Hi evryone, i’ m gonna buy the wood to build my shamisen, reading the kyle’s book i noticed that the only wood that i can buy from my seller is african padauk. Will the sound quality get ruined a lot if i use it for all the shamisen?
Not at all - although you might not want to use it for the itomaki.
Sorting through the actual woods used in crafting shamisen is a bit of an ordeal, since the names used (karin, shitan, and kouki) don’t necessarily directly correspond to specific woods. Particularly karin is kind of a mess.
African Padauk, which should be something around 1700 janka, is softer than other, true rose-woods. But… it’s definitely fine. You’d likely see it sold as “karin” here in Japan - and karin shamisen built with a fine examples of the wood and a steady hand sound great.
2 Likes
Thank you very much, for the itomaky i will find another kind of wood.