BC Shakuhachi Society - Annual Shakuhachi Making Workshop 2011

We sipped green tea, tested out each others flutes and speculated about what size flutes were going to appear by the end of the intense two day workshop. It was the first morning of the annual shakuhachi making weekend hosted by my shakuhachi pal, Peter. Again he had graciously made his home, workshop and flute making skills available to a handful of local bamboo flute enthusiasts and our one distinguished out of town guest.

Last year's flute was a big success for me thanks to all the help I had received at the workshop and I was excited to again try my hand at making a hocchiku flute from the madake that Peter had harvested in Japan the previous year. He had a special piece set aside for me. The raw bamboo was a handsome piece with a lot of potential. A long dramatic crack had emerged during winter but the bamboo was quickly bound and already the piece had the look of a flute with a story. It was up to me to try to recall and apply the many techniques I had learnt during my first flute making workshop in order to transform the ready and waiting bamboo into a shakuhachi.

Trimming the root end was easy and my first cut was even and precise. Off to a good start! Opening the root end also went well and the fact that Peter had already cleaned out the fushi saved me a bit of time. I did some basic work cleaning up the roots and then moved on knowing that I could return to improve the aesthetic of the root end at any point later on. So next came fashioning the mouthpiece. My first cut was a bit uneven and though my utaguchi cut had a good angle as I sanded the blowing edge down I somehow created a wave like shape. Evening out the chin rest and utaguchi took a good part of the afternoon of the first day. While my flute making pals drilled their finger holes and started some tuning work, I sanded, and sanded and sanded some more.

Saturday's flute making came to a natural end for me once the insert for the mouthpiece had been fashioned. Though I wanted to get to the fingerhole drilling to satisfy my curiosity about the sound of the new flute's voice, I simply ran out of steam. So far the flute offered a very promising Ro and all the basics were working well. Not wanting to mess up the finishing touches to the mouthpiece or make mistakes on the fingerhole placement, I decided to call it a day and take on the final stages of flute making with a fresh start on day two of the annual BC shakuhachi making workshop