Questions about building a first shamisen.

Building/Repair
#1

Just got my copy of “Shamisen of Japan”, and I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it, so I thought I’d ask a couple of questions to see if anyone could point me in the right direction.

  1. I’m plotting on making this out of maple and white oak, but I can’t find anything in those that’s 8/4; can I just glue together two pieces of 4/4 and work it as one, or would that be a problem? Outside of the seam’s appearance, I mean.

  2. Do I work these instructions in order?

  3. Can I stretch the hide on this this with rawhide lacing, like a shaman drum, instead of building a billion little clamps? Or is that the best way to do it? Alternatively, can I tinker with solid surfaces for one or more sides (wood, metal, something like that) or would it sound terrible?

Sorry if this post is all over the place. I’m just really excited about this, but at a loss of where to start.

#2

Hi Mitchell
my take on your questions…
i think you could for sure use two pieces. you could even try out two different looking woods for fun. It’s all about experimenting at this point I would say. Just make sure it’s well clamped along the whole surface and away you go!

re the stretching. what you want to do is how I stretch the skins on my koras but they use cowhide which is quite strong.

What I might do is create a support of some sort around the outside of the skin and maybe stitch it down, stitches maybe ½ inch apart. This could be rope, or thick rawhide maybe something like that. I think that because I can imagine that just holes in the hide will tear out pretty easily on the thinner skin of the shamisen.
you could then punch holes in the hide close to the support bit maybe on inch apart or so and try that.
However you do it, I can imagine that something playable will come of it.
:slight_smile:
hope that helps or triggers some ideas.

© 2020 Kyle Abbott