Howdy.
Specific comments are better handled by actual store representatives, but I can chime in a little on general points:
- There are differences in wood types.
Generally speaking, the woods you’ll likely see in the shop are karin (which is padauk), shitan (which is zitan/siamese rose wood), and kouki (red sandal wood).
On average, these increase in (janka) hardness as one goes. Karin tends to be softer than shitan, shitan tends to be softer than kouki. Almost all shamisen utilize karin for their bodies.
A softer wood tends to introduce more noise and background fuzziness to the instruments tone - but a well built karin instrument still sounds great!
A harder wood tends to give cleaner notes - but a poorly built kouki instrument sounds dead!
This is all to say that a well built instrument is going to sound very nice no matter the wood, but karin or shitan or kouki may sound better to you based on your taste :)!
I should also note that wood hardness also impacts longevity. Note that all of these are hard woods - but karin will wear down a little bit faster than shitan, which wears a little bit faster than kouki. This wear will generally mean you’ll need to have replaning done sooner as your nail digs into the wood of the neck. It’s really not something to worry about at this stage though!
- Sao (neck) thickness is a personal choice, but the differences between a chuuzao and futozao are not very large (most of the time. I’m average build and play on all types of shamisen with relative ease.
Shamisen necks vary between just about 2 cm to around 3.3 cm wide. Chuuzao will generally fall around 2.6~2.7. Modern futozao are generally 3.0 and higher, but older ones are closer to 2.8.
These are super small differences! In hand you can tell the difference of course, but it’s very minor. Focus instead on the size of the resonator (body) you want - especially in the beginning.
- Marking your own positions is not difficult with a tuner, but it is troublesome without one.
As long as you have a digital tuner set to 440 or 442 and are mindful of your koma placement it’s not hard to mark your positions.
I play on full-sized and tanzao instruments regularly. The real benefit of the short neck is being able to into extremely high tunings without the strings exploding (quite so) immediately. What about the tanzao caught your eye?
