Once again a very clear and detailed explanation, how great! It's interesting that even if I learned shakuhachi in Japan, I wasn't taught in so much detail how to tie the cleaning cloth knot (although I use the same type of knot, but the procedure is slightly different) or how exactly to place the shakuhachi halves in the carrying bag. I guess your teacher is much more detail-oriented than mine 🙂 One tip about how to clean the area around the utaguchi is to use moistened cotton swabs, so that you can also clean the ridges present at the top of the shakuhachi. As a bonus, you can also use the cotton swabs to clean the shakuhachi holes. Another piece of information from my experience, if the shakuhachi joint becomes loose all of a sudden, it is usually a sign that the shakuhachi got dry, so you should play more (thus getting more humidity inside) and be more careful where you store it, as the risk of cracking increases. Looking forward to your next videos!
Thanks, I'm glad you like the video! 🙂 I'm not sure it's necessary to do all these things in exactly this way, but I found them a useful method, and now they're just ingrained and automatic. The cotton swabs are a good method too (except that I never have any to hand …) Also a good point about the joint - yes, that's a good indicator how happy your instrument is. In the video I mentioned that I'm not using plastic bags any more, and it's exactly for this reason: when I was doing it, the joints in my flutes we're getting incredibly tight!
Yes, that's a bit confusing. Maybe try to stop the video where I'm demonstrating it ... In the end, it's not important which knot you're using; this one is just easy to loosen again.
Most of it applies to shinobue too. (There are no shinobue with a nakatsugi, so not that part obviously ...) Generally they don't crack quite so easily. I basically make sure to clean the inside after playing and then put them in a (cloth) carrying bag, and I've not yet had any problems.
