Skin Scratches

Building/Repair
#1

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of Bachido~

So a good shamifriend of mine who has been playing about the same amount of time showed up at my house today with his shamisen.

He pulled it out and I noticed that on the lower half of the skin near the edge, there were dings in the skin. almost as if someone had quickly poked at it 4 or 5 times with the tip of a knife…

He said they had been there a few days, but couldnt figure out why

after careful examination of his bachi, I noticed that the bottom edge was slightly chipped. and after looking at his bachizuke, I realized that he may be scratching the skin with it…

So I took a look at my own shamisen, and low and behold… a few small scratches…

Anyone else?

#2

Hi Norm,

Super interesting! I have a horizontal scratch near the bottom of the skin where I accidentally dragged the base once, but I don’t have any from regular playing… What size bachi does your friend use? Maybe that has something to do with the damage?

#3

Last week, I was doing kawahari and as I used the bachi-like spatula (no joke) to press the flaps of skin down to the dou, I accidentally slipped it and it scratched across the top surface of the skin! (I was a little distracted from skyping with Taichi san at the same time :wink: )

Wow, that’s definitely strange. When he does bachizuke, his bachi strikes near the bottom edge of the dou?? Does he have extreme oyogubachi? (The habit of sliding the bachi after striking)

#4

Hm. I’ll have to look at mine now. This is kind of fascinating actually.

#5

I took some pictures of mine~
I haven’t uploaded them anywhere yet, but I was also thinking about showing it to Ryoichiro and seeing what he thinks
If anyone can get to the bottom of it it should be him lol

#6

Incredible… i’ve never heard about anything before. I may ask them to check if there are scratches before buying any chuko shamisen now:P

I’m kinda frightened

#7

how easy is it to scratch the skin while playing?

#8

I would like to see pics too. I’m sure that some scratches are worse than others.

© 2020 Kyle Abbott