I hope someone can help me with this issue. I have reskinned the two old shamisens I was given and am trying to set the up properly to play. I believe they are both Nagauta Shamisen, they have a thin neck and the sloping hatomune, as well as thin itomaki.
I purchased a fujaku to make learning the fingering positions easier, and applied it exactly as instructed and no koma position will result in any but the first few notes being close to the marks. I started with the koma 3 fingers from the end of the dou, then moved it around, attempting to find a scale length that would bring the notes closer to the markings.
Is it possible that my instruments have a significantly different scale length than the tsugaru style? I have measured mine (from the kamigoma to the center of the koma) and it measures 31 inches with the koma approximately 3 fingers from the end of the dou.
I used a fret location program on Stewart-Macdonald for a 31" scale length, and those positions do not agree with the fujaku markings at all.
Also, using Kyle’s instruction to make position markers at 13 and 20 cm as a starting point from the kamigoma does not seem to work with my scale length.
I’d sure appreciate any expert help with this problem.
thanks,
Kevin