If I had a Macbook Air, I’d have frozen to death…

Lucky for me, my trusty half-ton laptop has an industrial strength power supply that has an auxilliary function as a foot warmer! I shall now perform computationally intensive tasks to prevent hypothermia…

It was cold and rainy, with lots of low cloud. When the cloud lifted, it revealed that what was rain down here in the valley was snow on Buko-san!

Timelapse Clouds on Mt Buko

This is a small timelapse movie I made this morning. I used some hacked firmware on my Canon A650IS, which allowed me to run simple script that takes a photo every 2 seconds until I press a button on the camera to stop it.

I then used a program called Slide Show Movie Maker to take the individual images and put them together into an AVI movie.

I then used VirtualDub to clean things up a bit – tweak the contrast, etc.

uploaded to google video – sadly the compression they use makes it a bit chunky. the original version is bigger and much smoother. still, better than nothing!

and there you go. about 2 hours compressed into 2 minutes…

A Map

Heres a google map that ive added some things to. Ill add more as time goes on.

Transitions

I feel like I’ve misstepped into a slightly alternate universe. I’m in Japan, and Chichibu, but not quite the same one as I left last time…

The flight over was great – a brand new Airbus A330 with 2-4-2 seating. Comfy seats, and the only empty seat on the flight was next to me, so I had both an aisle and a window, and was able to put the middle armrest up and sleep lying down(ish)!

Flying into Japan at sunrise is something worth having a window seat for. A low mist covered the ground, but some things poked up above. power line towers, smokestacks, giant wind turbines. Ethereal. And gorgeous!

Our plane was first to land, and i was through immigration and customs in a flash. Only issue then was that the first Skyliner train into Tokyo didn’t come for another hour and a half. So I decided to jump on a “local” train – which takes two hours instead of one to get into Tokyo, as it stops at every single station. I didn’t mind though, as I alternated between dozing and watching the various groups of commuters ebb and flow. Japanese trains provide a wonderfully rich soundtrack of squeaks, hisses, groans, whirrs and squeals, which then gets added to depending on passenger density by sneezes and snuffles, book page flipping, foot shuffling and quiet chatter. I could have pulled out the recorder, but was enjoying it all in a sleepy traveller’s haze just a bit too much to move.

Across Tokyo, only to discover that because of a track problem on an intersecting line, the Red Arrow (Express train to Chichibu) wasn’t running. So onto another local train. Here again, the feeling of being in an alternate universe took hold – I swear they have changed some of the station names on the Seibu Chichibu line.

Still, I was in Chichibu by lunch time, and I decided to walk from the station to the Kakizakai’s place. Haruka (eldest son) opened the door and got a surprise to find me there and leaped out to give me a huge hug. Lunch with Kaoru, Megumi and Haruka was just what was needed, before Haruka – who has just got the japanese version of his P-plates, drove me around to the caravan, under the somewhat nervous supervision of Kaoru 😉

Luckily for Kaoru, Haruka is about to start studying Physics at university, so if it survives the next week, the car should be safe for a while – the party on Monday night will be to both welcome me to Chichibu again, and to farewell Haru, who will be living on campus.

So, im settled in the slightly alternate universe caravan. Its chilly, and there is still a bit of snow visible on top of Mt Buko. Spring is on its way though – blossom and new growth starting to appear on trees. and they’ve changed the midday song too. i guess its a seasonal thing…

Third trip

I’m off to japan again. Three months, but this time in spring rather than autumn. It was going to be less, as patchie and I miss each other a lot, but as she pointed out to me – last time I was just making significant breakthroughs after two months, so to have to come home at that point would be a shame.

the Sakura Forecast is estimating the first cherry blossoms to open in tokyo on the 26th of march. I arrive on the 25th 🙂 so I should be there for the full cherry blossom experience. Expect lots of photos…

a very quick noodle

more noodling.

Flights of imagination

This recording is a bit of something raw. I was playing around, not working on a piece, just playing with the sound and different fingerings. I hit on something i liked, and just worked with it for a while (hence the repetitive nature of the recording).

So its not a piece, but an exploration. Something that could/might develop into a piece, with some work.

so there are pauses, stops, a few ‘interesting’ notes 🙂 and a lot of repetition with small tweaks.

comments? i usually spend at least some of each practice session doing things like this. worth sticking up here? or should i stick to proper pieces?

Sanya (Mountain Valley)

Please forgive me for this poor excuse for Sanya. Pitch problems, not finishing phrases smoothly, etc… 😦 but i’ll put it up, warts and all – and it will really serve to give me incentive to do better.

Ralf, a friend who also plays shakuhachi, made some recordings at the Aus. Shakuhachi Festival back in October 2004 as part of some research he was doing. He sent me this. Its a recording of me playing a piece called Honte Choshi (the Chikuho school’s version of Hon Shirabe).

It blows my mind listening to that, and comparing it to what I play like now. Im pretty hard on myself when assessing my performance – so its pretty cool to have a recording like that as a yardstick for progress.

Another interesting coincidence – today was the first time I heard that recording, and its been about 2 years since ive played any Chikuho-ryu pieces, but I noticed that in the last few days, a few interesting changes had crept into my Hon Shirabe. On listening to Honte Choshi – those things are present in it! Spooky! 😉 Listening to Honte Choshi has also revealed where certain distinct features that are present in my Hon Shirabe originate from – it seems they were part of Honte Choshi, and some bit of me remebered them and felt they worked well enough to keep.

Hon Shirabe

Another Hon Shirabe. its something i always play at least once every time i practice, so if im not happy with whatever else ive recorded, this will usually be the fallback.

It’s a great piece, often described as both the beginning and the end. the first honkyoku usually taught to a student, and simple in structure – no ornaments or flourishes – but also nowhere to hide. no flashy fingerings to hide poor pitch control behind. the name is often translated as “original piece” or “original search”, but also “basis for enlightenement” or simply “beginning”.

Kakizakai’s says here: “This is a demanding piece because if our inner energies are not gathered, the image will be limited, as if to see only the tip of an iceberg.” and he’s right. if you havent been practicing, or your condition isnt good, then it will show up in this piece, clear as day.

Its also a great reference piece, for judging progress, and differences in your condition from day to day. Also for comparing different instruments.

Sometimes i try out different things – like the barebones version from last time – or sometimes different things just come out on their own. but for each player, i think it settles into a form that suits them, maybe changing a bit as they change and improve.

also today, i recorded a version of Sanya, Mountain Valley – but i wasn’t really over the moon about it, so i’ll try it again tomorrow and see if its any better. 🙂

Rising to the surface

Its been a long, long three months since I returned from Japan, and Ive been guilty of lack of contact with friends and family, neglecting my flute practice, sleeping too much, and other such crimes against life. But, its time to get on with things.

There is a shakuhachi festival in Bisei in Japan in August this year. Its run by Yokoyama and his school, and may represent the best chance I’ll have of meeting and learning from him. JetStar have cheap flights from syd->osaka now too. So a few weeks holiday to go is do-able. This will also help give me something to focus my practice towards. Bronwyn has a baby now, and is not teaching for at least another month, so I dont have weekly lessons to kick me along. the last two weeks have seen me get back into the flute, though a bit erratically, but the sound is good, and it feels great.

In an effort to provide an incentive to practice daily again, im going to try an experiment. I’ve been recording pieces as part of my practice, and ive put a few up on my website. I am going to try and put up a new recording every few days. Of course, because you guys might be listening, I will want each one to be better than the last – which ought to result in a similar effect on my amount of practice as upcoming lessons have.

i still need to get some webspace sorted to put these files, but for now, ill hang them off the webpage and link to them from here. So, have a listen if you like and if you have any comments, let me know.

here’s the first recording: Hon Shirabe, bare bones version, as usual, recorded in the bunker at Middle Head.