I’m not convinced…
Hi Sakura. In Japanese the word “shin” is added to define a “new” thing, for example shin-osaka is the new shinkansen station in Osaka. Shinbun is the news paper, etc… Shin Rokudan would describe a new version of Rokudan.
When Mr. Kmetz’s version of Rokudan is widely practiced and becomes a standard, it will be called Shin Rokudan 新六段 or KK Rokudan?
I just started to practice Tsugaru Rokudan. But everyone would love to hear KK Rokudan. It should be the next Schoolhouse lesson 
Mahagi, Yes! Certainly! I’d love to discuss that with Kyle.
Whoa nellie! I would love to hear this Shin Rokudan as well!! 
Cool. Dude we should Skype soon
Let’s do it! My schedule’s quite open this week.
"“For God sake’s people, it’s been the same Roku Dan for the past 30 or 40 years. We have new techniques today, new phrases, a whole new outlook on the tonal and technical possibilities for Tsugaru Shamisen. "
Yes, it seems that there is a whole attitude toward music that approaches it all as being finished (as in not needing to be improved upon or changed). Thinking about it, I blame the competitions for standardizing the songs, while fun, it’s benignly discourages innovation, suggesting that there is a “right” way to play music. Of course, they help hone your chops and are fun to participate in. The reality, though, is that standardized teaching, tests and competitions are an extremely new phenomenon and somewhat of a historical aberration.
It’s a cool instrument, why choke it to death? Let it fly free and wondrous (haha).
There are lots of innovative players out there, though.
Sorry, rambling.
Maybe some thread material was deleted…
Hey Everyone. I made I video JUST for this thread here on Bachido. Some examples of the peices I`ve been describing.
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Excellent.
Finally the thread is working again!
Thanks for posting this Kevin. I can’t wait to suscribe to this video Lesson(s) . So much interesting stuff in this!
Thanks Jazz! We haven’t made any lesson video for this yet and actually I haven’t even spoken directly to Kyle about it but I’d love to do that sometime in the near future (next year/spring perhaps) . Like I mentioned I don’t know if I’d want this to be called a New Roku Dan or shin Roku Dan etc… I’d rather just call it “New practice pieces for Shamisen”. What I offered in this video (in the comments above ) is just one kind of improvised synthesis using some of the ideas so the video lessons will obviously be shorter and more focused.
Silly Kevin! I know it cannot be made in one day. But I am also convinced it is meant to happen eventually.
About the name, you still have time to figure out something more Kevinesque while working on it. Since you’ll also work it out to be more focused, plenty of ideas will travel between your 2 ears. 
This is a cool idea!
I’m a big fan of the regular Rokudan (after all, it is the foundation for all the techniques in a nice fancy jongara bushi) plus it sounds cool, but I really do like the idea of a new practice piece based on innovation. Plus the one in that video sounds seriously awesome.
I think it’s a very good idea to compose a new piece, because I think it’s common in minyo, or in tsugaru itsenf! In minyo there are variations regarding the melody, and also in the tsugaru there are different interpretations of a piece
I definitely agree Sakura, it is what defines this style of music.
Wow! It’s been a while not visiting for me 
I found a video on YouTube where there was a koto player who had composed an hybrid between rokudan (sokyoku) and midare
Plucking this out of archives…saw Kmetz video with Six Fun Strums…especially like the folk guitarlike ones with shami speed…great fun as we learn…thanks for Kmetz Six Fun Strum inspiration! San Jose beginning to study this…