Talk:Shakuhachi

Title
According to Manual of Style: "The first time the title is mentioned in the article, put it in bold using three apostrophes." No reason is given. Hyacinth 21:43, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style--Alpha_Archive1. Hyacinth 21:51, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation
The article currently describes the pronunciation as /shakoo-hatchee/. To avoid the potentially ambiguous "a"s in that pronunciation (i.e. is it "a" as in "faster" or as in "father"?), can this be clarified? Something like /shaw-koo-haw-chee/ makes more sense to my eyes/ears, but perhaps someone more skilled at phonetics can comment... --Ds13 07:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It is pronounced Sha (a as in Father.) ku (u with an oo sound like in "move" or "too") ha has the same vowel pronunciation as sha.  and chi is pronounced like the "chee" in "cheese".  Japanese vowel pronunciation is far simpler than in english.  A as in Father, E as in Edward, I as in "chEEse", O as in "go" and U as in "move".  The only major exception would be that AI sounds like the I in "like". If you say A and I together very quickly, it will have that I sound.  Also, each syllable is pronounced for an equal length of time. sha-ku-ha-chi.  Palehorse864 01:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I have always been told it is /shaw-koo-haw-chee/. --Johanna451940 00:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I pronounce it as /sha-ku-hat-chee/ with the hatchi like hatch. then "ee" at the end — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.0.55.75 (talk) 01:07, 20 April 2021 (UTC) Father Father 24.87.56.142 (talk) 21:18, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Range
When they mean octave, are they talking about octaves in terms of western octave ranges? Also, for some reason, I found that many woodwin who do not hav eregister keys seem to be limited to octaves... 142.58.181.84 05:45, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Japanese IPA?
I've replaced the adhoc "pronunciation" guide with a simple IPA transcription based on what I thought it meant, but with the disclaimer that the guide only applied to the word's usage in English. Is there anyone with a knowledge of Japanese phonology that could add an IPA transcription of the word's pronunciation in Japanese? --Krsont 02:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Shakuhachi musical notation
A new article has been created: shakuhachi musical notation. Please improve! --Ds13 17:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Internal Contradiction
The article text includes the entry:

''A recorder player .. has limited pitch control. The shakuhachi player .. has substantial pitch control.''

Perhaps someone (having more familiarity with the instrument than I have) could adjust the text?

--Philopedia 12:50, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Integrated & removed "Trivia" section
Got rid of that nearly year-old warning in the article about having a "Trivia" section. There was one piece of uncited trivia that I did not include it in the revision. It is here, if anyone wishes to make it verifiable and put it in an appropriate section such as "History".


 * ... It is said that in the medieval era there was also a martial art based around using a shakuhachi to defeat a swordsman. This is not entirely implausible, as the root end of a piece of bamboo (especially one with some root remnants intact) is extremely tough and heavy, making it effective as a blunt weapon. Further, many komusō were actually ronin, who would have been willing and able to learn a new martial art for protection if nothing else. ...

--Ds13 (talk) 17:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Euphemism
"Shakuhachi" is also a commonly used euphemism for fellatio, the derivation being obvious. That is, something like "blowjob" in english. Surely worth mentioning if a proper citation can be found....

maybe there is a japanese urban dictionary somewhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.234.184.122 (talk) 00:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Came from Korea?
The author wrote "The bamboo flute first came to Japan from China via Korea.". The record of the oldest bamboo flute in Japan concerns Prince Shōtoku (573–621). And there is no record that his bamboo flute came from Korea. What are grounds that his bamboo flute came from Korea? --SENBEI-Monster (talk) 04:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Clarity
1. "Professionla players can get any pitch..." - How does getting paid affect your ability to get a pitch? "Professional" should be changed to "skilled".

2. "Much of the shakuhachi's subtlety (and player's skill) lies in its rich tone colouring, and the ability for its variation." - What are you trying to say here? How does (a) subtletly, or (b) a player's skill, lie in a characteristic of an instument? Neither makes sense. And what does the statement fragment "the ability for its variation" mean, and refer to? With or without the preceding comma it makes no sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.227.103 (talk) 00:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

New shakuhachi forum; add in?
On a lot of instrument pages, it seems common to add a link to a discussion forum, particularly if there's one key one in the community vice smaller feuding ones. It appears that http://www.shakuhachiforum.eu has become the primary shakuhachi forum, so does anyone object to adding it? MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:12, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Synthesized shakuhachi
An impressive list, but aren't some of those examples samples - effectively just recordings of real Shakuhachi? Happypoems (talk) 16:29, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Is there any evidence to back up the claim that "Sequent C" by Tangerine Dream features a "Shakuhachi"? TD mainly used analog synthesizers in that era which did not, generally, have specific presets like that. They also used the Mellotron which is essentially an analog, tape-based sampler which you *could* record new tapes for but the flute sound on that track does not really sound like a Mellotron at all. A google search does not provide any proof either, except for a website stating the same thing without explanation. The mention of "Yellowstone Park" from "Le Parc" seems entirely correct. It may well be the very same synth patch used by Dire Straits and Peter Gabriel. But "Sequent C" seems highly doubtful. 94.114.101.29 (talk) 11:58, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Why is this such a dominant feature in the article? VariousDeliciousCheeses (talk) 15:50, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I was wondering the same thing. Overall, I find that there's a lot of information in this article about the shakuhachi outside of Japan, including its mastery by non-Japanese masters, use by western composers, and appearance in popular culture. It seems to me that this content is disproportionate to the information about the shakuhachi in its traditional and contemporary Japanese contexts, including its use within Japanese popular culture and by contemporary Japanese composers. CBFraoch (talk) 16:30, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Japanese-script name's gone a bit wrong...
I have Japanese fonts installed on my system, but the kanji rendering of the flute's name comes up as "尺八Chi ba" ... this, obviously, cannot be right. If I delve into the history and find that it isn't some strange case of vandalism that can be reverted, can someone else more knowledgeable fix it for us? 87.112.66.153 (talk) 16:13, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Example recording, oh dear lord...
OK, it's nice and long, and better than no example at all, but is there seriously no higher quality version available, other than a scratchy, pathologically resonant, over-compressed 80kbit encoding of a more than 80-year-old 78rpm shellac disc? It sounded like Sinclair Spectrum program data recorded on a damaged tape at times, which clashes badly with what I understood the sound of the instrument to be. Surely there must be a decent, clean copy out there that's still old enough to be public domain (or, maybe some kind Shakuhachi-owning wikipedian can make their own CC-compliant version?) ... and if server storage space is at a premium, perhaps a shorter clip at a higher encoding quality might be preferable to one that's several minutes long and has to be encoded at a lower rate as a result? 87.112.66.153 (talk) 16:18, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Roger Waters album Radio K.A.O.S.
On the Roger Waters album, Radio K.A.O.S., Waters is credited with shakuhachi as well as keyboards. If the "shak" wasn't the real instrument, don't you think that would fall under "keyboards"? Also, it wouldn't be the only "blown" instrument Waters plays; he plays trumpet and clarinet (not especially well, but competently). So, I don't think the shak was synthesized, and therefore does not belong on that list.

--Ben Culture (talk) 02:54, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Jim Franklyn
Who is this guy? Is it necessary to mention him and link his own website?

1959 short recording of "a Buddhist priest goes from door to door playing his shakuhachi" - from The Internet Archive
Here: --Tibet Nation (talk) 04:42, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Usage in Jazz
While this article seems to be a mess overall (what with the above mentioned awful audio example & inclusion of what appears to be self-promotion), I find the jazz section to be particularly painful as it glosses over what may be 80 years' worth of the instrument's inclusion in the genre in favor of 3 sentences about that one guy from the Violent Femmes starting a band in 2004, even ignoring that he's apparently had a teaching license since the year prior. I have, in my personal listening experience, found compositions built around the use of the Shakuhachi to be similar enough in their stylings that the practice would likely fall into its own category if given enough academic attention. I'm not a frequent editor on this site, and am especially not accustomed to researching jazz music in this context, but if anyone is (or if anyone who comes across this KNOWS someone who is) there's definitely some exploring to be done. Here is an album recorded in 1970 to start with, and here is a contemporary release. Here is an NPR article mentioning that its singular style is already recognized within the jazz collecting community. VariousDeliciousCheeses (talk) 14:18, 12 January 2021 (UTC)