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01/10/2008: "Shakuflutchi"
I'd hoped to get to that transverse-flute utaguchi project in December (see Nov. 29 entry) but it didn't quite happen. This month for sure though, and I'm heading to the studio to work on it today. Finally got most of the new tools and supplies collected, including two very small but quite expensive specialty files, some scraps of 1/4" acrylic sheet, several Exacto saw and knife blades, and a couple of other odds and ends. Should be fun, and I'm looking forward muchly to posting pics.

Speaking of pictures, Flickr must die! In very short order they've run roughshod over the utility of Internet image searches: practically anything you look for these days yields page after tedious page of crappy Flickr pictures, many if not most of which were probably taken on chintzy cellphone cameras. On Flickr, everyone and their dog seems compelled to post several thousand photos dramatically documenting each and every aspect of their fascinating lives. (Actually I think the dogs are responsible for most of those photos since they certainly appear in disproportionate numbers.)

I'm starting to feel almost as old-school crotchety as Andy Rooney here, but to me a telephone is a telephone and a camera is a camera. Why would I want a chintzy camera built into my telephone? I have several CAMERAS for that purpose!

Even if for some bizarre reason I decided that a combined phone/camera would be a good idea after all, I'd want it done the other way around. Instead of tacking a cheap, low-quality piece of junk camera onto a phone, I'd add a phone to a good-quality camera! That would make a lot more sense if you ask me.

But you DIDN'T ask, so please pardon the crotchety Rooney-style rant. Hey, that's a TV reference: looks like my New Year resolution is holding up so far!

Veered off the track there; we were talking about flute utaguchis. Another idea I had years ago for a flute-shakuhachi hybrid was the... shakuflutchi. The shakuhachi has an extraordinary amount of pitch flexibility, and notes can readily be "bent" by a full step or more by varying the blowing angle and the amount of the flute's open end covered by the player's lower lip. Since this open top end of the shakuhachi is much larger than the embouchure hole of a typical transverse flute, there's a lot more room for varying the angle and lip coverage.

So why not make a transverse flute with an enormously oversize blowhole in order to allow for just such extra flexibility? The experimental ones I've made in the past worked out pretty well, but it was one of many interesting schemes that have been shunted aside and largely forgotten, since the real-world need to sell enough flutes to pay the bills absorbs a lot of energy that could otherwise be devoted to fascinating, novel experiments.

Those oversize-blowhole shakuflutchis featured a deeply concave lower-lip rest, and combining the oversize hole with a concave cut seemed to enhance the shakuhachi-like effects. However, I never got around to trying this with a lip plate: all the experimental shakuflutchi so far have been made with plain, extra-thick bamboo.

And then there's the utaguchi: so, on our experimental list this month is a revival of the shakuflutchi, with an added lip plate and an utaguchi! Things could get interesting indeed with this feature set.

By the way, the well-known American shakuhachi maker Monty Levenson sells endblown shak headjoints for modern metal flutes which appear to be quite popular. Monty dubbed his creation the "shakulute," but I prefer my coinage. Shakuflutchi soon! (By the way, the word shakuflutchi is both singular and plural, as is shakuhachi.) --r.


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Replies: 5 Comments

Posted by Marc Berner
Thursday, January 10th

Sounds very intriguing.

The name shakulute was actually coined by Wataru Kozan Tanifuji, shakuhachi Grand Master and friend of Monty and mine from Hokkaido, Japan.

I look forward to the shakuflutchi.

Posted by Romy
Thursday, January 10th

Ah-- good to know, Marc. When discussing anything connected to the shakuhachi I'm on thin ice, since that's a flute realm far removed from my own fringy exertions.

In strictly commercial terms I'd be far smarter to specialize in Irish flutes, or Native American flutes, or shakuhachi, or recorders, or just about any other flute tradition that has a deep and dedicated potential-customer base.

More stubbornly independent than smart here, though.

Posted by Marc Berner
Friday, January 11th

Your "stubborn independence" has yielded your unique flutes and as a professional musician who plays them, I, for one, am glad you've remained outside the commercial mainstream.

Posted by Richard Barton
Sunday, March 16th

I'd certainly welcome any developments that would give my standard keyed flute more "Balls" - Especially a side-blown head accessory with an utaguchi ! - At my local jazz club I normally play sax, like almost every other damn musician who attends. My flute gets lost if it tries to compete unamplified against a massed sax lineup. I've been practising hard to get as big and fat and rough a tone as I can on the flute, but the embouchure plate and everything associated with the tone production on a keyed flute is geared to producing a clear and perfect tone - with almost no response to meri and keri. The result is a beautiful sound admittedly, but it's pretty sterile and boring and gutless if you try and play bebop on it.

Posted by Romy
Monday, March 17th

Richard, I've been meaning to get to the bamboo headjoints for standard flutes for a decade or two now. What make of flute do you play?

Besides the shakuflutchi idea, another thing that might give a standard flute more "cut" in a saxophone-battling scenario would be a vibrating membrane, as on Chinese bamboo flutes. And what if one were to combine the shakuflutchi concept with a membrane--???

There are far too many ideas to try. I wish days were 48 hours long. Incidentally, if you find me the appropriate silver tubing for a headjoint tenon I'll make you one.

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