Annual Flute Making Workshop - continued

Skies were stormy and the ground wet from the night's rainfall but nothing could dampen my enthusiasm for returning to the bamboo workshop for day two of the BC Shakuhachi Society's annual hocchiku making workshop. I retrieved my half made flute from its overnight spot on top of a heap of raw bamboo and partially made flutes in the basement of Peter's house. Today would be the day that I'd hear kan and otsu from this beautiful piece of madake.

The flute makers gathered in the garden workshop, rasps emerged, sandpaper was at the ready, and the little stands to hold the flutes while we worked on them were scattered across the work table. We joked and teased as we took up our jobs a 'makers for a weekend'.

Thanks to Peter's help in shaping and placing the mouthpiece insert, the job of reducing the hole size at the mouth end was quickly completed. Now came the next exciting step: drilling the fingerholes! Jim helped me with this step. We measured the holes and choose our drill bit sizes. I was feeling brazen and decided to go with slightly bigger holes in the hopes that not much shaping or enlarging would be needed. If it worked out, this choice could save time, but, if not, I would have fewer options in terms of tuning.....my fingers were crossed.

We drilled carefully, checked the placements. I snuck in a few blows after hole one and two were drilled and was pleasantly surprised by the volume and tone. A smaller bit was used for hole #3 being the chi hole and we offset this one slightly for comfort. After the thumb hole was drilled, Jim and I traded the flute back and forth to play the full octaves...amazing, it sounded very good right off the drill press! How lucky was that?!

As Barb tuned her flute, Peter worked on his two piece long flute, Jane started on a second flute and Milan arrived to offer finishing tips and wow us with his Ro flutes, I finished work on the fingerholes of my new flute. Undercutting the inside slightly and sanding the outside edges, I was delighted to discover that the flute would need little else to make it fully playable. It was already surprisingly in tune. With the exception of Ri which needed to be meri'ed a bit to be in tune with the other notes, the flute was playing at a even "G" pitch.

The weekend ended with a wonderful Japanese meal at a local restaurant. It is always tough to part after sharing in a process of making new flutes but we each had a fabulous and functional memento of another extraordinary shakuhachi workshop weekend.

Thanks to all who attended the workshop and especially to Peter who made it all possible and Jane who went the 'extra mile' to join us.