The shakuhachi is a Japanese end blown flute that is normally made with 5 holes and tuned to the pentatonic minor scale. It originally came from China and is traditionally made of bamboo, but modern makers sometimes use plastic and hardwoods. It was used by the monks of the Fuke School of Zen Buddhism in the practice of suizen (blowing meditation).
The idea behind the Simple Zen Shakuhachi came from reading an article on the acoustics and design of the shakuhachi, which asked the question: What makes a shakuhachi a shakuhachi?
Is it the material it is made from? Is it the appearance? The scale it plays, or the characteristic sound? Or is it a combination of these things?
The premise of the article I was reading about the acoustics of the shakuhachi posited that an acoustically balanced shakuhachi could be made without any sort of bore manipulation or shaping. I found this interesting and I have been exploring it for quite some time, and I have found it to be true. The result of this exploration is the Simple Zen Shakuhachi. These are cylindrical bore instruments that have been designed in such a way as to provide the response, tuning, and tone color of a shakuhachi without the need for traditional bore manipulation.
But to achieve this result, I had to take some liberties with the overall design of the flute, and the most noticeable difference is the thin walls of the instrument. The Simple Zen Shakuhachi is very slender in the body compared to a bamboo instrument, and they are lightweight and very comfortable to hold as a result. The utaguchi (mouthpiece) and the finger hole placement and sizing should be quite familiar to players of traditional shakuhachi. By using this thin-walled design I was able to create an instrument that has superb intonation and will allow the player to hit all the notes that would be expected on a well made traditional shakuhachi, with excellent power and responsiveness. But to players familiar with bamboo instruments, these will feel quite different in the hand.
The other benefit of this design is that I can craft them more efficiently and thus they are more affordable than typical shakuhachi. These flutes are made from hard maple that has been dyed to create a faux bamboo finish.
Below you can listen to audio samples of these two different styles.