One Dream's Completion; The Next Dream's Beginning! A New Chapter!

Share Your Music
#1

Huzzah! I received my (lvl 2) Shamisen Set about a week ago! I have finally gotten the time to start practicing and HOLY CRAP IT’S HARD. Especially coming from someone who has no real experience with string instruments (or instruments in general), it seems quite daunting.
Thankfully a wingmate heard me attempting to do Measure 1 and told me that when playing the thick and middle strings (sorry I’m trying to get the Japanese terms down, learning Mandarin isn’t helping too much lol), you can use the string below as a buffer when strumming the string above, which really helped. And while I haven’t moved past Measure 1 yet, I’ve learned so much from practicing it already. Like I tried to shortcut and hold the middle string down on 3 while playing the first neutral note on the low string, since I don’t have the note positions down yet. But whenever I play the low string, my index finger, extended over it, hits the string and causes me to fail the note.
Stringing and tuning have been…tasking. I still can’t tighten the strings while sitting with the shamisen in playing position; I think it’s a combination of the reach and the angle at which I have to put pressure on it when tightening. The black bars (lol I’m sorry) keep popping out or they unroll when I let go, but I think problems like these will solve themselves after continual usage. As far as holding the bachi, I’ve decided to use only the correct way; putting the pinky above with the others makes it feel too loose. And while I can’t really position my pinky in an ideal way yet, that is something else I believe continual use will fix.
Unfortunately I don’t think there are any ways of uploading pictures on forum posts, b/c I wanted to show you guys the epicness and hilarity of the opening as well some questions that can really only be answered with supplemental pictures. Any alternatives?
I was also wondering a good way to store my koma (aha! got one!)? It’s so small and fragile that I’m totally paranoid about it.
Anyway, I’m super excited to start learning how to play! Slowly and steadily, I’m doing this and loving every minute of it!

Have a good one!
-Nick

#2

I had the same problem as you with the itomaki (tuning pegs). I was told to press the tip down while turning but when I tried I could not get the peg to turn at all. I had to lie the instrument down and press the head againt the peg and the peg against the head (not with much force!) and turn it around with my hand.

However, once you’ve been stringing your instrument a couple of times it gets better and you can do it on your own.

Another issue was that my thick string was connecting with the head on the side, meaning it was strung too close to the edge. This means the string is pushing itself out, resulting in your tuning peg being pushed out.

Another thing is to always end the tuning of a string by tightening the string, raising the pitch. If you stop by lowering it, it doesn’t have the same power to remain still as you ended by a loosening action.

It’s always fun learning new instruments :slight_smile: When it gets frustuating, just relax and do something else for 5 minutes.

#3

Awesome, thanks for the advice Karl!

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