SHAKULUTE
          Shakuhachi Headjoint for Silver Flute
 
 
    

      2004 New York Shakuhachi Festival
 
         Invitation from Mr. Monty Levenson
      Click Here for detail  | BiographyOriginal Works

    205.5.27     
   Monty's new alto shakulute
                 ☆Finally I Got IT☆
   
What a wonderful Instrument
              that I have needed for a long time!!

          
March.14, 2003
                        from Monty Levenson's Homepage
       On Monty's Website    
                "Six of Original pieces" from CD
                                         

 About this hybrid instrument
   Never laugh at the picture of Shakulute after only a glance.
  This is still the third instrument in Japan now (March, 2003).
   On March in 2004, there are now six Shakulutes
  in Japan, because I have two ones and four other people
  have: John Kaizan Neptune, Bruce Huebner, a person in
  Ehime prefecture and one in Engaru who is my student.
             
   Maybe you can understand that Shakulute is a wonderful
  instrument
when you listen to the sound.
   Anyway it has a very rich low sound which the flute doesn't have.
   Of course, blowing goes straight down.
    In addition, it is very easy to do tate-yuri, yoko-yuri, and mawashi-yuri.
   And moreover, Shakulute is anexcellent musical instrument,
   because it is not difficult to play the passage mixed with # and b(flat)  
   though it is not easy for us to perform such a passage with the shakuhachi.

    The experience that I started playing the flute in the brassband
  when I was a senior high student is made the most like this now.
    How lucky I am! I appreciate honkyoku and jiuta with the five-hole-
  shakuhachi, and I enjoy harmony and rhythm when I play modern hougaku
  with the seven-hole-shakuhachi, and besides
   I can playpop music and my original music at will which was
  composed for the Shakulute.
  
    The fateful encounter with Mr. Monty Levenson came into blossom l
  ike this.  Nobody imagined this fate.
   This hybrid instrument was named "Fulhachi-kun" in Japanese, and
  Shakulute" in English by me.
   The naming "Shakulute" is recognized on Monty's homepage
  .(
You can link each page below.)

  
*****************************************
     Please look at Mt. Monty's HP ('Shakulute' and '
       <Links>Shakuhachi Players & Teachers'
).
     I'm introduced in these pages with the pictures.

Web Site:(Shakulute)   http://www.shakuhachi.com/Q-Models-Headjoint-WER.html/

 (Links P
T)  http://www.shakuhachi.com/L.ShakuhachiPlayers.html
 (Main Menu)  http://www.shakuhachi.com
  
*****************************************
   Reflection Message when they saw SHAKULUTE

 1. Mr. Hiroshi Yonezawa, a shakuhachi player of Nihon Ongaku-
   shudan(Pro Musica Nipponia), wrote me:

     "Long time ago, when 'Okuraro' appeared, it wasn't supported by
   the players' needs, and didn't establish itself because
   the time was not ripe at that time. But I think it isn't different now.
   Some of the studio flute players copy how to play the shakuhachi,
   and play their flutes in 'muraiki'.
   But it is limited in its powerat the problem of the mouthpiece shape.
   I guess that 'fluhachi-kun' will be first popular among the western
   instruments players."


 2 Mr.Suizan Maeda, the shakuhachi player, also wrote me:
     "Yes, undoubtedly it is very different in the figure from the imagination
   of the traditional shakuhachi.But the beginning of the new culture may
   be like this.
    Probably if it becomes verypopular, it will be recognized as the really
   another instruments from the traditional shakuhachi.
    This instrument is the newest hybrid instrument born between the
   western culture and the Japanese one
  as the result that the shakuhachi
   is known to many people all over the world.
    I think Japanese shakuhachiplayers may have psychological resistance.
   But we should receive it as the apperance of the new culture,and should
   never remove it.
    It will be very interesting if it establish itself as the instrument which
   wasinfluenced by the shakuhachi, the Japanese instrument.