Tonight I will be in Bradenton FL at Ace's Lounge ringing in the new year with my wife.  It is our 10 yr anniversary at Midnight.  Jason Ricci and the New Blood will be performing there to help bring in the new year.  If your in the area please come by.  It will be a great party.  In the meanwhile, here is a picture of Jason Ricci with a Shingetsu flute named "the Colonel" when we were in Colorado at a harmonica seminar.  

I just found this picture of Perry and me at the Summer Chikuzen RO camp with some bombay. That was a great camp.

Here is a picture in honor of Perry and Brian.  My wife and I were enjoying some Bombay Sapphire tonight and I took a quick picture before we opened the bottle.   This is the Yung 1.8 with a fresh bottle of the Bombay.

The tattoo shop I work at is located downtown on the square in Ocala, FL. Every year for the holiday season they string the trees full of lights and it is quite beautiful. I routinely practice on the square and around it and I decided while practicing tonight to set the timer on the camera and get a picture while the lights were looking particularly brilliant. So here is a picture of me playing my Yung 1.8 in downtown Ocala. Once again, I hope you have a great season and a safe and happy new year.

I want to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season and I hope everyone has a great new shakuhachi new year.  

I just got back from Captiva last week where I was teaching blues harmonica at a Gindick Jam Camp.  One thing I was reflecting on was how much harmonica (or any instrument for that matter) is like shakuhachi and how the music shares a lot of similarities.  We spent quite a bit of time working on teaching players how to use dynamics in their playing by exaggerating the differences in volume between certain notes and phrases.  This is not unlike how I understand meri notes to be played.  On one of my lessons with Kurahashi Yoshio we had a great talk about making meri notes very soft to add feeling and depth to the music.  Another thing we spent a lot of time on at the harmonica jam camp was allowing space between phrases.  It is the same thing with Honkyoku.  Ma is very important and I notice that many beginners rush from phrase to phrase with no regard for the ma (space) in the piece.  I still find myself doing this from time to time when my mind isn't with the music completely.  I try to play the phrase and then pause slightly before the in-breath.  

I was over at Chikuzen's Website today looking around and I noticed he has moved a bulk of the advice he has given over to his website under a tips section.  You can check them out here!  There is some good advice and I am happy to find yet one more resource of info on the shakuhachi.

While I was in a  lesson with Chikuzen one day I noticed him playing on a different flute than normal.  I asked him about it and he proceeded to tell me about a maker in Japan named Justin from Senryu Shakuhachi who was making great Dokyoku style flutes that are perfect for all of the Yokoyama pieces.  He said he was playing the flute because all of the Dokyoku techniques worked so easily an flawlessly on it and it had a great sound.  I asked him to try the flute at the Fall RO camp in Hocking Hills and for whatever reason I couldn't get much of a sound out of it.  I tried it again at the winter RO camp at Stratford and it just sang.  I just got done auditioning it and decided to buy it.  It is a great compliment to my Yung 1.8 and a joy to play.  I recommend you check out Justin's site.  He is making some great flutes. Chikuzen has another Senryu 1.8 and 1.6 for sale for anyone interested in checking one out. Here are some pics for those interested in seeing Justin's work.  I'll post a sound sample soon.

I figured I would share a sometimes forgotten point that I was working on this morning.  When working on a harder piece, don't be afraid to take a few small notes in a hard section and work on them a few at time and make it right.  Sometimes, I have caught myself trying to get through a harder section quicker to avoid dealing with the difficulty or having it's improper playing noticed less.  When I catch myself I correct it as quickly and correctly as possible.  One such instance was my chi-ru-tsu-ru in Hi Fu Mi Hachigaeshi.  I had to slow that part down and really work on it.  Now I am working on Shingetsu and I have found a few more sections in there that I am needing to iron out.  My sensei Michael Chikuzen Gould emphasizes this point and helps me work through pieces this way and his attention to detail really makes a huge difference.  

Michael Chikuzen Gould will be holding a shakuhachi day camp in Melbourne, FL.  on December 26th 2008.  The camp will be from noon to 5 pm.  The cost of the camp with scores will be $75.  The date is approaching fast so please contact Michael as quickly as possible to confirm attendance.  You can email him at chikuzen@earthlink.net.  He can give you further details on the camp.  I will be there and I hope I get to meet you there!

Well another harmonica seminar has come and gone and as the camp ended my wife and I went to the beach for a beautiful sunset.  I played Honshirabe as the sunset and my wife was nice enough to take a picture.  

I am teaching blues harmonica this weekend at a harmonica seminar here in Captiva Island Florida.  I woke up this morning to the beautiful music of a downpour.  I figured there was no better time to grab my flute and blow my 10 minutes of RO.  It is still raining and seems to only be coming down harder by the minute.  I love the rain!!  Off to practice some Azuma Jishi...

I was lucky enough to get a whole row of seats to myself on the plane home from Chikuzen's camp  last night.  While on the plane I worked on things I could work on without blowing like my minyo trills and  korokoro.  I have been trying to smooth these techniques out and a good uninterrupted  hour and a half of slowly working on these techniques can help you a lot.  I start all harder techniques like korokoro with a slow and steady pace with a count and never go faster than I can do the exercise in time.  Then I speed up as I can keep the consistency.  I normally would have done this with a metronome and moved my fingers with the beats but in this case it was easier to just count 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and...  I noticed when I got up this morning to practice that korokoro was much easier and smoother.  Not perfect, but every minute of practicing perfectly is like money in the bank.  I always devote at least 5 minutes a day to each technique and make sure I do it whole hearted with a goal in mind.  That 5 minutes is much more fruitful than a lazy hour of poor practice.  Practice perfectly and practice songs like you were performing them and your progress will be faster and your time used more efficiently used.

Well, another RO camp has come and gone and I am the better for it.  I learned a lot this weekend and I got to reunite with some good friends and have a ball.   I can't wait for the next one to come.  For now I am on my way and ready to board the plane.  Thanks to everyone at the camp and everyone who takes the time to check the blog.  

We woke up this morning to a good breakfast and followed that up with some more RO.  We did a little Rokudan after that followed by one more review of Tamuke.  Now it's lunch time.  In all we covered about 20 songs this weekend and it was great.  I also got to listen to a little Samurai songs this morning to hear Kerry playing Chikuzen's music.  It is a great show if you get the chance to listen when it is on on Sunday mornings.  It is worth pulling yourself out of bed for it.  I am off for some chow and I'll talk with you later.

From our friend Kerry on Shakuhachi Forum:

It's gonna be Chikuzen Day on Samurai Songs tomorrow. 10am Eastern time for you guys! Blow gratefully and sweetly, Kerry

I got a chance to test drive a new flute by Justin I really like.  I played it at the last camp also and I am realy enjoying the tone I am getting out of it.  Here I am with the flute playing tamuke in this picture.

Lunchtime is here and I walked around a little and took some pictures of the beautiful Stratford Ecological Center. It is located in Delaware, OH and is on a working farm. I thought I would share some pictures of the area and the beautiful snow coming down.

We started off the morning with a nice breakfast and then blew RO for a good 10 minutes. We followed that up with some minyo songs before we broke into smaller groups. The Honkyoku this morning was Shingetsu. I recorded Brian Furner playing it and you can hear it here.

Brian Furner and Larry Mullins played Shika No Tohne to end the evening Friday and I got a recording of them playing it.  

Day one of the Chikuzen RO camp is almost over and we have already covered quite a bit of material.  We ended the night with multiple duets.  Overall, it was a great start to a great camp.  I will be blogging from here for the weekend so stay tuned for more.  Here is Chikuzen and Larry Mullins playing Tohne No Funa Uta.

I am sitting at the airport in Charlotte NC after leaving from Tampa, FL.  I have a few hours layover  until I am off to Columbus, OH to go to Chikuzen's RO Camp.  If you haven't been to a shakuhachi camp you should try and check it out.  Rarely do you get the opportunity to be around so many other people who love the shakuhachi.  You also get the opportunity to really drill on all the skills and techniques you need help with on a one on one basis.  I am going to find  a quiet corner here and practice.  I hope I see you at a camp soon!