Japanese Shakuhachi vs. Chinese Xiao by tkviper.com 

Very interesting and well presented. Thanks for sharing. I love everything Shakuhachi!

There is yet another aspect regarding the playing of the two instruments that is quite important. I don't know if the Xiao, with its inwardly cut notched mouthpiece, has much of an ability to bend or flatten the pitch of the note produced, but with the Shakuhachi, with the outwardly cut notch in its mouthpiece, this ability is considerable, and the Shakuhachi can lower or flatten the pitch of the note played by at least a half step or semitone, and even down to a full step, just by lowering the head and jaw and changing the blowing angle. In fact, this is an integral and important part of Shakuhachi playing, and is called the Meri / Kari system, with Meri being the flattened note and Kari being the unflattened note. All this is done by altering the position of the head, neck and jaw. In Japanese, there is an old saying about Shakuhachi playing: Kubi furi san nen." Roughly translated, that means, " To wiggle the neck, three years." In other words, it takes three years for a Shakuhachi student to be able to wiggle the neck and alter the head and jaw positions in order to play the Meri or flattened notes. A student of the Shakuhachi starts out by plying only the Kari or unflattened notes, and then, with time, starts to learn how to play the Meri or flattened notes. If you watch a video of a Shakuhachi virtuoso playing a traditional piece, you will see that they deftly shift back and forth between Meri and Kari notes, or slide between the two.

Perfect !

Good job! I was worried that you might not get to playing the two instruments, or showing how they sound, but you did manage to do that at the end of the video. The joint in the Xiao, coming up above all of the finger holes, and being longer and thinner in its inner tenon, functions as a tuning slide for the instrument, whereas the Shakuhachi's naka tsugi, or central joint functions mainly to give the maker easier access to the bore, and to make sculpting the inner bore with the onlay of Ji much easier. There are also three major schools of Shakuhachi playing, which can be distinguished by the shape of the inlay on the mouthpiece: the Kinko school Shakuhachis have a trapezoidal shaped inlay, and your instrument is of the Kinko school; the Tozan and Meian schools use a crescent shaped inlay in their mouthpiece. Both the Kinko and Tozan schools build up and sculpt the bore on the inside. In Kinko school Shakuhachis, the bore is built up by layers of traditional Urushi lacquer mixed with Tonoko, or powdered clay before receiving a final coat of lacquer. In Tozan school Shakuhachis, an extra foundational layer of plaster of paris is often used before the layers of lacquer mixed with powdered clay and the final lacquer finish. That, plus the fact that the internal bore of a Tozan Shakuhachi is often more tapered than that of a Kinko Shakuhachi, gives Tozan Shakuhachis a more clear and brilliant sound, in contrast to Kinko Shakuhachis, which tend to be warmer and mellower in their sound. The tuning of a Shakuhachi is done mainly or exclusively by sculpting the inner bore, and by tuning, I mean not only the relative pitches of the notes, but also their dynamic balance, tonal quality and playing response. Everything is tuned or adjusted by sculpting the Shakuhachi bore.

By the way, "Ji" lierally means "Earth" in Japanese, because the bore is sculpted with traditional Urushi lacquer mixed with Tonoko, or powdered clay.