shakahachi scale measurement

Subject: shakahachi scale measurement
From: jack halyard
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 06:41 PM

I'm interested to know whether shakahachi ( Japanese, end-blown bamboo flutes) have a standard scale measurement. I'm wondering whether it's possible to make one or something similar, using an Irish whistle scale.
Does anybody know a formula for measuring out that scale for a given length and diameter of tubing, or for a scale in a given key?

                              Yer Good 'ealth.
                              
                                 Jack Halyard

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Peace
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 07:28 PM

Jack,

Google shahUhachi

Lotsa links

The shakuhachi came to Japan from China in the 12th century AD. Although it has long since disappeared from China, the instrument has rooted itself in over eight centuries of Japanese tradition, today playing a vital role in Japanese culture. A shaku is an old form of Japanese measurement of length. Therefore, shakuhachi is the equivalent of 1.8 shaku or about 55 centimeters, which gives the flute and its five holes the five basic sounds of C, D, F, G, and A, with seven sharps and flats. The basic European scale contains seven basic notes with five sharps and flats. Although the European and Asian scales were developed independently, they are each based on these 12 sounds.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 07:51 PM

If you go to the Chiff&Fipple site, you will get pointers to start you off on finding the info on the easy ways to get the theory for the relative lengths for the various relative pitches. All end blown fipple reed wind instruments are similar, and work on the same theory.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: masato sakurai
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 08:45 PM

Some sites written in Englsih:

The International Shakuhachi Society

The Gunnar Jinmei Linder Shakuhachi Site (Click on "This is Shakuhachi")

The Shakuhachi World of John Kaizan Neptune (Click on "Flute Making")

The Shakuhachi Mailing List Web Archive

Shakuhachi Home Page (Comprehensive, but written in Japanese)

~Masato

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Peace
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 08:46 PM

Thank you, Masato. I can't make blue links.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: masato sakurai
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 09:02 PM

brucie, two more:

This site shows the making of shakuhachi (Click on "PVC flute").

How To Make Shakuhachi (in Japanese).

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Peace
Date: 02 Oct 04 - 09:27 PM

The "This site" link is awesome.

Please note: The inside diameter for the instrument they diagram/blueprint will require that you purchase PVC Schedule 40 pipe. PVC pipe is sold based on its outside diameter, and if memory serves me, that means you should ask for 1" pipe. However, it has to be Schedule 40--Schedule 80 would have a more restricted ID. (I worked in a PVC pipe manufacturing plant about 25 years ago.)

PVC stands for polyvinyl chloride. I would suggest that you bevel the end that is going to be inserted into the fitting. Not too much; just enough to take the sharp end off the piece of pipe. A handsaw will cut the pipe quite conveniently.

The pipe shold friction fit with the coupling. If you put it on permanently using the solvent cement sold for that purpose, make the fit and hold it for about 30 seconds when the cement is 'drying'. Otherwise, the coupling and pipe will have a tendency to want to separate a bit, and the finished product will suffer in appearance.

Domo arigato, Masato. I learned something new today.

PS PVC pipe used to be sold in 20' lengths. See if a plumber or hardware store will cut to the length you want. Otherwise, you are gonna end up with one long instrument that will be a real bear getting into a car.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: jack halyard
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 06:41 AM

You wonderful people! lots of juicy stuff to play with here. my warmest appreciation. Special thanks, Bruci, for the simple proposition I'd not considered of making the fipple end out of a separate material. PVC wasn't quite working and clearly a metal component which would get a nice sharp fipple is just what's needed.
Anway, I might be busy following up these leads for a bit, but I'll let you know how it turns out. good health all, Jack Halyard.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Peace
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 07:41 PM

OK, Jack.

Regarding the mix of PVC and metal. PVC for plumbing uses NPT (National Pipe Thread). So do Metal plumbing pieces (fittings). Think nipples when you make the flute and you will think what you want when you play it.

All the best, Jack.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: jack halyard
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 07:02 PM

G'day Bruci,
            Am I getting fipples confused with nipples?
I've always been fond of technical language. Guns seem to have a gadget called a nipple wrench and boats have a breast hook,
so the ladies have been putting up with a fair amount long before mammography invented instruments of torture for the pretty bits.

Your advice is well taken. I'm hoping to start work on one this week in time for a musical presentation I'm doing at the end of Oct.

                         Good health, mate, Jack Halyard.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 08:42 PM

The end blown bamboo flute is called a 'xiao' and is still manufactured and played in China.

The embrasure blown flute is called a 'dizi' (prnounced deezeh) there are also a variety of whistle type instrunments called 'guanshao'

I saw an example od the Chinese scale system on a document in a musuem in Beijing tow weeks back. I wished I had taken a photo as it gave the notation and the western equivalent.

All these instruments are still played for traditional Chinese opera and folk music along with the 'erhu' the two stringed instrument that is stroked somewhat like a violin.

There is a band here called 'The 12 Girl Band' who play all of the traditional instruments and perform anything from western classics through to traditional Chinese country music.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 11:51 PM

G'day Jack Halyard,

Have you decided what lengths and bores of PVC tubing you need?

I have a fair bit in the workshed ... mostly offcuts from making plastic (generally prototype) low whistles - experimenting to see how much I can fiddle with the finger-spacing.

I'm afraid none of it looks like the "PVC Schedule 40 pipe" that Brucie mentions above ... but I can certainly chop off a few bits of standard bore tube to experiment with.

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: jack halyard
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 12:34 AM

G'day Bob,
          Thanks for the offer, I might come and invade you and pick your brains as well as your resources. I don't know what you call the business end of such an instrument, fipple or nipple or what, but Bruci's Idea of forming a metal head end seems to be the go. I couldn't get a plastic one to sound, whereas I could get a tone out of a reasonably thin walled piece of brass or aluminium. I'll give you a phone after the election if we don't run into each other before that. Good Health, Mate. Jack Halyard.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 02:03 AM

G'day again Jack,

Well, a shakuhachi doesn't have a fipple ... defined by my work Oxford Concise as: "a plug at the mouth-end of a wind instrument." (In the case of a recorder, that's the 'block' that makes a recorder a "block-flute".) On a shakuhachi there's just the empty bore of the bamboo. Below that is the labium (Latin for "lip") - the sharp edge that 'cuts' the wind and generates the parcel of harmonics from which (your fingering of) the instrument selects a definite note.

(Some chinese top-blown bamboo flutes do have a rather notional "fipple" ... a thin slice of the inter-nodal membrane - that is traditionally fretted, so that you have to go through contortions to keep it from leaking - especially since these have the labium cut back into the bore - strange people ... ! Anyway they are not much like the Chinese ancestor of the shakuhachi.)

I notice that commercial shakuhachis don't seem to have their labia formed from the basic bamboo - rather the labium is usually an insert - sometimes of a hard, off-white, plastic, but probably bone ... or ivory ... in the good models.

See you after what passes for a democratic election (until the pollies work out how to make such bothersome behaviour illegal. - Little Johnnie is studying the American endeavours with a very keen eye!).

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Oct 04 - 10:38 AM

A thin sheet of metal forms an edge that cuts the air flow easily - if you use a thicker material like wood or plastic or thicker metal, you have to shape the labium, and therein lies some of the clever finaglery...

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Peace
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 03:43 AM

you have to shape the labium

This instrument has one of THOSE? My gawd.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 06:31 AM

G'day brucie,

honi soit qui mal y pense ... (It just means LIP!)

jack halyard: The PVC tubing I have is 25.2 od and 21.2 id. I don't know of an Australian equivalent to brucie's "PVC Schedule 40 pipe" - presumably a 1" PVC tubing with thick (~ 2.7 mm) walls ... nor have I ever struck anything like his "PVC joiner" ... but I'm going to go looking for them, as they would make it a hell of a lot easier to make whistles with round labia!

I suppose that, while we are talking about cobbling up a PVC shakuhachi, it's not really appropriate to nip up the Blue Mts and ask shakuhachi master Riley Lee ... ? (I think he'll be down in Sydney at the moment, performing with the Taiko Drummers ... Now there's contrast in volume and sound ... )

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: jack halyard
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 08:53 PM

G'day Bob, Bruci, foolestroupe et al,
                      I hadn't realised that making a shakahach was quite so erotic. What with nipples, fipples and labia and the rest.
Just to reassure you all, I've already done my bit for the labia party this morning.
Anyway. What clues does anybody have about forming the labium? Is there a preferred angle?.

Bob, I dropped into the hardware this morning and stumbled on a piece of black, (BLACK!) pva. I'd been wondering where to turn up a piece so I didn't end up with a grotty grey, white or orange one.
Not only was it black, but it was a transport sheath for some piece of equipment. They Gave it to me.

I've just spent the last hour fippling around with a piece of copper junction force fitted into a suitable size piece of PVA, so that the mouthpiece is removable, but thus far I'm not getting a tone.
Any advice greatly appreciated. Good health, Jack Halyard.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Peace
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 09:34 PM

Have you blocked an end?

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: jack halyard
Date: 08 Oct 04 - 11:25 PM

Thanks Bruci,
            No I've not blocked an end. I thought a shakahachi was an open tube. I've certainly played one like it. If this is the way to go, I'll try.
                                     G'd 'ealth,
                                          Jack 'Alyard.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Peace
Date: 09 Oct 04 - 03:02 AM

Jack,

I have no idea about flutes. Don't take my word for anything. When I first saw this thread title, I thought you were talking about mushrooms and how they are weighed for sale. I couldn't figure out what it was all doing on a music thread. Then I figured it had to be about the bridge that Billy Joe McAlister jumped off. Then it was fipples and nipples, and then I lost my concentration. I hope whatever you are creating sounds great and that you make beautiful music with it.

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 11:31 PM

G'day again jack halyard,

I don't get to do much with PCV tube, except try out whistle ideas, so I haven't looked through the full range of accessories. It appears that, among the variously angled corner pieces, T-pieces & Y-pieces ... there is, indeed a straight joiner ... about 47mm long in the 25mm id example, with a raised v-form ridge around the inside centre. That could be transformed into two (~)22mm lengths of outer tube - or one 47mm tube, after some careful reaming-out.

Afraid it doesn't match your black tube ... but a white ring on top of the black tube might look smart. I'll check a larger plumbing supplier, when I have time (this weekend ... ?) to see what else is available - but I can see it working well, for me, on a curved labium large whistle. (BTW: Labium seems to be the agreed term around the academic end of the game ... I've always called that bit the "wind-cutter", myself.)

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: shakahachi scale measurement
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Oct 04 - 12:45 AM

Chillies work for that for me...