My heart = Broken
Oh, no! After the wet weather came this heat and killing hotness.
Dangerous in Japan. Really sorry!
aww man 
tough luck eh? sorry man! but you can and will get it fixed!
Sorry Norm…
First time? Yeah. It’s a bummer. I remember lying on my futon in Santa Cruz, CA. One day getting ready for some street performing with my trusted old Shami. Suddenly I heard what I thought to be mice scurrying about in some unknown area of my room. I looked around frantically and that’s when I realized the true source of the sound. My heart=broken as well.
But as Cristian said, you will get it fixed yes?
Hopefully soon! Best of luck with that!
Damn Norm 
Strange place for the torn skin. Is it the sudden change of weather that Kyoko talks about do you think?
Norm…gutted mate
… I hope you can fix it soon! It is a totalheartbreaker! :’(
Hey Norm, whats the little brown square on the skin???
Oh man……Hope you get it all fixed up and ready to play again soon!
Sad, sad, sad…
Ooooooooooooh SNAP!
(Sorry, pun intended)
That’s a bummer, Norm!! Such a beautiful skin.
Hope you get it back in action soon! This might be the perfect time to finally meet Katou san. 
Oh yeah, what is the little brown square?
The same thing happened with my old sanshin,a real snakeskin from a python of the highest quality snapped,god I was going to amazonas to hunt pythons… I’m not so cruel to kill a living animal just to get its skin,but if I find a dead one,maybe I could use it…
norm,be sure to find a good “skinner” ok? Bad luck eh? Get ready to play as soon as possible!
lol thanks everyone
I have a great shop called ‘みかど’ (mikado) in Asakusa.
We actually visited them during the First Ever Bachido Tokyo Gathering and I plan to feature them in the video~
But as Japan is unbelievably humid right now, and the remaining portion of the kawa is sufficient enough to support a koma, I am going to delay the Kawahari for as long as possible lol.
We will see how long the remaining Kawa can hold up haha
For the meantime, the shamisen has developed a very deep sound (much like a large acoustic guitar)
Honestly speaking, it sounds like crap but im all about pushing things to their limits before making changes lol.
And as for the brown square…
Let’s just call it the mystery square (^_-)
But yea, in the end, I’m just lucky to have it rip where it ripped
Still managed to get in 3 hours of practice yesterday (while waiting for video to compile) with it in this condition.
And while im here, I might as well let you all know to check the post for The First Ever - Bachido Summer Tokyo Gathering (2012) () as I am about to drop a bit of an update into there (after 5+ hours of editing work last night)
Got a few exciting things to update (^-^)
Anyway, thanks again to all of you for your kind support.
Believe it or not, this was my first ripped kawa and although I knew it was coming soon (as my previous post about kawa nightmares mentioned) it still came as quite a heartbreak
Glad to have bachido here to share with!
I’ve been practising this morning using my stealth koma (as per usual), so then I figure it’s time to annoy the neighbours and replace it with my bamboo koma. I played a few songs and then just happened to look at the back of the dou and noticed the same kind of tear as Norms only a little smaller! I hadn’t noticed any sound difference but it still bummed me out
I guess the recent rain and humidity in Amsterdam has finally got to it even though it’s always in it’s dou bag when I’m not playing.
I guess the good thing is it’s on the back, so it doesn’t affect playing, kinda weird as I always imagined it would be the front to go first.
Time to contact the boss and send it off for a new skin, or just play it until the front pops too? could be a license to give it a good pounding with nothin’ to lose! ha ha.
Pete,
A tear in the back doesn’t neccisarily mean the end of the world.
When I was on tour with Masahiro Nitta he toar the whole back side of the dou off and kept playing like it was cool! When I asked him about it he said “oh yeah, sounds a bit “fuller” now doesn’t it?”
I am also guilty of playing under similar circumstances for multiple public events. It seems to be the front that is the main thing.
If you have extra money available then sure it would be good to get that fixed but just to let you know you can still keep going unless the rip in the back is affecting your physical connection to the instrument or if it is causing noticeable differences in tone which are not to your liking etc.
Since you keep the back skin against your belly/ribcage, is the skin really necessary? I mean, you will keep it from vibrating since you are in contact with it. Has anyone tried having a wooden backside?
That would cut the skin usage in half.
Yes yes I have seen that. Wooden removable backside of dou.
Electric Shamisens used to have that a lot. Katoh’s mugen 21 usually doesn’t though cause its usually stuck in place but I have seen an older masahiro model that was electric and he used to take the wood off the back frequently in order to make adjustments to the electronics inside.
just got back from my daily cycle loop around the canals
Thanks for the replies. I was thinking of perhaps putting a bit of clear tape over the split in the mean time so it doesn’t get any bigger?
It may also be that when I’ve been playing lately with the windows and doors closed (not to annoy the neighbours!) the house gets a bit warm and humid, so maybe I’m imparting quite a bit of heat and moisture into the skin too.
:c awwwrs poor shami, sooo sorrys norm…
Did you ever get the shamisen wet?
weird place for it too tear o: