2.0 Jiari

September 19, 2007:

This 2.0 was started many years ago by my good friend, Jeff Cairns. By the patina, I'm guessing it is, at least, 10-15 years old? He sent it to me to bring to life, along with 2 others in varying stages of construction, last year. This one had some ji already applied, the utaguchi slot filed but no inlay, and the early stages of root-end shaping.

I should deem this one "scratchy", as it cost me quite a few back-to-back bouts of urushi rash outbreaks during the bore work and final refining processes. On more than a few occasions, I threw up my hands in frustration, attempting to correct specific idiosyncrasies I had not run across before. Much to my surprise, the brilliant plan of staring at it lying on the workbench, pondering for hours on end, waiting for the problem to vanish by itself, yielded zero results. Ultimately, more experimentation, and repeatedly losing/regaining ground, helped it all come together into a very nice instrument. To my great joy, that was echoed to me in a phone call from Jeff yesterday, having just received and christened it with his very demanding and veteran embouchure. What a warming feeling that was. As Jeff records quite frequently, I would love to post a sound file of this 2.0 here, at some point, were it to materialize.

Technical learnings:

One specific nemesis with this 2.0 was the dai kan ro overtone sneaking in at times, during koro koro. This is a very responsive shakuhachi, especially in the 2nd and 3rd octaves--maybe too responsive, if there is such a thing? Or, was it just my own playing style, or embouchure tightening, changing between each adjustment of paper, as I attempted to dial in the culprit? I have seen that happen before, and Jeff did not seem to be having that issue, so hmmm? My test attempts to decrease that overtone sensitivity were occasionally successful, but at the cost of "incorrectably" squashing the body and power of kan no ro, and a bit of the overall depth of the instrument. My target areas were the couple of inches below the utaguchi, and down near the choke point, both of which dicate, in vast amounts, the personality of the shakuhachi. The real solution? Compromise..

Final lacquer work, over several applications of urushi, was done with a new, quite spectacular, water-based laquer I have been experimenting with... I'm just all scratched out at the moment, and cashew is a bit too noxious for bore work. This allowed me to experiment far more rapidly, and in greater detail.

:)