Oh I just wanted to mention not to worry about my pale face in these clips, it was white paint from earlier that evening when estradasphere played. Did you know my band estradasphere basically shared some members of SC3 and did tours together in the past. My CD on EMI with God Of Shamisen also features some of those guys as guest musicians. In fact I have an interesting story about that. Did you know the song Castles in the sand on my CD was actually an unreleased Secret Chiefs 3 song? anyway I convinced Trey to let me premiere that tune and he totally agreed to it ! He released his version of it later and I always get a kick out of it when someone calls me up and says “dude! Trey totally ripped off your music!” then I have to explain that Trey was the one who wrote it actually . Haha! Oh man… I didn’t expect to start this day off with a walk down nostalgia lane. But it’s cool, thanks for appreciating the Chiefs!
What o__O awesome stuff Kevin , i did not know you played with them ! Well i don’t know the band very well , just saw some videos on youtube and i really like their style and the fact that they use trad instruments to play trad music and some rock music too with the same instruments !
I know how you feel Kevin , i decided to left music not a year ago , so i miss my old bands sometimes , i try not to lisent to the old recordings and albums we’ve made because it just brakes my heart even if i know i wasn’t made for that job . but you know life is like that , you should not feel sad about moving to Japan , it’s a brand new life , brand new music experience , and even if it makes you sad you still have great memories with your friends when you played with these guys 
! Gosh it’s so hard to make my point in English , i should have studied more in class 
!
Haha great story about this song , well i’ve never heard that song but it must be a weird feeling for you that your friend tells you Trey stole it from you !
Thanks for sharing those videos and stories and sorry for putting you in nostalgia Kevin !
Muting with the pinky is NO Secret but muting across all three strings is something I have not seen or heard from any other Shamisen players so I can only assume it is my original idea.
Here’s some thoughts inspired by Karl’s stealth demonstration…
Great video Karl! I was kind of experimenting in a simular way last night - and i’ll be doing it again today. I didn’t have a lot of success last night but i’m happy to have some new ideas, thank you!
Kevin - great video also! Actually, it just occured to me, coulden’t a mute be made that is simular to the ones they use for Vioins? They sit on the strings, I guess it would be simular to the pinky technique? I’ll have to experiment with that today!
That’s some quite cool mute techniques Kevin! To me they are more interesting when it comes to dynamics as you mentioned in the video, but definately a stealth option for those with a normal koma.
The real reason I was trying out materials on the skin in my video was because I want to practice playing in bachizuke.
Thanks Evyn!
hi, thats some cool tips here…
here is what i do when it gets late in the night and i still want to play…
i replace my koma with a long wooden pencil, place it as close to ‘neo’ (the tailpiece which the strings are tied to) and just bachi on!!
Thanks folks,
Yeah Karl I should have mentioned my technique will not work for bachizuke practice but still hope it was helpful.
Interesting stuff, loving the wah-wah effect.
These are kool for me because I HATE the shinobigoma
I think my regular koma is at about the same height as the stealth koma, so I don’t suffer from a “too high koma”.
Thanks Liam, glad you dug the wah effect !
So I think there are a lot of different mutes and ways to mute
Available today from Silent Shamisen (headphone Shamisen) to plastic mutes to pinky fingers to whatever anyone else can come up with?
I’ll try to dig out some of the older mutes I may have stored away
…I made a vid a while ago but need to update it. It showed a specific mute which covered the kawa just like Karl does on the top of this discussion. Anyway in the meantime what are some of all of y’alls different ways and methods for practicing quietly after hours?
Since we are all over the world, I’m sure there must be more stories about neighbors, cops, or whoever we encounter in our quest to practice and so the importance of developing a quiet practice method sometimes becomes vital and pushes us to discover something new about the instrument, so yeah, let’s see more vids from you guys and compare some stories!
Late to the party, but I’d be all about a prepared shamisen. Prepared instruments give me tingles.