Accessories for a beginner

General
#1

Hi,

I’m planning on picking up a tsugaru shamisen in Japan. I’m a complete beginner and I’d appreciate some advice. Because I live on possibly the silliest island in the world, which is ludicrously expensive to ship things to and even more expensive in terms of customs on postal deliveries, I’m hoping to do all the shamisen shopping that I need to for a year or two whilst on this trip. So my questions are these:

  • Which bits am I going to break?
  • Or to put it another way, which bits should I get duplicates of and how many should I get?
  • I notice from the recent threads that bachis seem to have a pretty high mortality rate :stuck_out_tongue: What material for a bachi is best to start with? I’m a big treen fan so wooden bachi look good to me, but suitable for a tsugaru shamisen for a beginner?

Really appreciate your thoughts.

#2

Strings, so get yourself a few sets. And I’d pick up two bachi’s if you can afford it (or buy some cheap plastic ones, ~25$).

As for bachi’s… I would say try them out if you can. My faux-bekkou one has been pulverized today, so that is a 200$ down the drain. I prefer the faux-bekkou, they feel more comfortable and are easier to play. I can’t comment on the wooden bachi’s, but I think they should do the trick as well and they probably sound better than the plastic ones.

As for an additional thing you can get, it would be a shinobi koma. That is, if you live in an apartment where neighbours will complain. You slip that on and you can essentially play in the middle of the night! :slight_smile:

#3

Hi Calvin,

Thanks very much for the advice. I will definately remember extra strings and will splurge on a couple of spare bachis.

I’m lucky that I live in a detatched cottage. The only person who is likely to complain about the noise is the wife…its a toss up as to whether to make her suffer or shell out the dollars for a shinobi koma :slight_smile:

#4

I’d think a basic plastic shinobi koma is dirt cheap in Japan. I’d get one of those (or possibly the deluxe version?) for the times when you absolutely must play but the first lady absolutely must sleep!

Strings seem to be a consumable item (all of them) so if you plan to really play a lot, stock plenty. I take you don’t need silk strings for a while, get the cheap/durable varieties.

I’d also get multiple regular komas, just to try out. A bamboo one and one with a some kind of bone tip, for example.

#5

Cool, thanks for that idea. I hadn’t even considered that different komas would make different sounds. I will investigate!

#6

Kyle did a video comparing different tonal qualities of various koma’s.

So check this out to get an idea!

Enjoy!

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