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| 05/01/2008: "Utaguchi Urges"
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As was described and pictured in a couple of earlier entries, the shakuhachi-style utaguchi blowing edge idea has been hot around here of late, but let's not let it get out of control! A recent correspondent who plans to attend the Oregon Country Fair in July and purchase a flute at that time was asking about utaguchis, indicating a strong interest in the idea.
Since he wants to survey a sizable selection of flutes at the Fair and pick what most attracts him, my advice was as follows:
So far, those utaguchi flutes have been more impressive than I'd expected-- it really does seem to give them a distinctive tonal bite. Not sure whether the intonation is more stable, but some might find that to be the case since the blowing edge is so sharply defined... having said that, I suggest that you NOT decide in advance that you necessarily want an utaguchi model. That feature in itself won't guarantee an infallibly superior instrument, so if you were thinking in those terms you might miss out on something more personally fulfilling without an utaguchi-- especially since the majority of my instruments don't have one-- I'm not going to start adding an utaguchi to every single flute!
It's one thing to decide you want an utaguchi flute and order it outright, and of course I'll do my best to make it an outstanding instrument. But if you're planning to meet me in person and choose from the largest possible array of flutes, it's probably best to keep an open mind and not rule out the non-utaguchi models-- one of those might very well be your best match.
Just a thought... hey, here's the newest flute off the conveyer belt. It's an E soprano about 21 inches long; historically this has been my bestselling key, especially in the old craft-show days. It's a big enough size to have a nice warm tone, but still small enough to be managable for most people. Need to get back to making more of these:
ESop-Rack
--rb
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