Shamisen journey!

General
#1

Hi to all

I am from Berndorf a small city in Lower Austria

My Hometown has a long History of Friendship with a Japanese town, so since my childhood I am interested in the Japanese culture!

Berndorf has a Friendship with the City of Hanamaki former Ohasama, and we celebrate the 50th anniversary of this friendship in 2015

links for the Friendship:
http://japan.elmer.org/

I am a guitar player and was long time interested in playing the Shamisen!
But its very hard and very expensive to get one in Austria!
So thanks to Bachido I can finally start my Shamisen journey

I have ordered the beginner´s Shamisen and all parts I need for playing from Bachido.

#2

Today I got my Shamisen.
Unfortunately, I had to pay a lot of customs duties

So I assembled the Shamisen, and now I am waiting for the rest of the parts from Bachido to get start playing.

#3

wow that looks like one great shamisen and welcome to the forum!

#4

Hey Christian! Glad you joined the forum, and have your Beginner’s Shamisen assembled! I’ll send you the courses now! :slight_smile:

Also, meet Bernhard Hoffman, aka, BH! He’s been a strong part of the Bachido community for the past 4 years. He made several homemade electric shamisen-like stick instruments before finally getting a shamisen himself (which he’s now converting into an electric slayer). His devotion to shamisen has been so inspiring, Kevin Kmetz created a song about him, which is called The Austrian Taxi Driver. (Because BH is one of the finest taxi drivers in Graz!)

And on that note, it appears Graz and Berndorf is less than two hours away! You guys should definitely meet up at some point!

#5

I still have to work a bit on the ‘boss shamisener’ part :slight_smile:

#6

Hello thanks for the nice welcome!
yes I have heard about BH when I was getting started on Bachido XD

So I now watched alot of videos from the beginner´s Shamisen and there is one thing I wonder?
In the Videos the neck (sao) locks much wider than mine?
Mine is about 2,5 cm - 1 inch
Ist this the normal size?

#7

I believe I have a nagauta shamisen which comes in at an even skinnier 2.3 to 2.4 centimeters as for the width of its sao . . .

Hey I would indeed not rule out a meet and greet open invitation for coffee in graz or maybe I’ll even make it to Berndorf sometime I haven’t checked out your linked pages in all detail yet but that village partnership sure looks to be very nice . . . at Mariapfarr home village we have that with Matadepera outside Barcelona also cool except for I didn’t encounter any shamisens or sake there . . . :slight_smile:

      • small talk - - -

speaking of taxi I had a very nice SWEDISH passenger this week by the name of Johannes Skagius (quite sure he won’t mind this exceptional for me disclosure) he hopes to enter the olympic swimming pool in rio next year and I would hope so too after a very nice ride to the airport exceptionally respectful as a passenger overall down to earth cool friendly guy . . .

oh I also started a cool taxi page on facebook that I am currently filling with some initial content before even letting local taxi collegues know about it and before also having a batch of Austrian Taxi Drivers cards ready for dispatch :slight_smile:

although partly in german only it is open to everyone for I hope sharing taxi ride experiences from wherever and I am posting worldwide taxi related news and stories I stumble upon there some of which are sure to be funny . . . :slight_smile:

check it out and like it as or rather if you like it or whatever I would say you should not miss out on stories from the streets at Facebook . . .

      • cheers and have a splendid weekend everyone - - -
#8

Christian, welcome!

If in the videos you’re watching he’s using a Tsugaru, then yes, the sao is going to be wider than yours. I have both a Nagauta and a Tsugaru now and the latter makes the former look dainty. I mean, I always thought they looked bigger, but having them both on hand just makes it almost laughingly apparent. The tsugaru is bigger, louder, harder… It’s something else.

#9

Hey Christian, I just measured several nagauta shamisen in my closet, and a majority of them are 25mm, and as BH said, some are even a bit thinner than that. So yours is the standard thickness for your style of shamisen. :slight_smile:

The tsugaru is bigger, louder, harder… It’s something else.

Ah, but as you’ll discover over years of playing, that doesn’t necessarily make it better. :slight_smile: I once felt that way too. Over time, I found that the larger tsugaru shamisen does give a great tone when I’m feeling like playing hard and heavy (like percussively striking near the koma), but when playing more melodically (and dare I say, “musically” :wink: ), I do find the tone of the smaller nagauta shamisen very pleasing for me. There’s sweet advantages to both.

#10

ok thanks alot!

#11

Ah, in that case, perhaps it’s somehow due to the visual perspective in the video. The neck thickness of the Beginner’s Shamisen I played in the video was definitely 25~26mm. :slight_smile: Just like yours.

#12

Hello everyone!

So finally my Beginners Shamisen starter set have arrived and I finished assemble my Shamisen!

So now I have 1 questions?

About the Position Marks!?

I am using a tuning device like for guitars. So I was thinking to put the position marks right there where the right tone should be…
So my question " which tone should be on which position?"
like Position 1 ----> D, C#, etc…

So can someone tell me which notes should be on which position?

So if I had to figure out the notes for the positions for myself it would be:

Tuning: CGC

0 = C
1 = C#
2 = D
3 = D#
(#) = E
4 = F
5 = F#
6 = G
7 = G#
8 = A
9 = A#
b = B
————–at this point the octave starts—————–
10 = C#
11 = D
12 = D#
13 = E
1# = F
14 = F#
15 = G
16 = G#
17 = A
18 = A#

So can someone tell me if I am wright with this???
Thank you!

Thanks alot!
Chris

#13

Available information sources I know:

-Kyle’s book
-The position strips sold by Bachido
-Shamisen scale viewer by Karl Hedlund (maps position mark with tuning + note)

#14

Thanks for the Info.
I own Kyle´s book!
The Scale viewer is very helpfull thanks alot!

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