A beginner's journey

[Yatagarasu_R]

On the coolness scale 1 to 10, we’re off the scale!

The itomaki were nicer today, perhaps I’m getting the hang of it… no real problems tuning, and over about 1 hour of a playing session it seems all strings dropped pitch by about 1 note. I’ve also noticed the koma moves, at least when tuning a lot, and when it moves, the strings of course change pitch…

My pinky is saying the wood bachi has a very hard edge! It’s hurting in all the places Wonder if the bachi gomu would be the thing I need. Would they fit my nagauta size/style bachi?

I found out just a minute or two of zazen before playing can be a good idea, you drop all worries and go in with just pure mindfulness, no thoughts about strings being out of tune or whatnot cluttering your mind. Of course it quickly changes when you start playing

Another finding was that you can do seiza while on a chair. It’s a bit “crowded” here with “stuff” lying around so not that much space to do it on the floor. The monitors (as in, PC screens) are on the desk anyway.

LMMS (a DAW software) is a good replacement for a metronome (too lazy to dig out mine).

Trying to play the measures on the crash course often makes me want to scream but when improvising and just playing around I feel like this:

Electric Shamisen - Part 2

There’s so many possibilities! As Ortjo told me, there’s quite a few different techniques with (tsugaru) shamisen, then when you add all the experimental styles… I decided to stop for the day when it started to sound like a sitar when playing on the san no ito. Maybe I should give the sitar or rurda veena a serious thought down the road, the shamisen might not be freaky enough for me in the end. But at least it has a million of possibilities, they just need to be explored.

[Kyle_Aaron]

The stings detuning a little is common with any stringed instrument. It takes a little time for them to stretch and set in to where they stay in tune. Playing certainly helps them season quicker.

Have fun!

[B_H]

sounds great overall congrats and rock on

[Karl_Hedlund]

There should be a video on Kyle ABBOTT’s YouTube account about turning the pegs. As Kyle AARON said, you’ll have this problem with new strings, but there are a few easy steps to follow to make sure that they are kept in place.

1. When your goal is to change the tuning, apply only enough pressure on the peg inwards so that it doesn’t jump out. This doesn’t require much pressure. Then tune up or down until are closing in on your desired tuning.

2. When you’ve found the pitch you’re tuning to, keep the same pressure and tune down slightly so that the pitch is slightly below what you are aiming for.

3. Now apply more pressure inwards (but not too much!), and slowly tune it up. What happens now is that instead of releasing friction between the peg and the brass ring, you are adding friction. Stop when you’ve reached the desired pitch.

When you’ve mastered this, you’ll be able to loosen the peg and tune with high precision. The key is to always apply pressure on the end of the itomaki and end with raising the pitch.

Again, I think Kyle has a video on how to apply pressure inwards with the thumb and pinky depending on what peg you are tuning.

Are you sure you are tuning high enough? If you have very loose strings that might be the reason that the koma moves. Otherwise it should be held in place by the high string tension. When I was starting out I noticed that my hand often moved the koma. I’ve even cut myself on it and sprayed the skin red with blood haha!

[Kyle_Abbott]

Ah, excellent point, Karl!

Yatagarasu, though I know you’ve diligently watched the Crash Course a few dozen times (:-P), you may have missed a particular video dedicated to this question - http://bachido.com/lessons/crash-course-1/chapter-4. (Please check out the Tuning supplementary video on the sidebar)

And yes, the tuning might be low as well. The koma should stay in place relatively well. Check the Reference Pitches on the sidebar as well, that will get your shamisen in the right tuning to where your koma shouldn’t move. (If it is still moving, you might be using too much downward force as you strike the string?)

Karl, between breaking your bachi and cutting your hand on the koma, it’s like you’re following in the steps of Mike Penny!

[Yatagarasu_R]

Thanks for the tips! I’ll try and see how it goes with Karl’s technique. So far I’ve been trying to just apply some serious pressure at the end of tuning. At least I don’t need half an hour for tuning any more

Didn’t have much inspiration in improvising today and crash course measures felt tedious so I followed Kyle’s advise. I gave the pinky a rest and went plucking the strings without a bachi. Had quite a bit of fun working on parts 1 & 2 of the early crown jewel, Sakura, though now I start to see why we’re usually playing with the bachi The sense of progress is just incredible, I think I may have underestimated my talent, or my motivation, or both.

Of course my playing is quite crappy, there’s tons of unwanted sounds when I hit the other strings, or I may even mute strings by accident etc. But I don’t care that much, I take accuracy in hitting strings and so on just improves with practice.

I need some tabs to try! Imperial March, Enigma Force and such usual stuff or maybe some anime themes

Can I just buy nagauta tabs from amazon.jp?

There’s of course tons of guitar tabs available but I suspect it would take some time to convert those. Wonder when they’ll publish a Kmetz Ryu? B-)

[Karl_Hedlund]

Mike Penny was actually the first english speaking person I watched on youtube regarding shamisen! He was like “this is how you get a shamisen” and I thought man that is troublesome. So I googled and found Bachido. Then I think I was the second customer to buy a shamisen? The rest is history. Also, I probably have nearly as large hands as Mike Penny. I think the hand size might play a role in koma bleeding

Another tip is to remind yourself that the first and third string are the same in Niagari. If you ever notice yourself thinking “hmmm, which notes should I play on this string” you remind yourself what notes you just played on the other string and you’re ready to go.

[Yatagarasu_R]

Was working on the start of Enigma Force, it’s a really enjoyable challenge, a bit more complex than Sakura - there’s 9 notes out of 12, I take folk songs are nice as they have fewer notes typically. Also this small section has 2 parts where you play 5 notes in a sequence at 2x speed.

Sakura I could try and follow at up to 100 notes per minute (for the fast parts, regular is of course 50 notes/min, still somewhat under what Bachido videos seem to use for Medium speed).

I noticed it’s smart to sometimes just use fingers and skip the bachi, less things to concentrate on if you want to learn a fast melody, also the sound level drops about 5 dB so it’s easy on the neighbours

Is there a discussion somewhere how one should generally strike with the bachi? Make the slightest and softest contact you can that reliably produces sound, or rather lean on it hard? Make the contact fast and sharp? Or is it entirely dependent on your artistic styles? Read that there was some major disagreement early on in modern tsugaru style - I’m on a nagauta instrument so far.

How long is a basic wooden bachi expected to last? Several months even with an active player if the chipped sections are sanded?

ATM Koma and itomaki don’t seem to be major problems at least.

[Yatagarasu_R]

I found out that in order to practice, you need different songs.

A song when you are in a sad mood.
A song when you are in a brisk, joyful mood.
A song when you are in a serene, tender mood.
A song you know by heart.
A song you really like.
A song that is a challenge to play.

The shamisen sounds almost beautiful when with the deluxe shinobi koma, this “mutes” the sound to easily tolerable levels.

[Kyle_Abbott]

Howdy Yatagarasu,

Is there a discussion somewhere how one should generally strike with the bachi? Make the slightest and softest contact you can that reliably produces sound, or rather lean on it hard? Make the contact fast and sharp? Or is it entirely dependent on your artistic styles? Read that there was some major disagreement early on in modern tsugaru style - I’m on a nagauta instrument so far.

A lot is open to either artistic interpretation, or a specific school’s aesthetic taste. In my opinion, when snapping the skin, you should only use enough force to get clear, snapping percussion. Any more force will risk damaging the bachi, wrist, and skin.

How long is a basic wooden bachi expected to last? Several months even with an active player if the chipped sections are sanded?

This also depends on your intensity. If you’re striking hard like for tsugaru style, the wooden bachi don’t last very long. Maybe several weeks to several months, it depends. However, if you use it reasonably (which I think you are), it should last for years, I believe. I started with a nagauta shamisen and wooden bachi, and never chipped/splintered it.

I like your practice order!! The part I love most about music is how it’s a conduit for emotional expression. I like to call improvising “moodling”. I.e, Mood-Doodling. Playing based on your feelings at the time. So yes, having songs to play to fit your current mood is spot on!

I was at a party yesterday with my shamisen when a friend played random pop songs on his iPod and challenged me to play along with it. It was both challenging and a lot of fun! I think I’ll be adding this to the challenge section of my practice regiment - play along with completely random stations on Pandora.

[Yatagarasu_R]

A lot is open to either artistic interpretation, or a specific school’s aesthetic taste. In my opinion, when snapping the skin, you should only use enough force to get clear, snapping percussion. Any more force will risk damaging the bachi, wrist, and skin.

Hmm makes sense. I was actually wondering more about plucking the strings, though it seems I’m starting to make some tataki kind of intuitively… I read a story there was an argument between 2 early tsugaru masters, one saying “you pluck the strings” the other “no, you strike the strings”. And being a total newbie I wondered what “pluck” is even supposed to mean exactly - there’s things like bachi angle, force, length of movement and so on. So far what I’ve gathered from youtube videos is that there are different personal styles

I like your practice order!! The part I love most about music is how it’s a conduit for emotional expression. I like to call improvising “moodling”. I.e, Mood-Doodling. Playing based on your feelings at the time. So yes, having songs to play to fit your current mood is spot on!

Oops! Laboured over the expression to be easily readable, but seems the english language pulled a trick on me. I meant that in order to facilitate efficient training, you need several songs in your repertoaire.

I was actually surprised how much mood affects practice! On a good day I might try 2-3 different songs to find the one which really works and where it seems I’m getting much better, seems the best song changes day to day.

On a bad day… I start on one song, find I can’t play it, or play through it once slowly and notice I don’t have energy to play through it another time, or can’t get the hang of it - try the next song and repeat. Still quite puzzled what to do when this happens.

Maybe a priority list of fallbacks could be the answer…

Try a song that “always works”. Sakura for me.
Try improvisation. If you’re in mood.
Do a “drill” - it’s boring anyway, so why not do it, at least you’re not wasting time.
Do some supporting activity - eg. write down notes in Shamisen Composer, play around with LMMS and so on.

I think there’s a role for both “discipline” and opportunism in practicing shamisen. Opportunism can be highly methodical too, mind you.

I was at a party yesterday with my shamisen when a friend played random pop songs on his iPod and challenged me to play along with it. It was both challenging and a lot of fun! I think I’ll be adding this to the challenge section of my practice regiment - play along with completely random stations on Pandora.

Gives me an idea… one could take the MIDI songs, usually there’s several tracks so you can disable most of them and just jam along to some, like the main theme or some accompaniment.

BTW how early should one pay attention to riffs? You could make them an element of practice instead of songs, and you can use them to drill playing technique.

[Tomo_Hamel]

I remember a story from India about a famous sitar player who was summoned to play before a powerful Raja. The Raja asked that a certain raga be played, a raga that was to be played as the sun set. The sitar player respectfully objected as it was noon, not sunset - why not play a noontime raga? The Raja, not used to being questioned, ordered the sitar player to play the evening song, so he did, and he played it better than he had in all his life. And then - you guessed it - the sun set at noon.

[Yatagarasu_R]

Found an old video from Kyle about how to strike the strings. It’s quite different from what I’ve been doing!

It’s a bit like I do suberi…

[Kyle_Abbott]

Whoa, hisashiburi! To be honest, that’s a bit different from how I do it now. (but still, close enough)

[Yatagarasu_R]

By the way what’s the basic drill of dampening of the strings (keshi)? Dampen every note that is not followed by a pause mark, and dampen all the strings that are not supposed to be played?

[Kyle_Abbott]

Hmm… That’s an excellent question. When I do keshi, I usually put my fingers over all the strings, for the most contrast in sound. (I.e, resonance to nothing)

I think you might be interested in my two part Note Isolation series. Though it doesn’t specifically cover the keshi/kesu technique, it covers the similar subject of removing sliding to make notes stand out. (Part 2 somewhat addresses keshi - isolating notes by muting the strings before moving)
http://bachido.com/school/note-isolation-part-1
http://bachido.com/school/note-isolation-part-2

[Yatagarasu_R]

Now it feels my high-level goals were not very ambitious, or at best, very vague. Achieving something substantial requires years of effort, so obviously one needs to be focused to reach such targets. But for now I have to go forward with an open mind, as no obvious goal is in sight.

Some things on my mind:

Which school to follow. Concentrating on a set of techniques (from intermediate level on?) makes progress faster. Tsugaru and minyo are very well catered to by Bachido - players of western or modern styles could get training elsewhere on other instruments too and adapt their learning to shamisen. Traditional shamisen styles are a more difficult piece outside Japan, unless you manage to find a good skype teacher.

Try it alone or group with other players? (Playing in ensemble - plenty of possibilities if one looks for them.)

Involve other instruments or even branch out? Computers+DAW software could be useful with me, practically zero skill with acoustic instruments. Probably best to mostly use shamisen as the acoustic instrument, for a better progression of skill.

As for skill progression and such, still struggling with some basics. Think it’s starting to require more and more playing to progress, and routine needs to be developed, and skills develop with that either naturally or with focus. Think my repertoaire is too small, while I’ve been just trying out various things. To be specific, right now it’s -

playing/improving

Sakura

learning

Yasaburo bushi
Usagi Yojimbo (from the Video game shamisen thread)

(I gave up on Enigma Force for now, would require some work to extract tabs and quite a challenge to play. Couldn’t connect with Ringo bushi as well as with Yasaburo, but it could come a bit later. Or possibly Rokudan.)

It seems I’ve started to make better sound with the instrument. It may be a nagauta works better when I tune it 2-3 full steps higher than the regular C-G-C on Bachido. Plucking the strings is now a bit easier, not so many bad hits or wrong strings hit, and I’m using more precisely the tip of the bachi to pluck. Or I’m just more confident when hitting the strings.

[Kyle_Abbott]

Hey Yatagarasu.

Man, ShamiCamp is gonna be a great experience for you, especially in this time when you’re figuring out your direction with shamisen. With all the input and instruction from the instructors, I’m sure it will help give you a firm idea of the goals you want to pursue.

Try it alone or group with other players? (Playing in ensemble - plenty of possibilities if one looks for them.)

I would highly encourage playing with others, if you have the opportunity. I think it’s probably the most important thing to do after getting the shamisen and learning basics. Not only does the social aspect really fleshen out the musical experience (in my opinion), but the energy and input from the group can inspire us to try new things with shamisen too.

We have a friend in our bluegrass community. He spent over a decade practicing banjo at home, thinking he had to get “good” before playing with others. Well, we encouraged him to join our jam, and he almost cried, wishing he started playing with others much earlier! Now, he always tells people, “Don’t wait. Once you get the basics, immediately start playing with others.”

As you said, substantial proficiency is a long term endeavor. Rather than pursuing ‘proficiency’, I would say it’s better to pursue ‘music’ (namely, the fundamental roots of music, which is a social, group-based experience) and proficiency will naturally come later. Find some open-minded players, get some beers, tune up and see what happens!

I see there are two other Bachido members in Helsinki, http://bachido.com/community/members?bounds=60.086%2C24.751%2C60.249%2C25.079
They’re really cool people. One of them built several shamisen, and the other is a multi instrumentalist. Man, you guys definitely should be meeting up! What an opportunity! Consider it your next assignment. (And take pictures!)

[Yatagarasu_R]

True that about the Shamicamp - lots of new ideas and pearls of understanding coming for sure.

For mid-term goals, I’d actually like to get started with nagauta (seem to connect with this tradition the strongest) and also to find more pieces like Sakura - easy enough to play, connect strongly with it and like it very much. Basically stuff I like to play over and over and get better with.

Yep I think playing with others is both a joy and a challenge, want to try it when possible. Also I view shamisen more as a part of an ensemble rather than a solo instrument.

“Pursuing music” could be an idea - I think the best music gives us a feeling of connecting the human and the divine (just to use a metaphor to describe the experience). So some learning and experimentation lies ahead to find, or possibly create/prototype, the good stuff

Perhaps the best way to make the shamisen scene stronger in Helsinki would be to recruit young enthusiastic people. Today there was a local (basically just one district within Helsinki) Japan-themed event - about 5000 visitors, so the interest in things japanese is definitely there. It seems there are some groups playing japanese/asian instruments in Finland, just nothing to promote shamisen visibly.

[Yatagarasu_R]

Hi, just a quick word that as the summer is over and temperatures have now suddenly dropped some 10C, I’m again finding more enthusiasm for shamisen. Maybe the ~3 month break was for the good, now I’m back to learning Gion Kouta. That’s a challenge, trying to play the fast parts, it’s more than 120 beats per minute with the bachi, gets me really charged up!

Hoping to find the focus and energy to write all those messages I’ve skipped lately, now it’s just trying to pick up some momentum towards the fall season.

BTW, Yoshida Brothers have a nice version of Ringo Bushi that really swings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ourwIc-Ez-w

Will need to have a closer look at kouta, some pretty easy pieces for beginners could lie that way.