end you gently drop down into the connected and then you pull the cloth through gently like that so that the protecting the edge with your thumb so it doesn't scrape and chip the edge and when it's properly three sometimes the joint sometimes can be leased so hold the joint when it's in the flute and this pull through and you can do that a couple times but that is basically how and sometimes polish the edge here and your chin rest because it can develop some build up your mouth and so there you go so now we've come to the end of our exploration into the basic playing of the shakuhachi I want to thank you for joining me on this brief journey but before I go I'd like to acknowledge the great contribution and the teachings of cassia yokoyama-sensei he is one of the key masters of the 20th century to introduce the shakuhachi to the world and he's responsible for me being the chakra player I am today my basic training was imparted to me by his top students called cocky Sakai and taro Faria which I owe a great great deal it was through them that I I got the that I was imparted the the techniques and home kioku that I teach so great gratitude and appreciation and my I owe them all of them my greatest gratitude for being Who I am as a chocolate later today so with that I'd like to thank you once again and please do your best and blow role how'd it go so much now so this piece I'm going to play is Sonia or Mountain Valley Oh student also Gomory nesting of the cranes you

Channel: Alcvin Ryūzen Ramos

Views: 54,937

Keywords: Alcvin Ryuzen Ramos, shakuhachi, beginner, japanese bamboo flute

Id: HC_Yij3Nl0I

Length: 58min 44sec (3524 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 03 2016