Project Akachan Shamisen! 赤ちゃん三味線

Building/Repair
#1

So being snowed in for nearly four days, I got a bit of cabin fever. And some interesting ideas. One of which was to do a little adjustment on my first shamisen. The original owner decided to glue the sao into the dou (grr) and glued the sao pieces together so it doesn’t come apart. The sao was also quite warped towards the tenjin, so I decided to have some fun.

By heating the neck joint, I removed the tenjin from the sao.

I found a good spot just below where the warping stopped and sawed off the sao.

Measured things out and such.

And whittled away for the rest of the day!

Everything fits!

But it didn’t turn out as pretty as I’d have liked since I did it all by hand.

All strung up!

Comparison next to a full size shamisen.

And here’s a little vid of me noodling on it. Apologies for the bad audio from my phone.

1 Like
#2

How small will it be after you have been snowed in for another four days?

But seriously, that’s cool craftsmenship, I could never do anything that professional looking and I took shop at school.

#3

That is a sweet little akachan Shamisen! I
Great work!

#4

Oh man! You are a really Awesome Shamisen player too! I’ve only seen that short clip before but this one was long enough to really see what a great handle you have on playing the Shamisen! Loved the Tomodachi no tori section!

#5

Sweeet!! Awesome KoShamisen, Kyle! A perfect way to spend the snowy months inside. :slight_smile:

#6

Your baby shamisen is somehow similar to Japanese bowed string instrument kokyu (胡弓). Very cute!

1 Like
#7

I had originally planned on using it as a Kokyu, but apparently the Kokyu is slightly different in the way it’s made so that it can be bowed. The spike is necessary to be able to turn the instrument, and the body is smaller, which gives it a distinct sound. Not sure if the strings are different, as well, but I’ve found that bowing Shamisen strings doesn’t work very well.

In fact, it was Kevin’s video of himself playing a kokyu like a shamisen that gave me some of my inspiration.

Good news is, I may have found a real kokyu to purchase. We shall see!

Being a fiddle player first, I’m naturally drawn to bowed fretless things. :slight_smile:

#8

This is awesome! I wanna see a line of like 12 babies playing kita no hibiki with these things. That would be SICK!

#9

Hi Kyle,
There seems to be a shamisen called Heike-Shamisen (平家三味線).
It is very similar to the baby shamisen you made :wink:

© 2020 Kyle Abbott