Hello @lyinawake
Welcome to Bachido, and specially, welcome to the world of the gorgeous sound of Shamisen.
As @Mark_van_Es mentioned, we can have a more active conversation on the Discord server at Bachido Shamisen Community
But let’s get it started, and we are totally fine to keep this conversation to the forum if that works best for you.
So, you want to play “world music” (as opposed to Japanese music) with a Shamisen.
Plenty of people do play music from all over the world on Shamisen. You can start by checking Kyle Abbott’s videos, but also take a peek at the Shamisen videos of Kevin Kmetz.
You will find that plenty of very interesting sounds are possible, and more insterestingly, Bachido is researching and will be launching bridges (Koma) for new sounds later this year and through next year.
There are several styles of Shamisen music, and their accompanying shamisen build styles.
That makes it seem that a specific type of shamisen is needed for that specific style, which is not true.
That shamisen build type either evolved to be optimized for that style, or because of aesthetics, or other reasons.
The consensus here is that you can play any music style on any Shamisen build style. The stylistic losses are minimal.
Now, onto more practical advice.
I will be adding some Shamisen terms in parenthesis so you can start to get used to it, but no pressure.
The beefier sounds come primarily from body (Dou) size, not neck (Sao) size.
Since you are quite open to build styles, budget will be your main driver.
Bigger Shamisen are more expensive, both for amount of material used, and because of style popularity.
Tsugaru Shamisen (what Kyle and Kevin play) are the bigger ones, and their sound are quite powerful.
From there, bigger Jiuta (of the Ikuta style) and bigger Min’yo (those with a Ni Bu Dai body) come in second.
Then comes Kouta, then Hauta, then Nagauta (the last one is the base/reference size for Shamisen body sizes).
There are other less known types of Shamisen, but I haven’t listed them here.
The overall difference in body size from a Tsugaru to a Nagauta is a mere 1.6cm (or about 5/8") on the long side, so don’t fret about it (pun intended).
Also, Shamisen is a pretty powerful instrument, if the skin is applied correctly, and even Nagauta will command the audience.
Another thing to look for is wood. Although the skin is 85% of the sound quality, wood plays a role. If you are looking for a rounder sound, and slightly longer sustain, the higher end Kouki is the way to go. In the mid range (but also in very old Shamisen) there is Shitan, and the intro range is Karin.
Budget not being a concern, a Tsugaru is the way to go for world music, but for the reason of a wider fingerboard, which facilitates fingerwork. The widest fingerboard is 3.4cm in current Tsugaru, but usually 3.1cm, so it’s much narrower than a guitar. Tsugaru cost between $800 and $1500, with exceptions on both ends of the price range.
If budget is a concern, I recommend a Min’yo with a big body (Ni Bu Dai), or a Jiuta (Ikuta style). Those run around $400~$700.
If budget is really a concern, then a basic Jiuta, a Kouta, or a Nagauta will do you plenty of good, though you may feel the fingerboard to be a bit narrow (2.4~2.6cm) if you plan on doing chords and fast fingerwork. Those sell for around $200~$400.
When browsing the second hand section on Bachido, note that the “sold out” icon is small, and may go unnoticed. All shamisen in the second hand section are unique, and we currently don’t remove sold shamisen form the list (though they come only after the available ones) for technical reasons. So start from the first page for the available ones.
There will be a new lot of second hand shamisen added to the store shortly, Tsugaru included.
Please feel free to ask anything. We are here to help.
I have been playing guitar for 20 years but have been collecting various string instruments and using them to jam with friends. I don’t intend to play much traditional shamisen music, so more something that will lend itself to blending in the jam environment with keys / electronic / vocals / other strings / etc.