Sanya

We added a nyashi here and another one there. We included extra 'Re' notes and reviewed Ko ro ro. We popped hole four just as we closed hole two for 'Ru'. The tsu meri at the end of the first line ends like my mother-in-law used to park her car (with a thud into the car or wall in front of her). We practiced the 'double flip' Ri's. And we talked about why there seemed to be five peaks to a song that was about 'Three Valleys'. These are some of the reasons why it is such fun to take shakuhachi lessons with DaiShihan Michael Chikuzen Gould.

Michael is a skilled teacher, an extraordinary shakuhachi player and a man with a good sense of humour. It is always a pleasure to have a lesson with him and his ability to tailor the instruction to suit the specific needs of each individual student is renowned.

We only made it through the first nine lines of Sanya but already I had a heap of homework to do. Sanya is a wonderful piece to learn and play. It was great fun to start on this piece and I'm looking forward to more insightful and entertaining lessons from Michael as we progress through the whole song.

Here is a fabulous video of Michael playing Sanya filmed by Dean Del Bene at University of Chicago in 2010: