Welcome to my website. I teach lessons to people from around the world over Skype on how to play the shakuhachi and its beautiful forms of traditional music. Contact me and I will be happy to arrange a complimentary lesson for you.
I teach the unique regional styles of solo shakuhachi music known as honkyoku which were mostly composed by the komuso monks during the Edo period. I also teach pieces from post Edo period schools and styles such as those created by Watazumi, Jin Nyodo, and Higuchi Taizan.
It is my humble task and a great joy to help keep this music alive by passing it on to my students, thus continuing the centuries old tradition of the shakuhachi. As my student you will learn these precious forms of music beginning with the Edo period honkyoku of the Seien ryu from Fudai-ji.
My book Your Shakuhachi Journey has also helped a number of people with learning how to play this instrument. You will find many free instructional materials here some of which I have included on this page and more can be found in the guides section. Please enjoy my site and I hope you find it informative! You can view my youtube video below…
The shakuhachi
A. The utaguchi (歌口) edge on the front and the chin-rest portion on the back.
B. Finger-holes 1 through 5 (the 5th thumb-hole is on the back).
C. The bottom root-end which voices the fundamental.
Note: Some shakuhachi have a joint between finger-holes 3 and 4.
Shakuhachi (尺八) are end-blown flutes played with embouchure which is a specific shaping of the lips and mouth in order to control air-flow and pressure. Unlike Native American flutes and recorders, shakuhachi do not have a fipple mouth-piece to direct the air-stream. While the embouchure is far more difficult, the reward is that the player can have much more control over the sound. The shakuhachi has six tone-holes, five of which are finger-holes, and it can play a little over two octaves. The natural scale is the minor pentatonic; however, players can access many more notes by adjusting the pitch in various ways.
For example, by lowering the head the player can bring their lips closer to the edge which flattens the pitch. The finger-holes can also be covered to various degrees to flatten the pitch which is called finger-shading. These two techniques are often combined which is called meri (メり). Additionally, the head and the lips can be moved in a number of ways to create vibrato and other sound effects. In short, it is the ability to manipulate the sound of the shakuhachi which makes it such a unique and expressive instrument.
Honkyoku shakuhachi music
The shakuhachi music of the komuso monks
Honkyoku (本曲) literally means “original music” and can refer to a single piece or to the genre as a whole. Honkyoku are the most venerated type of shakuhachi music because they are considered to be spiritual or meditative, most having been composed by the komuso monks during the Edo period. Many distinct regional styles of honkyoku developed across Japan though few have survived to this day.
Honkyoku are unique in that they are mostly solo pieces with pauses of silence, which effectively makes empty-space, or relative silence, a part of the music. Honkyoku are highly nuanced making it virtually impossible to transcribe them to Western staff notation and even the Japanese systems of notation for the shakuhachi cannot convey many of the subtleties. For example, it would be like trying to infer or convey the accent of a regional dialect with only written text. For this reason the teaching of honkyoku has been, and remains, largely an oral tradition.
It is estimated that there were more than one-hundred komuso shakuhachi temples across Edo period Japan, however, the Meiji Restoration abolished Buddhism which resulted in the closing, or often destruction, of the komuso temples. The Meiji government soon decided to try and ban nonsecular shakuhachi playing as well, however, the Kinko ryu Grandmasters Araki Kodo II (Chikuo) and Yoshida Itcho successfully petitioned the government into allowing nonsecular shakuhachi activities to continue.
As a result, nonsecular shakuhachi music became popular and the shakuhachi went mainstream. Eventually the ban on Buddhism was lifted and the practice of honkyoku could once again continue out in the open. However, subsequent generations saw a decline in interest for honkyoku resulting in the continuous extinction of styles up to the present day. Currently only six distinct regional styles of honkyoku have survived to the present, in addition to the various post Edo period styles created by individual masters.
After the Meiji restoration the Edo period honkyoku styles gradually became ryu or “schools”, typically after a few generations of teachers had passed. A teacher of a style would adopt the name of a previous teacher thus becoming the II or III head of the style. Interestingly, foreigners who seek to learn the shakuhachi have been primarily interested in the honkyoku, however, we mostly see the propagation of post Edo period honkyoku styles which were created by such master as Jin Nyodo, Watazumi, and Higuchi Taizan (Myoan). One exception to this is the Kinko ryu which has spread outside of Japan.
The six regional styles of Edo period honkyoku that have survived until today, in whole or in part
(in order of how I teach them *no link means I don’t teach them*)
- Seien ryu Fudai-ji (西園流 譜代寺) – founded by Kanetomo Seien I (1819-1895) in Hamamatsu city (currently located in Nagoya city), Chibu region.
- Shimpo ryu Myoan-ji – original Kyu Myoan-ji or “Old Myoan Temple”, the first Myoan temple before Higuchi Taizan’s Myoan-ji – Kyoto city, Kansai region.
- Kimpu ryu (Kinpu ryu or Nezasa ha) – founded by Nyui Getsui (1833 – 1898) – Tsugaru city, Tohoku region.
- Oshu-kei and Echigo Myoan-ji den (Fudai-ken aka Futai-ken, Kinjo-ji, Myoan-ji) – honkyoku from the former Oshu and Echigo areas in the North, Tohoku and Joetsu regions.
- Kinko ryu (Itchigetsu-ji and Reiho-ji) – founded by Kinko Kurosawa I (1710 – 1771), Edo city (Tokyo) Kanto region. Kinko ryu has evolved far past how it was played in the Edo period.
- Kyushu kei (Itchoken) – honkyoku from the southern island of Kyushu. Unfortunately it is very hard to tell how this style was played before Taizan’s school took over the region.
Post Edo period honkyoku styles created by individual masters
- Taizan ha/ryu “Myoan” – Higuchi Taizan (1856-1914), Kyoto.
- Jin Nyodo kei – Jin Nyodo (1891 – 1966), Tokyo.
- Dokyoku/Chikushinkai – Watazumi (1911-1992), Tokyo.
My mini bio
I started playing the shakuhachi in my teens. At age nineteen I was fortunate enough to be able to move to New York City to study it full-time. After years of intense study in the Jin Nyodo style I decided to learn the older honkyoku styles from the Edo period. I was able to begin studying these older styles with Justin Senryu Williams and I now teach them to my students worldwide over Skype. I am happy to have been able to pioneer the use of Japanese madake bamboo growing in The US for the making of shakuhachi. In addition, I’m the first person to copy a natural bamboo jinashi shakuhachi for the making of replicas. All of these experiences have rooted in me a great respect and love for bamboo. You can read my full bio here.