Start of a new journey!

[Stefan_Ploner]

Hey there everyone

I thought, to start my hopefully pretty long journey of playing shamisen, I could introduce myself to this wonderful community (or at least it looks that way to me after browsing through the forum a bit ^^ ) !

After always enjoying traditional Japanese music and more modern things, coming from bands like the Yhoshida Brothers , I decided that I want to learn how to play shamisen.
I have never played a string instrument before and I’m not a musician at all, but right now I feel like I this would be a great idea!

And because I am thinking of buying a shamisen here on bachido.com, I have a few questions that are product related and one that is just a general question I’m just curious about.

• When buying the Beginner’s Shamisen, it will be shipped from japan? (correct me if I’m wrong) Will it be through EMS?

• In the Beginner Shamisen Accessory Set what type of strings are the ones in there? Are these Nagauta specific? Are there even strings that are specific for a certain type of shamisen/play-style?

• Is Kyle Abbotts book, Shamisen of Japan only useful if you’re planning on learning tsugaru style playing or is it also good as a general introduction and learning material for shamisen?

• Is there a bachi that fits for all play-styles or are the different bachi used for different styles?

• And to anyone reading this, which shamisen was your first one(if you have more then one ofc)? Why exaclty this one?

At this point I think it is pretty clear that I’m totally new to all of this and atm I’m trying to gain a bit of an overview.
Really looking forward to your answers and many thanks in advance!!

[Kyle_Abbott]

Hi Stefan!
Whoa, you’re in Graz! There’s an awesome Bachido member here, Bernhard, who’s been part of the Bachido community since the very beginning. Anywho, he’s in Graz as well!
Anyhow, welcome to Bachido!

Thank you for telling us how you got interested! Yoshida Brothers have done so much to bring shamisen to modern music. Shamisen is a great instrument to start with! There’s only three strings and it’s very melodic. When your shamisen is ready to play, you can literally start learning your first song within minutes. All it takes is practice (to get over the initial natural awkwardness of the large plectrum) and most importantly, zero expectations of oneself (I.e, not to compare yourself to the Yoshida Brothers ). If you keep the focus of just having fun, then you will have lots of fun!

1. Correct, the Beginner’s Shamisen is sent direct from Japan via EMS

2. The Accessory Set comes with Nagauta strings, which are meant for the Beginner’s Shamisen (which is a nagauta/hosozao shamisen)

3. Shamisen of Japan is a bit of both, though mostly centered on Tsugaru style. In retrospect, the educational material in Shamisen of Japan is more intermediate than I first thought. It would be best to start with the free Crash Course (http://bachido.com/school/crash-course-1/chapter-1) and then check out the book after you’ve achieved some comfort with the shamisen.

4. I would say tsugaru bachi is the most all-purpose because it’s smaller. Though not 100% authentic, you can play nagauta/jiuta styles with a tsugaru bachi, but using a jiuta bachi (which is huge) for tsugaru style is supremely difficult.

5. I started with a nagauta shamisen, (learning both jiuta, minyo and tsugaru folk songs) which a friend generously let me borrow for several years. After that, I built a few tsugaru shamisen because I wanted the louder tone (and was getting into the “tsugaru world”). Now, I am favoring the Sakura shamisen (which has a thinner neck than futozao ‘Tsugaru’ shamisen), as I’m finding a thinner neck is more comfortable to use. But, it’s all matter of preference.

[Stefan_Ploner]

Thanks a lot for the super quick answers!
This and browsing through the forum answered basically all the things I wasn’t sure about and now I’m pretty much set on what I’m going to buy!

I think I’m really lucky to have found such a motivated and awesome community that stands behind the shamisen.

[B_H]

although it seems after 3 hours my playing of the tin whistle is already better than my playing of the shamisen after what feels like 3 years . . . see I have a nagauta shamisen at home that I was not skillfull enough though to repair and restore to a seriously playable condition . . . anyway though I might also know one or the other helpful thing for the very start and we could and it would be my pleasure to meet for a shamisen and whistle duet sometime for sure . . .

[Stefan_Ploner]

The only thing I can play on the tin whistle is concerning hobbits, but really happy that there is someone in my vicinity who seems to know a few things about shamisen! (and is going to be a tin whistle pro )

But I will gladly take you up on your offer, when I get my shamisen. Cause right now, I’m really really hyped and hope to not lose my motivation when I can start playing^^

[B_H]

Perfect! Hyped huh? Watch that clip at your own risk then . . .

[Edgardo_Marrero]

Welcome Stefan! Oh and BH ^ WOW!

[Yatagarasu_R]

There’s quite a few different styles in shamisen, it’s good to learn about them at some point. For a good part the equipment is somewhat interchangeable - eg. you can generally play tsugaru songs on a nagauta rig and vice versa, even though they are fairly different. Actually it seems some of the Beginner’s shamisen shipped with tsugaru strings (will drop a line to Kyle about it)… but I’ve been just happily using mine all along!

This thread has quite a bit of info on the Beginner’s shamisen:

You can google for info on different shamisen styles, also you may find some useful info in this intro by one of our most favourite sensei:

5 Things You Need To Know About: The Shamisen

Of course it all works best if you have the “correct” rig for your preferred style, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much at the start, you’ll understand the choices better later on. The material on Bachido.com helps you most if you like tsugaru, minyou or western styles, but everyone has to learn the basics anyway and for that purpose the instructional videos are excellent.

The (faux) bekkou style bachi would probably be a “generic” bachi, because you could also play tsugaru pieces fluidly with it (though, I guess a good player could do that with an ice scrape ). If I was seriously trying to learn say jiuta or nagauta, I’d throw it away, of course. It depends a bit on your desired style, actually. The bekkou is flexible so I might start with that if planning to head tsugaru direction and if it’s more say nagauta, go with the wooden one which is cheaper. Minyou, don’t think it’d really matter.

PS. Make sure to fill in your profile text at some point, you can get to know the people here much better!

PPS. Anybody have shamisen tabs for Concerning Hobbits?

[B_H]

Concerned hobbits would be a somewhat cooler title of what I can only suspect to be associated with that lord of the rings shite I am not a fan of so I won’t even look that up . . . of course I would accept a personal performance by Stefan on the tin whistle though out of courtesy along with a cup of coffee or whiskey should it be a somewhat longer piece . . .

Yeah that clip is cool as an early rage against the machine fan it reminded me of tom morellos work on guitar and the possibilities on shamisen are truly almost infinite as also the two further clips I shall try to attach as reference undoubtedly will show . . .

[B_H]

[Stefan_Ploner]

Thanks for the informative answer! I’ve been browsing through the forums a lot and then decided on what to get.

And what I have now is the Beginner Shamisen with a full bone koma and a wooden bachi! Started playing like to days ago and it actually wasn’t as akward as expected.

It really helps out a lot that there are so many people asking questions that are relevant for a beginner (and ofc also when you have played for some time ).

Yesterday evening was pretty amazing after I didn’t need half an hour for tuning my shamisen but instead I did it in a few minutes! That really got my spirits up, cause I could feel the progress!! (at least that’s what it feels like^^)

Besides that, Kyles crash course videos are really helpful and watching him play a song already made me adjust so many thing like hand positioning, bachi grip, holding the shamisen, etc.!

[Yatagarasu_R]

Cool stuff, congrats! Just the amazing progress one makes with Kyle’s videos should keep one motivated at the start.

Eventually there’s stuff like the correct hand/bachi positioning and movement to pay attention to. Think that’s covered in some of the video courses, not sure which ones and how much.

[B_H]

Congratulations!