SO… I think I will go the calf skin way for the skins of my Shamisen. What is a good size, and most important the thickness of a good Calf skin for the shamisen.
i’ve been using the thick skins (seem to work well and is what Kyle recommends in his book) and I generally order 14" or 16" rounds. I find the 16" is nice as it gives some options try to avoid any potential flaws. Hope that helps!
The idea of calf even bothers me a little. Anyone have any idea what goat might be like?
I used a goat skin on one of my koras once. It wasn’t ideal and I had trouble getting it tight enough for some reason, but maybe also i could have used a thicker skin and for that matter a kora has a much larger skin surface area than a shamisen. I’d say that it would be worth a try!
hmm…Well I did order two different koma since I wanted to have two that sound different. One for lead and one for rythme. Maybe one of each which would give a good comparison. Then we’ve at least got one if the goat skin doesn’t cut it.
Not having seen a shamisen in person I don’t know what you’d get out of this video but I guess it’s been done.