How to Practice

Playing shakuhachi well, like any music instrument, requires the player to be high-functioning all of the time. It takes significant training and knowledge to live in that mode, where all the necessary faculties of physical movements, mental concentration and breath stamina are always on call at the highest level.

Here are a few tips:

--Don't warm up.

Students will often spend a lot of time 'warming up'. What they are actually doing is choosing to play badly until they choose to play well. Right from the moment you pick up the flute, you can and should play a great sound immediately. If you determine to pull all your resources carefully and precisely into the first moment of blowing, you'll be surprised how good you can sound....with no warming up. In other words, you check your good posture, position the flute with care and concentration. Release air slowly, and carefully lock on to the tone. Your practice, right from the first note, can be effective, and if you continue into the session with the same care, you are exercising the best quality control possible.

--Don't make mistakes

If you are making mistakes in score reading or fingering notes, or playing off-pitch, you are playing too hastily. Slow things down until you can more reliably pull together the playing skills you need to sound good. If you practice making mistakes, you will successfully learn to play music with mistakes.

--Play wth a pencil

If you are studying folksong, anime music or classical sankyoku, the beat timing can be challenging. If you have a reference recording, it's very helpful to sit with the score and tap a pencil on the left/right beat marks in the score as you listen. This way you can really get to know the music as you accurately read the score and follow the rhythm....exactly the skills you need to play the piece with your flute.

--Repeat

Repetition is how we establish skill sets permanently. But our repetition needs to be accurate. If you are practicing and the repetitions are tending to fall off in quality or accuracy, stop and take a break until you can re-establish quality control.

--Play music without stopping and re-doing

A lot of practice time is devoted to working on notes, phrases or sections. This is a good idea. At some point however, at least once in your practice session you can commit to playing the whole piece, however badly it sounds, without stopping and re-doing a note or phrase. This gives you a real and necessary experience of the complete musical gestalt of the piece under study.

--Always be responsible for your sound

When looking at a new score or trying to play along with a piece of new music, it's tempting to heirarchize our playing. We get so intent on reading the score that our sound production deteriorates. It's not necessary! In fact, it's easier to blow well than to blow badly. It will be less effort to play with good sound as you navigate an unfamiliar score. Bad sound will impede your ability to voice the new music. It's a matter of intention, not skill. Whenever your breath goes through your flute, it can and should be the best breath you can muster at that point in your playing life. As Katsuya Yokoyama said: "play as though you are playing the first, last and only sound of your life."

--Stay friends with your flute

Study with shakuhachi can throw up all kinds of negative reactions, particularly frustration, anger and self-judgement. Like any relationship, it needs care and nurture. Create a lovely, dedicated practice space, in your own aesthetic. Candles, incense, bells, bowls, hanging scrolls, tatami mats, whatever is your fancy.  Before playing, take a few moments of stillness to admire your flute, take some deep breaths, and agree to honor whatever should arise in the playing moment with a calm mind. Frustration generally follows a feeling that you 'should' or 'want' to be able to play better. It's a non-acceptance of who you actually are in this moment. Playing shakuhachi is a humbling experience. We encounter ourselves along the Way and hopefully we can develop ease with the ups and downs of learning.