ooookaaaay that’s what I would call inspiration . . .
of course there is the book by Kyle (I shall order sometime) and anyway whether your craftsmanship is on that level or uh a wee bit farther away from that I thought it would be fun to have a forum topic where we can share pictures and clips of our creations . . .
gambatte
so far I have built the sem which you can see on my profile page . . . that was before and what led to discovering the shamisen for me . . . gonna at least style the next stick with strings in a shamisen direction . . .
(should you need ad free webspace for direct links to video or mp3 clips I can offer that I understand a post pictures option is on the to do list for the forum)
so I got Eye of the Tiger down and even get sort of a percussive sound via an upwards stroke on the top string that also hits the wood but and since I’m not that good anyway and don’t have a good mic I should give up on the idea of creating that cool demo clip and keep just playing whatever so here’s a sound clip to at least show that the sem can be played and gives off sound 
So when will there be pictures?
(Sem is featured on the left on my avatar pic and there’s a link to some pictures on my profile page too)
( http://freecarvers.com/riders/m/photos/browse/album/On-Strings )
and now well I know it’s been a while the reason being that I f***** up my second model in a lot of ways to the point of being demotivated to even finish it
BUT I learned a lot from those mistakes and on top of that the thing is playable (a bit hard to play but quite loud and bigger range than the sem so sort of gives a bigger glimpse of what it is like to play a real shamisen or at least a better future creation of mine for which I might get a nice piece of wood from south africa where my parents are at this time so looking forward to that too . . .
so behold the Saosem as I call it on the linked pictures at the end
wood is some sort of acacia and neck and rear bridges are made of pencil plastic pieces, as a body and skin alternative I used a Cars 2 merchandise pencil case, acoustic steel strings I put on this one since I might fool around with piezo pickups and thought steel strings might be easier for getting a distorted sound so yeah although f****** up I think it was worth making this one and I just started playing a bit
http://freecarvers.com/shamisen/saosem1.jpg
am I the only one in this thread? I hoped to see some other kankara like monster creations from others for inspiriation (I could use it
anyway a sound clip uh I just checked my profile and decided to keep it at “just starting out” for some more time . . .
http://freecarvers.com/shamisen/saosem.wav
While I think you need to seriously get a real shamisen, I must say that last recording was actually cool. Is it the same instrument as in the earlier recording? It sounds much more like a shamisen now.
Wow, I must say I’m impressed! I hope Gerry checks out this thread. He’s really into Kankara, and I think would really enjoy hearing your creation.
well done mate, thats got a really nice, warm sound
Hola and thanks you are very kind in your comments and I am definitely having fun with this thing although not good in several details this stick does have a practice value - even checking out song tabs makes sense and I have put fret position markers for 3, 4, 6 and 9 on it
I am looking forward to the tabs in Kyle’s book and to the next kankara it will be but it might and I hope that stick number 3 will turn out to be real nice . . .
currently a full time taxi driver I always have the saosem in the car which means time for practice and funny conversations . . .