Pink Floyd's "Obscured by Clouds" on 2.74 Taimu jinashi shakuhachi
Live at the
Forte House in
San Francisco October 19, 2014.
Performed and arranged by
Cornelius 深禅 (Shinzen)
Boots.
Shakuhachi and Taimu albums at CD
Baby:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/corneliusboots3
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/corneliusboots
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/corneliusboots2
Digital album at bandcamp: http://shinzenshakuhachi.bandcamp.com/
Renegade Nature Music. This arrangement features a couple of "expanded techniques" that are rare or unknown on shakuhachi: circular breathing (rare but has been around) and what I call "dragon's breath" which combines kagyraa (low
Tuvan throat singing) with a shakuhachi tone: this is a brand new technique as far as I know, but has some good possibilities.
Since the shakuhachi has such a history creating and performing "nature music" (with songs such as "
Three Valleys" "
Floating Clouds", "
Waterfall", "Nesting of the
Cranes" and many more) I have tapped into this tradition and begun to create new nature pieces called "Renegade Nature Music." Some of these are original compositions and some are arrangements or re-imaginings of nature music from other genres, such as
Classic Rock.
These are wide-bore, jinashi, root-end bamboo flutes. The Taimu excels at achieving a tone that is very earthy and glowing at the same time as projecting more than older style large Zen bamboo flutes (hocchiku, kyotaku for instance.) Taimu are made by Mujitsu Shakuhachi in San Francisco and more information about Taimu and mukyoku can be found on this website:
http://www.mujitsu.com/mukyoku/
Cornelius is the first student of
Grandmaster Michael Chikuzen
Gould to have earned a Shihan (master teaching license) and was given the shakuhachi name 深禅 "Shinzen" (depth Zen or deep Zen). In addition to teaching, Cornelius has recorded and written, in shakuhachi calligraphic notation, a series of 27 etudes (mukyoku) for Taimu shakuhachi. He plays all types of flutes, but specializes in jinashi and large-bore shakuhachi.
http://www.komuso.com/people/people.pl?person=1849
Visit www.shinzenshakuhachi.com and
sign up on the mailing list or contact Cornelius for online or in person lessons. You don't need a flute or "basic sounds" before you start learning: with shakuhachi, these are very important aspects of your first lessons.
More information on his original compositions for Taimu (bass) shakuhachi:
http://www.mujitsu.com/mukyoku/
"
Free Bird" renegade nature music video
http://youtu.be/DTmf4MChsMY
These raw bamboo flutes evoke the breathy sound of sacred mysteries and have been used as meditation tools by esoteric Zen monks and mountain hermits for over
1000 years. Exploring these earthy sounds creates a connection to Nature and primordial dream states of consciousness: the trees singing, the mud chanting, the cave yawning, the sage wandering, the invisible glowing. The primary solo repertoire, created by
Buddhist monks in ancient
Japan, grew out of breath awareness practices, chant, and the contemplation of Nature and the nature of
Existence.
深禅