I have a used nagauta shamisen and recently replaced the plastic koma that was included in the set with a nicer bamboo & bone koma. The tone is much better now but I noticed that the ichi-no-ito is now much more resonant than before. I know that the ichi-no-ito being resonant is one of the features of the shamisen, but now it makes noise any time I play any note on the ni-no-ito or san no-ito and I can’t help but think this is more noise than desired.
The new bamboo & bone koma is about 2 mm less tall than the plastic one so I have to assume this is the source of the problem. Anybody have any solutions? I love the tone on my new koma so I definitely want to keep it.