I want to be a flute.

A shakuhachi is made from bamboo. Bamboo is a grass, and, although it seems like a stand of bamboo is many individual plants, in fact, it is a single organism, united beneath the surface by a complex interlacing of roots and runners. Most shakuhachi leave the root-end of the stalk intact; the reasons given are various, the most popular being that many of the komuso, the 'monks of nothingness' who wandered Japan playing the shakuhachi, were ronin, and, prohibited from carrying swords, they used their flutes as clubs, with the knobby root ends adding extra authority, if you will. It might also have been aesthetic, or it may have been to take advantage of the shape of the inside of the bamboo as it descends into the root.

For me, it's something else. It's a reminder of that interconnectedness, that, while it is beneath the surface of my everyday reality of finite things and distinct moments, is, nevertheless, its foundational reality. The shakuhachi, if you will, springs up from that subterranean web to lend a voice to the individual which calls the listener back to that primal awareness.

They're also very beautiful; I've been known to sit & stare at the patterns and whorls that calligraph the surface of the bamboo for endless moments of wonder.

There's a saying in the Native American flute community that the maker, when he hollows out the wood to make a flute, removes the heart of the flute, and the player puts it back in. Bamboo, of course, is naturally hollow, but the sentiment is still there for me. If anything, it's even more powerful with a shakuhachi; with a Native American flute, the timbre, range, pitch, and most of the other musical possibilities of the flute are determined by the maker. With an NAF, the music isn't really created by the breath, it's created by the hands. Nothing could be further from the truth with a shakuhachi.

A shakuhachi is nothing more than a stalk of bamboo with five fingerholes poked in it and a blowing edge cut across the top. Because it is an end-blown flute, the shape of the player's mouth cavity, the angle of breath, the velocity and pressure of breath, the shape of the player's lips, all have a profound impact on every aspect of playing, even moreso than the more common transverse flute. Because there are no keys, the holes can be fractionally covered; this, in combination with techniques involving the blowing angle (eg., lowering the head, raising the head, moving it from side to side) allows a range of over two octaves with the ability to play microtones (notes between the keys on a piano) as well as the ability to play the same note in a variety of ways, which gives it a different timbre.

It's a tremendously simple instrument, but the techniques are extremely demanding. The sound is arresting, vocal, able to go from the barest whisper to an elemental shriek. It requires tremendous focus, but not tension. While not all shakuhachi players view their practice as religious, the shakuhachi has a venerable tradition as one of the Zen arts; the term suizen refers to the practice of achieving enlightenment through the breath -- playing the shakuhachi.

When I took up guitar, back in 1986, I learned a couple of chords and started banging out songs. I learned the basic blues scales, but was lackadaisical about practicing them, to say the least. I took lessons sporadically, and rarely learned anything note-for-note, trying instead to find my own personal voice, devoid of undue artistic influence from other players. It was a really stupid plan; although I've played guitar for almost twenty years, now, I'm less technically facile than players with half my experience, and can play maybe a handful of songs. I do mostly free improvising, but if I play something, it's gone. I can't generally repeat it.

What a waste.

When I finally committed to learning the shakuhachi last year, I decided I was not going to make that mistake again. It's a seductive one, only playing what's easy and fun, but I've struggled to resist it. The discipline hasn't paid off handsomely with my playing yet, but I accept that; it's said it can take ten years just to get a good solid tone. To some extent, this is an overstatement, but I've never struggled so hard with an instrument in my life, and I've picked up quite a few.

But when it flows ... I am empty, the flute is empty, and we are filled with each other, with all that is, with the sound of the wind in the trees and the sound of my lover's voice on the phone downstairs. I want to give that sound, that feeling, to anyone who will listen. The shakuhachi is often compared to a temple bell, calling one back, serving as a reminder.

A moment of beauty, a flicker of clear sight, a whisper of the one breath, ebbing and flowing from me to flute to you to me to flute to you, around and around.