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…
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?
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 )
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)
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
)