For a couple weeks now I’ve wondered what it would sound like to have a shamisen dou thats a hollow wooden box like a guitar instead of a skinned drum like it normally does. Anyone ever tried this and if so, would you recommend?
There is an instrument like this: the gottan. You can read more about it here. I have never heard or played one but as a cellist I would imagine that it has a warmer tone than a shamisen. You also would lose the percussive capability of a regularly skinned shamisen. If you make one I’d love to hear it!
Gottans are neat.
Performances by Nagayama Shigeko
An interview with and performance by Aratake Tami Parts 1 & 2 (peep 2 for some really splendid playing)
1 Like
And now for something different but related, here is a local performer, Tachidani Misato, playing a kokyuu without a skin.
1 Like
This all very interesting stuff. And that kokyuu was absolutely beautiful. The gottan definitely does sound more like a warmer shamisen, though this little experiment of mine is to figure out how drastically one can change the sound by changing the dou. What about carving holes or openings on the gottan? Or how about giving it a round back like a biwa? How would that affect the sound? Maybe even a round back with skin. It’s something I definitely plan to work on in time.
There’s a wide range of spiked lutes of various size and shapes.
A rounded back with sound holes would likely have quite a bit in common with an oud!
Which is also neat.
Lutes are neat.
1 Like
Sorry to revive an old thread, but I’ve been wondering about something along these lines lately. If you could build a tough enough frame, maybe you could cover the sides and rear with a nice tonewood, but still skin the top (if you didn’t have a top skin, you would just have a three string guitar, right?). The sides of the dou would need to be flattened somewhat from a typical shamisen in order to make it possible to bend the wood around the sides. Something like the sides on the ShamiBuddy would work, I think.
The frame might be hard to build, though. It would have to withstand the pressure from the skin, which seems like it’s pretty high, especially for synthetics. But I remember seeing an image of someone standing on a certain manufacturer’s ukulele frame (don’t remember which one) to demonstrate how sturdy it was, so maybe it’s possible? The arches on the side of the dou might work to your advantage, given that arches are known for their sturdiness.
My big fear is that, in the end, maybe the sound wouldn’t be that different. A lot of the quality of the sound from a guitar comes from the top. So, how different would it be from a regular shamisen at that point?