Plastic koma cutting my string!

General
#21

Cana, I am lacking good tools too and in my case I am also lacking woodworking talent so I couldn’t say for sure whether I would put my first koma onto the skin of my first shamisen I mean I think I’d start to get slightly depressed in case after the strings and koma also the skin would break too . . . on the other hand I guess I could make it as safe as possible with enough sandpaper :slight_smile:

anyway and that said I never thought I would definitely try creating a real koma myself so thanks Pete for this cool inspiration

:slight_smile:

#22

oh very true points guys… i have already made the koma though… and its on and sounds pretty darn good ^^;;
its not 100% done i would wanna make it abit thinner and try to make it abit flatter but it was a twig… its very soft wood

i made the hieght perfect but abit wider so it would spread the weight out alot more and ive done upward strokes with my bachi and the strings and they arent coming out of the notches i made they fitt in perfectly… i filed it down as soft as possible and the bottom is nice and flat but i made 2 raised bits rather then one big bridge like gap underneath…
i have an m design but its abit longer then my plastic koma

you make valid points BH but i dont have much option right now… i would love to have a working koma besides this new one… but the new one has a nice tonei made sure theres no sharp bits

#23

oh good very cool do you have a pic to share?

I didn’t really think this through but on the way to the coffee vending machine at the local big wood store I picked up some rather thin strips of wood to see what I could do over the weekend with the one cool woodworking tool I got :slight_smile:

http://www.amazon.de/Fiskars-Campingaxt-mit-Canvas-Tasche-Länge/dp/B003SE6TAK/

#24

here it is :slight_smile: tryed to go for the simplistic look… since its a folk style shamisen
it sounds pretty nice too :slight_smile:
might post a vid of the playing tomorrow night <3

#25

Haha. Cool koma. I actually have a story to tell you, looking at that koma. some years ago I went to Scotland for a series of Shamisen performances etc. well when I packed everything I put all my gear in the Mitsu ori case but foolishly I had left my little koma box in my luggage. Well the worst thing happened… The airline lost my luggage.
So I am sitting around in Scotland waiting for the shows to start with my Shamisen and bachi in hand but NO KOMA!
Well as you can easily guess I went for a walk in the woods and picked up a bunch of twigs and started carving out Komas to experiment with.
Needless to say they looked quite similar to the one featured in these photos so I really felt some memories from Scotland coming back.
I’d love for you to post vid where you play it a little so we can hear the tone. I remember how surprised I was to find that a simple carved twig from the woods could be so useful. Even though it doesn’t sound like a koma from a store etc.

#26

thing is, everything started somewhere, who knows for sure, this might have been how the instrument started ?

#27

I still find it sort of unbelievable that I have created sticks with strings that give off sound and can be played on enough even to make use of shamisen tabs . . . which is and I didn’t know that before a cool thing about stringed “instruments” that whatever you come up with concept wise and or whatever you manage to actually craft according to your skills that may be close to zero as in my case you can really take a piece of wood attach strings to it somehow and you got something cool for sure . . .

even as for stringed instruments that have established themselves in various parts of the world and are professionally made there is such a great variety of designs and ways things are done . . .

also as Amanda pointed out everything started somewhere so there you already got 3 considerations that I think substantiate the philosophy I sort of developed and am enjoying very much which is about that sure in case you wanted to create a spanish guitar or shamisen koma as you would get them in a store you could fail at that but in general I think that in the realm of stringed instruments you cannot create anything that could seriously or objectively be called foolish or any other unflattering name . . .

as long as the thing is working somehow and fun to create and play . . .

anyway I think your koma is one of the coolest shamisen komas I have ever seen so thanks for sharing the pictures and who knows over time we may even gather enough skills and tools to also do standard komas on the side . . .

:slight_smile:

#28

Haha. Cool koma. I actually have a story to tell you, looking at that koma. some years ago I went to Scotland for a series of Shamisen performances etc. well when I packed everything I put all my gear in the Mitsu ori case but foolishly I had left my little koma box in my luggage. Well the worst thing happened… The airline lost my luggage.
So I am sitting around in Scotland waiting for the shows to start with my Shamisen and bachi in hand but NO KOMA!
Well as you can easily guess I went for a walk in the woods and picked up a bunch of twigs and started carving out Komas to experiment with.
Needless to say they looked quite similar to the one featured in these photos so I really felt some memories from Scotland coming back.
I’d love for you to post vid where you play it a little so we can hear the tone. I remember how surprised I was to find that a simple carved twig from the woods could be so useful. Even though it doesn’t sound like a koma from a store etc.

Will do my best ^.^ i never knew you went to scotland… maybe you could pop by england sometime and everyone will hafta get together?

I am very honoured to hear yea say that, never knew you wouldave done the same xD i guess lack of parts wont stop us playing shamisen ever

Thanks Kyle and BH

Will make a video tonight… sorry my replies are slow… my laptop is broken so i needa save for a new one… maybe one that isnt 7-8 years old lol

#29

j’ai fait le mien moi meme, je ne sais pas si c’est excellent mais mon shamisen sonne bien

#30

fait en bois parce que le koma d’origine est en plastique et fait 11m de haut, donc le jeu est plus difficile pour les doigts sur le sao

made of wood because the original koma is plastic and is 11m high, so the game is more difficult for the fingers on the sao

#31

oh nice koma :smiley: good job

#32

thank you ! I think I will make one with a piece of bone soon

#33

i also found that a TINY bit of beeswax on the strings at the parts they sit on my horrid plastic koma help a little to stop the cutting in.

#34

beeswax ?! hey ! that’s a really good idea ! many thanks !!

#35

yes.
Just a little to stop the friction.

#36

it’s only the beginning !!!

#37

nice :slight_smile: it looks almost like ivory… like some type of calf bone or something :slight_smile: atleast in looks.

#38

calf bone , yes :wink:

#39

Haha! I thought it was ivory too. :wink:

Looking forward to seeing how the bone koma turns out! I imagine you can make it quite thin (for the best resonance)

Amanda: Beeswax! I didn’t think of that before. We in the lazy bluegrass world rub pencil graphite into the bridge notches, as the graphite adds enough lubrication to keep the strings from catching onto any microscopic burrs or whatnot.

#40

wow wow that looks great does it hold? I guess so . . .

I have the additional problem that the holes for the itomaki are messed up after I originally had to take out most of the cracked brass thingies so the holes are not in original shape I tried to angle / smoothen them out freehand with a cheap file and the first batch of itomakis I made did not hold so . . . a fresh try this weekend is planned thanks for providing the inspiration just in time . . . :slight_smile:

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