Shamisen into the Future!?...Your thoughts on Technology!

General
#1

Hi Bachido!
Another topic of discussion for everyone, please share your thoughts and especially share any links you might know of that the rest of us might not have seen yet.
My topic for today is Shamisen meeting with today’s world! We obviously live in the most technologically advanced times ever so there is bound to be various integrations . Seems bachido is the perfect place to share our thoughts and ideas on how this might develop in the years to come.

Here’s just a few things I’ve found so far, just to get the ball rolling…

#2

Oh… And then there is this one.

#3

I feel things aren’t as fun if its electronic. There is something to be said about manipulating real world objects and not just numbers on a computer.

Some of the stuff is for a wow factor which is cool, but all the fun is out of it for me… What I like is when technology could help someone play who isn’t able to use both hands per se so they’d have a keypad of some sort and could use their foot to hit three pedals representing the three strings and the keypad could be the fret number… Then it brings the world a little closer to each other

#4

Chris,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Ironically, having been the one to originate this topic, I more or less agree that something fundamental is lost when technology is integrated too much with traditional music making. However I’d still like to hear more about what people think about this since it is going to inevitably shape this next century.
Another thing is not just “scientific” technology but new ways of creating music in general .

Bachido seems like the place to explore the varieties of what people out there are doing and creating…

#5

Wow, the fretted Shamisen is a big surprise since the pleasant shock of Electric Shamisen of Agatsuma!!! Musical instruments are evolving while we are living. It must have taken thousands of years, but now evolution is very fast, and maybe gets natural selection later on.
Btw, the fretted Shamisen do not need a Yubikake(^_^;)

#6

Yeah!!! About time there was an app created for shamisen! This is just what Masahiro was wanting to make. :stuck_out_tongue:

I guess the tech currently employed at Bachido (thanks to my friend/bid’ness compadre Brian) to make shamisen more accessible is CNC. More on that later of course.

I wish I had a good, relevant video to contribute, but I’m afraid this is all I got right now. :-S

#7

I think the iPad app is good stuff, and it kind of touches something I’ve been planning on doing for a long time but would require a good recording studio and of course better skill from my side. I’m talking about recording all notes with various bachi positions, together with slides and stuff.

That could be used to both make music and play MIDI files with shamisen.

Any person who makes any type of sound generating machine should be inspired to continue with that. It’s what music is about. Even if it isn’t near the real quality product you are making music.

Anyone else than me who realized in school that if you took the curtain strings and put the end knob so that it got stuck between two student tables, you could make some cool bass sounds? That kind of stuff makes you want to explore. It’s good stuff.

#8

I only like IPad app for traveling or something like that. But it can´t substitute a real instrument. I like a lot the two robots playing, they are funny! And play very good… but its cold to me. I don´t know if in the future musicians will be replaced by machines, but for now I think it is too cold. A musician not only plays an instrument, there is some feedback from the musician to the audience and vice versa. this “spirit”, a robot doesn´t have it.

anyway, technology does our work too much easy! You can practice in the plane! thats amazing :slight_smile: And a lots of other things you can do with technology that helps to improve playing. I see technology for shamisen in that way.

#9

Yeah I need to get that on my iPad just for that reason (to practice on the plane )! Cool. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Paco!

#10

Hmn, that sham-i-pad, I don’t know if I love it or hate it. It could surely raise shamisen awareness and be a lot of fun to play around with. But you just know someday it’ll lead to keyboardists (hissssss) replacing shamisenists on recordings, just like they did drummers, bass players and orchestras the day the music died. No! Never again! Noooooo!!!

Note: I don’t actually have anything against keyboard players…as long as they remember their place. (jk sorta. lol)

#11

I’ve seen the tack head shamisen guy before. He seems to have knowledge and respect for Asian instruments. But very non-traditional thinking when it comes to construction. One of these days he’s gonna come up with a really cool hybrid.

#12

well thinking about this may also help in clarifying what the key things are one likes about the shamisen and would NOT want to change . . . as for me I am in love with 3 strings, a fretless neck (especially the physical playing feel that goes along with that) and an option of getting some percussive sound by striking through to the dou / skin . . . also bachizuke should be possible . . .

so I think I could enjoy whatever instrument or variation of a shamisen that at least got those characteristics . . .

although I like the general sound of the shamisen including sawari I could imagine accepting a different general sound for example in the context of it being electrified or an ukulele sized thing or whatever revolutionary different but I am really clinging to those characteristics outlined above as they are what I love about this whole thing and the tunes and music that can be played because of those features . . .

very cool that there are not only guitar but also shamisen apps out there - I sure would like to check out all of them once I had an ipad or other tablet and fool around with them although I of course consider them not a replacement for a real instrument in any way but I am sure they can be fun or even something on which one could stumble upon a cool tune aka compose on whenever the shamisen is at home and one is not at home . . .

also that lapstick guitar looks cool it seems to be well thought out and crafted and I would like a shamisen version of that too . . .

I think in case something small cannot be built to sound like a shamisen it could still be cool if it got at least some practice value playing feel and acoustic sound quality AND a great sound when plugged in to an amp with the help of some electronic effect magic already built in to generate a more authentic shamisen sound when the thing is connected to an amp or headphones of course the headphone to be directly connected to the instrument and its built in preamp just like on that lapstick I think that would be cool to play on for sure and not only on airplane rides . . .

#13

I have the Shamisen app on my iphone, its very hard to use as its so small! but until I start the epic building project to make myself a Shamisen the app it a useful tool to practice reading measures.

#14

Tegan,
Cool! I have an iPad but have still not gotten the Shami app for it. I need to do that soon! Is it trippy playing it on a screen? Seems like it would be.

#15

Nuts! I have a shamisen but no iPad. :frowning: Somehow I’ll have to split the difference.

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