On the Road Again
At the moment I am in Dusseldof, Germany, the starting point of my tour with the Uzume Taiko Ensemble. Our first show will be in Wuppertal tomorrow night. We have 20 straight shows with Mondays off. It´s gonna be a tough tour but I´m grateful to be working playing music. With all the budget cuts to the arts going in Canada at the moment, it´s truly a blessing to have work like this.
This show is interesting for me as I will not only be playing shakuhachi but a variety of other wind instruments as well such as: shinobue, duduk (Armenian), piri (Korean oboe), didgeridoo, conch; as well as vocals and Vietnamese mouth harp. Shakuhachi is my core of course and it will be one of the features of this particular show. One of the very cool things about being a musician is the opportunity to play these fascinating instruments. It´s a great way to live! It´s very fulfilling and there is lots of freedom and you get to meet lots of interesting people and visit new and fascinating places. Touring one month out of the year is just right for me. I start to miss my beautiful home and wife on the Sunshine Coast of Canada!
By the way, it´s great to see Ash Dargin blogging about the didgeridoo! I´ve been playing didgeridoo almost as long as shakuhachi and it has definitely enriched my shakuhachi playing, as I often use circular breathing when I play contemporary music. One of my shakuhachi students did her PhD dissertation on the relationship between avian (bird) respiration and didgeridoo/shakuhachi playing which is very interesting. When she publishes it I will let you all know how to access it and read it.
Gratitude is at the heart of shakuhachi playing for me. I consider it a miracle that I am actualy doing what I am doing. My road has been so full of pain and suffering; but I kept on this path guided by my love for this bamboo flute. I told myself early on, “Rich or poor, I´ll keep playing shakuhachi for the rest of my life.” “Okagesame de” is a Japanese phrase which expresses the deep gratitude for existing in this world due to all one´s relationships with all the people and things in life, which expresses perfectly what I feel.
Another Japanese bamboo flute which I play is the Shinobue, which I will be writing more about in my next post. This is a Japanese side-blown flute which I will be doing more work with in the years to come. One of the other new drummers in the group, Eien Hunter Ishikawa, is a fine shinobue player and very inspiring to work with as he is a very skilled musician and has a deep connection to Japanese culture (particularly taiko drum and shinobue). The art of shinobue is an under-appreciated beauty which I hope to see more of it grown in the future. Folks such of Motofumi Yamaguchi of the famed KODO drummers of Japan, and more recently, Kaoru Watanabe (also a former member of Kodo) have been instrumental in introducing this most beautiful and unique flute to the world. I look forward to sharing some of my experiences with this flute with you.
Until next time…
Alcvin Ryuzen Ramos
www.bamboo-in.com
