Dear Markus, it would be interesting, to me, a lesson about the third octave..:) i found difficult to play F (THIRD OCTAVE)..and A (THIRD OCTAVE)....THANK YOU.
Thank you, Marcus. I was producing Kan notes more effectively while practicing watching this video. I found the frowning really helped me get it quickly; am working on my chin movements!
Thank you for the beautiful lesson, although I’m a beginner I’m struggling to get to Kan and with this lesson and practice hopefully I’ll get there , I love the Shakuhachi
I always enjoy watching your videos. And I have already tried out some of your advices. Your way of practising is completely different from the way I have learnt shakuhachi. I play in the tradition of Icchoken. Not only is the name of the kinko notes completely different from our (Fu Ho U ) notation. The individual exercises for certain techniques are also foreign to me. My teacher used to perform a piece for me and then I had to play it again. As soon as I got it fairly right, the next piece came. And when we had played through all the pieces of our temple, it started all over again. This time with more subtleties. Our notation is very rudimentary. Subtleties are hardly apparent from it. That is why a teacher is essential with us. And there is also a lot of emphasis on correct breathing.
Dear Alf, thank you for the nice words - it’s much appreciated! 🙂 I'm glad you find the videos useful! Maybe you know that in the KSK, the shakuhachi is a musical instrument first, so although we respect the rich history very much, I would assume that our approach is quite different from Icchoken. The method of 'imitating your teacher' still has an important role, but there is also a big analytical (should I say 'Western'?) part in learning/teaching to play. I actually often wonder if playing might not be much easier if there was more emphasis on how to breathe, but it seems there is not much information out there for the general shakuhachi public!
@@MarkusGuhe I don't know if playing would be easier if there was more emphasis on breathing. Maybe it depends on the teacher's background. Maybe in Japan it's so natural to breathe in a certain way that it doesn't occur to anyone to talk about it explicitly. In Zen, I am a monk in the Rinzai Zen tradition, breathing is important and is also taught explicitly. There it is called "Tanden Soku" or "Fukushiki Kokyu". It is something like "support breathing" in singing. In the end, all traditions produce very good players. And since no one has suffocated yet, the breathing seems to settle down sooner or later. In addition to "imitating the teacher", my teacher always tries to give me background information about the piece, so that I am able to grasp the emotional background, the mood. And he always encourages me to develop my own style. "Imitating the teacher" is always just the beginning. At some point you have to grow up.
@@shakuhachiicchoken That’s very interesting; thanks for pointing it out! Actually, I’ve heard that Yokoyama-sensei usually was not very interested in the background story of a piece, how fast to play it, phrasing, etc. I think he had the idea of ‘letting the music do it’s own thing’, meaning that if you play the piece a few/enough times, it would just become apparent how to play it - what ’the music’ is, so to speak. Which seems also to have been a big reason composers liked working with him, because they found new aspects to their own creations. But then, he played at such an incredibly high level, so I’m not sure if/how this works in general …
@@PippyM_ It’s a common problem. If that happens, it may/should help if you (1) relax your lower lip, (2) make the embouchure a bit bigger. Just don’t force it; instead relax into it. (Easier said than done ... 😉)
