From America To Japan: Interview With A Shakuhachi Grand Master 名誉大師範

hi Sean how are you doing well Luke how are you doing yeah I'm good thanks okay so for the first question can you please introduce yourself providing a brief overview of your background and journey with a shakach absolutely so my name is Sean headed my goggle or artist name is taiu um I am a professional shakach player I've been living in Japan now for four years um before my shakach uh Journey had started uh now over more than 10 years ago I was a classical violinist and vist I also was uh trai

ned at the Cleveland Institute of Music uh for composition and music theory um and I've had many many jobs in the music world but I just found my home at shakach and uh once I started my career I just didn't even think about turning back to do anything else uh when Co hit I decided that uh because it was almost like a a kind of a reset you know you couldn't really go out and do concerts you really couldn't do a lot of things out in public I thought that it would be a perfect time for me to make

a move to Japan and uh continue my studies and to continue the growth of my career in uh in Japan yeah that's awesome I I noticed that you had uh some qualifications as well yes absolutely so I have um I have my Mayo daihan which is the honorary grandmas title I received that from uh taniguchi shinobu who is a legendary shakach player who is based in kyal um he and I have been in conversation and uh writing letters back and forth and talking uh for quite some time um on and off and uh then he se

nt that to me uh recently that was actually the beginning of this year January 25th I believe was the day for that um and of course I also have my degree in um composition and music theory from clevel of music and uh yeah I think that's pretty much all of my qualifications I think yeah that's awesome that's really cool and um H how did your fascination with the shakah Hai begin and what motivated you to pursue it as a career well the story for me was goes back to uh childhood um I I just grew up

watching um Asian dramas Asian anime um ji yis you know the old Samurai films I played all the video games I mean I I was obsessed with 10 sh Z on the Xbox 360 when I was a kid and uh so all of that musical background the bgm within those um different mediums just stuck with me so it's not like there was ever a point where I could say like oh at this age I was you know just became so interested in Asian culture it had always been there um even from like the earliest memories I've had I've alway

s remembered really liking a uh with the thing with Japanese is I I kind of met the shakach by accident it was one of those things I was studying in college I was working on my degree in music and I heard it and I was like wow that's the flute that's the sound that I've been looking for like I really want so I picked it up to start um learning how to play it because I wanted to take the the music from those compositions and and use the the original music for chakashi as kind of like my DNA base

for my my own compositions and lo and behold it was had much different plans for me I tell people a lot that I didn't really choose shakach that it chose me um and then it was that was it it just became my um my uh my career I actually interestingly enough the first paid career paid job I ever had uh I was was living in Cleveland Ohio and uh one of the uh one of the local uh Japan societies of America it's actually was called Japan Society of Dublin and I was like oh sweet I get to go overseas b

ut it was actually there's a double in Ohio and I didn't know that so so then they called me and they're like hey we you know we heard you play shakach we'd love to have you come and perform at some of our Gala events and we're also having a Japanese language speaking um thing we'd love to have you come and I said oh well you know I'm not really performing for anybody I'm just kind of do it for myself and they're like we'll pay you I'm like okay when do you need me there uh and then that's how i

t just started just one performance after another uh just started lining up yeah that's awesome yeah I can sort of appreciate what you say when you mentioned about uh the shakah just stand Standing out to you and and that is a basis for your progression of your career once you realize that's what you wanted to do and my wife asked me last night because obviously I mentioned that prior to this meeting I mentioned that I yesterday I did a an interview with a shami sand player uh a couple of weeks

ago I did an interview with a shakah Hatchi player and my wife asked me why don't I learn from those people but for a long time I've wanted to play The Tao or yeah so I but at the moment um there's no teachers that I know of in my area but eventually I'd like to use that as a foundation for my compositions down the track MH absolutely I yeah totally get it and best of Lu with it I hope you find best teacher around yeah thank you and um being a foreigner in a niche Japanese art form how have you

navigated and integrated yourself into the shakach community in Japan well historically speaking a lot of the schools didn't uh communicate with each other um it was kind of like you you kind of like imagine like one school has their Lane on their highway right and you know the other school has a lane on their Highway and so on they're all going to the same place they're playing shakah haachi they're playing the pieces but they don't they don't cross over each other's Lanes um and that's kind of

changed recently so I would say that there's at first there's kind of a a sort of a cultural thing where they don't like necessarily like to you know cross boundaries there like sometimes the toes on school people don't want to work with Kingo players and so on and so forth um I personally haven't experienced any of that myself I think that that's mostly old now I don't think that that's around um but most of the time when I like every Japanese person I've met who's a avid chakashi player a pro

fessional they've been you know overly supportive uh very kind uh you know and very understanding of the fact that I I am a foreigner and that there are different cultural parts of Japan that I'm just not going to pick up on and um for for those who are watching um you're going to make mistakes in Japanese uh culture and etiquette as well as language uh one thing I will say as a as a big recommendation especially if you want to get into this world of classical Arts is Master Kel and like Kel s k

le and kenle those three different types of of um honorific speech are highly important in um in this world and that's the part that I struggle with the most if there's the if there's any part of we for me it's just navigating the language on what is considered to be appropriate and polite and what is considered to be rude yeah that's interesting I suppose at your position there's not too many people that other than um the sort of the power Distance by age you're at the Pinnacle now though in te

rms of where you're at as far as um your knowledge on the shakach is that right is is there anything else you can attain above Grandmaster oh yeah there's still one level above that and that would be kind of like the EA motal right it's kind of like the the head of the school so um the person who gave me my license would be the head of the school so he holds the highest rank of it um and so that that would be the like the next sort of position or something like that um but after after that sort

of rank it really doesn't you know matter I don't think that there's much difference for you know play playing level I mean you can't I don't think you can just say oh this person has daihan or male daihan Argo they're a really great player um you know the way that my um my teacher explained it to me was that really the daihan and male daihan are much more honorific in their in their titles it has a lot more to do about with what you do for the community right how much you support shakah Hai uh

how much you are you know doing in terms of you know writing compositions or doing performances getting students to be interested in the instrument and so on and so forth so it's much more of like being a cultur cultural Ambassador than it is like you know I know pieces X Y and Z pieces X Y and Z were more like Shihan level like just to become like a certified teacher because that's what the term means so if you know the the pieces in repertoire that would be Shihan right and then anything above

that is just um honorary titles okay that's interesting I was interesting you mentioned about the whole um the whole aspect of uh um different schools going in their own lane it sort of reminds me a bit of martial arts schools and not having some of that crossover as well sounds like there's some sort of similarity yeah absolutely and it's not just this this uh thing with you know shakach as well I mean from what I understand colto is very much the same way um shamien is also the same way um it

doesn't seem to me that like the tsugaru players and the nagauta players are crossing over and you know doing stuff together their styles are so different as well you know shami and players who are doing juta you for example the you know the Ado classical pieces first thing the the um sugaru jamien all of the northern um fast Melodies and folk music uh you know that's they're really different yeah that makes sense yeah I mean like I mentioned to in a private conversation just uh I like the whol

e okan style or at least I think I commented on one of your one of your videos that you mentioned about scales in oh yes the the sunchine that they used there MH yeah yeah that's it yeah so that I found that quite interesting as well and just I guess that comes into uh comes into play with the variation of Styles as well just from a uh Geo locality so to speak yeah absolutely and and then that was that's also historically the case too of you know you know like there's a lot more of these players

in this region of Japan and you know there's a lot more of these players in that region of Japan and you know regionally speaking you know they're separated by distance as well so there's going to be you know obviously different ways of thinking when it comes to that specific art form yeah that's cool so and as a Grandmaster do you maintain connections with the official shakah haachi communities and if so how do you actively participate in them um yeah I mean lots of people uh I work with um th

ere is a a guy in ulaka right now who's actually a a chiku DA Shihan and that which is the highest rank in tozan view uh and him and I are going to have a rehearsal in just a couple weeks you know hang out and play some tunes that he wrote and some Duets that he's been wanting to play um I have uh other other gentlemen around here that uh that come to me every once in a while to take lessons and uh you know hang out and play shakach do some tunes um I I get invited by uh other shakach players an

d Cal players to do events um sometimes locally sometimes a little bit further away uh but it yeah it's just you know as as normal networking you know just talking to people going to events um trading business cards and doing a lot of the traditional Japanese etiquette of introducing oneself and playing and inviting to concerts and so on like that yeah that's cool cool yeah in terms of um in terms of playing um when you go to events and stuff what is a standard amount that you would charge or do

es it just really depend on the situation um like how much do I charge the company versus or how much is a ticket yeah how much do you charge the company if you were going to play at a specific event or something like that yeah it really depends on what they're going to ask for you know like it's and it's also depending upon whatever that company's budget is um you know sometimes they have just a set rate so there is no like negotiation for it and there's like look this is what we pay all of our

artists doesn't matter how big or how small um you know if you decline you decline that's it you know but we can't change the price and other places you know they if they ask for more you know it's going to cost more um but I've had events you know where you show up and you play five minutes of music you get 100 bucks and you know that that's it and and you get some food and you meet some people and you leave right and then there's other events you go and you you're there for the day and you ge

t paid $4,000 but it's really it's all over the map you know it really you don't you it depend it really does depend I wish I could give you like a concrete answer for that but no that's cool that's fine yeah that's yeah yeah that's that's that's interesting um do you find um I guess this is more of a uh controversial question in a way um but do you find do you have you ever come across a situation where uh an event May opt to pick a Japanese person over yourself so to speak well um it depends o

n contract because that's that goes more on contract law so okay um right like if let's say if if I sign a contract with a company and you know they if they want to try to back out and say oh we want to hire this other person well it's it's too late you know like you already signed a contract and you're with me um if they want to sign up a Japanese person and later I show up and say oh but I really wanted the job I like well that's too bad we hired somebody already um so I but I don't ever feel

any of that especially in Japan I don't feel any of that at all um I actually feel rather that they're really wanting more foreigners to engage within the art um I I do for example they uh a lot of local schools here the the presidents or like the not the presidents so I for I'm forgetting English slowly so it's becoming like efl English as a forgotten language um and but at any rate the the the president of the school right the the P principal that's the word uh principal of schools I've had so

me of them like request me by name and say no we really want to have Sean come uh because he's really relatable with these kids he he likes you know the same thing that they do you he was really interested in anime you know he likes know Japanese history for Samurai and you know he can he likes to talk about those things with the kids and they're getting really excited and they want to start doing traditional Arts um and so sometimes you know I develop relationships with people so then I become

a primary like they want to hire me and has nothing to do with you know whether or not like the person's Japanese or American or european um there's lots of people here in U in Japan who come from like from Russia or uh from Europe who do nice work on on shakach uh one of my friends who's half Japanese and how half South American um has lots of concerts here does wonderful he a very successful career uh I know people who are both also American who have been teaching at universities uh in Japan o

n shakach um and it's just all about knowledge based and skill and you know being being here in Japan and you know it just just showing up won't work but if you lay down roots and you really spend the time here you can develop a wonderful career yeah that's awesome and um have you participated in shakah hatti competitions and if so could you share any notable achievements or a Awards you've received um I don't um do competitions ever um I say ever but I've done them before with composition um th

ere's a famous quote by Bella BTO which says competitions are are for horses not for artists and you know I I I still to this day when I watch something like the Indiana Indianapolis violin competition or the Queen Elizabeth competition it's like you I listen to all these people and it's like they're all brilliant artists like any one of them is deserving of that title and like to just make a decision on it subjectively just doesn't make sense to me they're all brilliant and i' I've seen chakash

i competitions as well both here in Japan and also International ones and I hear all the players it's like yeah they're they're all brilliant they play wonderfully all of them could win first place and then there's there what else could you say I mean they're great so it it just for me I'm not interested in music as the sake for comp competition I'm in the sake I'm in for to music for the sake of the enjoyment of it that's awesome I think um we had the conversation about um yonasan in the video

and you mentioned that it was great that he also said that it was more about enjoyment as opposed to being rigid and and being stiff about the way you learn music it's better to learn music and have fun with it as you're doing it instead of trying to yeah I guess uh smash a um smash a you know a s so to speak a a square square block into a a circle hole or whatever and try and adapt to other other people's expectations I guess because it'll stifle your growth yeah and well some people like that

you know they they Thrive off competition and it works really well for them and so if if competition is the route for them then by all means go for it you know it's it's not to say that to to look at the music as competitive and very rigid is wrong but it's not the only way to do so um you know there is also the way that um I I've been raised with music in general which has always been first and foremost love it and enjoy it and Uh I that just works well for me I I thrive off of community and wo

rking with other people and I I mean I love having master classes with all of my students um I've had PE I've had people come to my home in Japan and stay here and I've also held my own shakach festivals where we all get together and play and you know share comments and we we still critique each other and we want to get better but we're wanting to get better because we want to see the other person get better um so that we can enjoy the music more together yeah yeah that's awesome that's a nice f

eeling um could you provide insight into your daily life as a Grandmaster of shakah including practice routines performances and teaching activities yeah so I wake up every day just like everybody else I put one sock on and the other sock on um as my as the great quote goes you know chop wood and carry water or as my student likes to say chop water carry wood and you know it's it's just a normal life the only thing that's different is that I just I teach teach students chakashi daily um I have r

ecording projects and I I just do um you know those sort of um jobs so for example um the my most recent project I have uh four at the moment the first one is all of my students my students are a constant project for me and uh each day I teach uh about four hours at the minimum and then eight hours at the max during the weekdays and um I have full studio and I love all of my students they're fantastic players and honestly uh even the ones that they most of them the ones that they're at their lev

el right now say they're like an okuden they play way better than uh I did when I was at that level so it's super exciting to see them and I I know they're going to go so far and they're going to sound amazing in just uh as they keep playing and and developing their skills uh another project I've been working on is with the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance uh I have had four composers compose a new piece of music for shakach and electronic for me and so I'm uh in the process of setting up to

start recording for that uh I have my new CD for uh colen hongu which is the traditional pieces for shaki that I'll be um making finally making a CD on which I finally realized I don't actually have a CD I have a bunch of recordings of me performing them on YouTube but I don't have a CD and uh I think it's about time that I have a nice prole recorded CD of those pieces um and then the other project that I have going on right now is I'm working with some of the local elementary schools and middl

e schools to start a shakach club and so which we can have young the younger generation um pick up the mantle of shakach and start to learn and continue the tradition and uh if you hadn't come to Japan to play the shakah Hai what career path do you think you would have pursued well I was doing shakach in America and having a quite a successful career I probably would just continue um in America with doing the same thing um I don't I don't see myself doing anything else I it might have gone maybe

back to school to do more studies um but one of the things I really wanted to do was uh a degree in classical literature of of Japanese literature um but I think that I can also I've also been thinking about doing that in Japan so really I don't think I would be doing anything differently it's just a you know geographical disposition that changes that's pretty much it yeah that's good yeah that's interesting and uh are there times when you feel unmotivated to play and if so how do you overcome

those challenges yeah I mean of course everybody has that and I think people who don't um you know say that there's this uh what is it uh I think it's hanr Bano or hanra Bano which is basically the the vicissitudes of Life the ups and downs that we have and this is a a very common um you know thing for all of us we all have good days and we all have bad days and there are plenty of bad days where I really don't feel like playing at all and I still have to sign up online and teach my students and

do the best I possibly can um you know that doesn't get to you know stop that doesn't stop anything just because my disposition is not good so um I guess overcoming it is just kind of bulldozing through it and you know there there are going to be a lot of things especially in Japan there's a lot of things that you just don't want to do things work differently here things move like slower um a lot of times there's a lot of Loops to have to to have to jump through um there's specific ways to do t

hings and I mean you know this just even living here for probably a short time that there are a lot of things yeah there's a lot of things that you have to do that are really mide right it's just so annoying and whatever but look it's it's no different anywhere else if it was in America there's rules and regulations that you have to follow it just happens that you're so used to them that it you know it doesn't affect you there's just a new set of rules that you're not used to so Japanese do it w

ithout even thinking about it but we have to go through and think about it and do it so just you know yeah pull pull your Samu or pull your uh pull your hakama up and go for it you know yeah yeah that makes sense and yeah I can appreciate that definitely there's some things where uh I I've been here for a year and I still struggle with the bin situation trying to remember which rubbish goes in the right bin and and all that sort of stuff yes yeah doesn't and that's everywhere in Japan and look y

ou you mess it up and whatever and you know somebody gets you know mad at you or whatever and it can run the beginning of your day but the thing is is like you just got to get over it and um you know just say look you know you made the mistake and whatever you're you're a guest here in Japan and it's best to do do the best that you can to learn the customs and and do what do what you can that's why I was recommending earlier especially in the classical world of Japan if you really want to have u

h like if you really want to study um you know any of the traditional Arts it really is best to be very good at kle s k kjo or Ken Keno um and you know the rest the rest of the the lot I mean there's a lot to learn there yeah excellent what are your future plans in terms of your shakahari career and are the specific goals you're striving to achieve um well if you read my bio on my website the at the end of the first sentence it's Bas at the end of the first paragraph it is nothing less than a cu

ltural Renaissance of shakah Hai right that's sakach Revival and that's what I would just love to see um for me the the thing about Japan that I think is so amazing is and I suppose you could you could also say this about other countries as well but for some reason it just seems more prevalent to me in in Japan even all the countries I've visited is that no matter where you look how how many no matter what big thing you see or small thing you see you can point to it and then there's some sort of

History history and tradition behind it that is really fascinating yeah and so for example one of the things that gets very much overlooked by foreigners when they come here and it was overlooked by me for years mind you is K moss and like moss that just grows on the side of the road and and whatever and people are just like SP some Moss what's the big deal about it then you go to a place that has a Moss Field where everything is pruned and kept very clean and it's just this you know patch of N

ature's carpet and now you find the beauty in it so then when you start walking down the street again you see a patch of moss and you go oh that's a really good patch of moss that's looking real nice and you want to take that home and put it in your garden um and there's people who do that by the way you know they go out okay yeah they hunt for moss and they they cultivate it they grow it and then they put it in their Gardens and it it's absolutely gorgeous but that's the sort of thing about um

Japanese culture that's so cool is um those sort of things and shakach is no different it's a a wonderful part of Japanese history Japanese culture that I really want to see flourish and grow and become more popular in Japan it's you know it's not it's not necessarily growing um I don't think it I don't want to say it's dying because because it might be just a truth that it's hard to to face but it's actually doing better in overseas countries right outside of Japan it's very popular and people

do pick it up and almost all of my students are foreigners uh I only have two or three Japanese students oh okay and uh and like I I'm not counting the you know like the older gentlemen who come by once in a while to take a lesson I mean people who take lessons with me fulltime uh I have one um one or two half Japanese students and then one uh Japanese student who lives in Japan who's uh taking full-time lessons with me so they're really it's it's not really popular for for Japanese people to yo

u know pick up the shakah Hai and learn it um even even when I offer to to some people who are like yeah I really wish I studied chakashi like well you totally can I mean it's an opportunity like I I'll I'll teach you or you know I can help you find a teacher and get you a flute and everything it's and but you know the thing with time money and all these other things get into play and you know for them it's was like yeah but i' rather not just rather not I really wanted to 20 years ago but now I

don't want to yeah that makes sense yeah and there's a the younger generation though isn't is an opportunity but you know I um I understand why in many cases they don't want to to do that kind of stuff and and why they don't want to why they don't want to learn it they already have so much extra school work to do um you know they're at crime school every single day and it's they're busy with with stuff and really like at that age too like when I was you know in elementary school the only thing

I wanted to do was get out of school and go play with my friends not let me study this classical art um that that came a little bit later but U when I was doing violin and Viola but even then I I wasn't really serious about excuse me about that kind of stuff until I was in high school so I get it yeah yeah that makes sense so um I guess there's a couple of things to unpack there so you mentioned about the whole um first of all that when you come to Japan and you see so many different small thing

s they have some sort of History that's attributed to it I absolutely love that about Japan and I can definitely appreciate that having lived considering I was born in Wales and then living I I saw more things in Wales that you could look at certain things and have some sort of back you know uh be able to see the the history of certain things um less so in Australia because um Australia is more of a a newer country um and I I think I I like to say that um the aboriginals uh there's literally the

re's there's not much in my eyes I've seen or that you can see other than sort of natural booty because the aboriginals did such a good job of maintaining the land because they were such great stewards of the land that there's not really that many structures that are um inverted commas could be considered a nice or for nature so to speak um and then when I came to Japan it was yeah I love it like there's so much stuff that you can see wherever you go that has some sort of meaning to it there's a

meaning for so so much stuff that's even simple things um I can't really think I think a good way to kind of maybe make a a western equivalent of it is kind of like going to Rome or going to Greece and Athens and say like yeah remember Paul from the Bible this is where he preached and this is where he was talking or you know this is this is where you know the the original pagan gods like would meet or you know this is one of the buildings that represents that or you know all of those kind of th

ings things you can turn your like turn your head on a swivel and just point out things that are thousands of years old and that's really lit what it's like in going to many parts of Japan I think especially if you go to Nar City Nara City you can't step you know three three steps without stepping into some sort of deep history yeah yeah that's interesting I so I I I don't feel that um perhaps I'm a bit ignorant here but I don't feel it's as much of a thing in hokai because idido again is a bit

bit more bit of a fresher sort of country um but uh when you mention about Greece and Rome um I had the same feeling when I went to uh W um in uh Austria and um and then also moonin in Germany and uh I think I was in munin and uh yeah I was in I was in the same like one of the same streets that Hitler did one of his uh one of his um one of his speeches or something like that on the steps which is really surreal because it's like I was always fascinated I still am fascinated in na Germany history

and stuff like that and it's just really surreal to be you look around and it's the yeah it's the same thing it's like this everywhere you look there going to have some meaning there's a lot of places like that in in Japan too where you can say look this is the land where the Battle of sakahara like part of Sakara was right this is where you know allout War happened the Onin Wars you know going to parts of kyotto that were totally demolished and burned down and saying this is where all that stu

ff happened or you know here is where there's hango right and there's so much of that kind of stuff in the southern part of you know of Japan primarily in the conai regions where all of the real like in my opinion it's where all the really juicy history happened yeah yeah that's cool and uh at the moment um I've been reading this book for like trying to get through it for maybe it's pretty embarrassing two years now I've been reading um a Yoshi kawa's Musashi MH and it's such a big book but I'm

probably only like a third of the way through it and they mentioned uh Fushimi and it's only the past couple of weeks that I've got to the part where they mention about matahachi uh working in Fushimi and I'm thinking Fushimi Fushimi oh Fushimi and arish Shrine I've been there like you know even though it's not a even though that book is not it's a work of fiction it's still interesting that it's tied in in that respect as well so that that's pretty cool yeah in that book you will uh you'll also

encounter a passage where they where he travels to um yagu yeah and there's a there's a a route that goes through Nara all the way through yaku and I've walked that that path as well and on that path there's Samurai grave sites there's you know there's once you get to yag there's the actual Doos that you can go to and see um and there's temples on the way and and stuff like that so it's like you see those uh kidle right the the different streets and whatever and yeah they're they still say like

they're they're wooden signs right old wooden signs that are kind of like crooked in the ground but it says yeah this is a historical site from you know 400 years ago yeah that's fantastic and um and then going to um and then going back to your mention of moss it's funny um people probably think this is a bit weird but coming to Japan and then seeing Moss again so I used to see moss back in Wales because there would be moss on the castles and stuff like that or Moss down the Alleyways that I us

ed to to walk just to get from my house to school and stuff like that in Australia I didn't see it so much but then as soon as I came over here and saw Moss I was like oh that's awesome like you know even though it's such a small thing but yeah I can appreciate what you say about you know oh some of the Moss looks good you know yeah good looking M yeah yeah that's it yeah um and then um you mentioned as well about it was the last part as well um I think this I've lost actually it was to do with

the students but that's okay um so you've pretty much answered this question already but do you perceive any rivals or direct competition in your field and how do you handle competition within the shakach business I think it's just a matter of perspective there's a I don't remember who's the quote is from but the it basically states that a competition is a low-level Sport and collaboration is the high level Sport and so for me I don't I just it's like I everybody does something that's different

you know you're you're not going to be able to actually have like the sort of true rivalry competition and I I just don't I don't see it I just don't see it that way you know I want I want people to succeed with shakach because the world is so small so the more people that play the more people that generate content the more people who do stuff with the shaki it's great for all of us the more that we are successful the more that other people will be successful and there's a lot of people on the p

lanet there's a lot of people to consume and view content and enjoy the music uh the best would be just collaborate collaborate collaborate so I don't I don't think of it that way you know I want people to just do their best and I want everybody to be as famous as they you know they want to be or nonf famous as they want to be but enjoy the instrument with their group of people yeah that's that's cool um I guess on that same sort of idea it's not really competi it is competition to an extent wha

t do you feel about virtual instruments H like AI instruments uh not AI um ai ai yeah AI is good I think for maybe perhaps giving you a bit of an idea of something but I'm all talking about um instruments or shakach that's been programmed into uh keyboard so to speak so like um like like uh digital performer and stuff like that where they have pre-recorded sounds and stuff like that yeah so for example um with um Native Instruments keyo keyboard right next to me um there's various different shak

ah hatche patches that I can put in um there's the um the keys lower down the octave I can do various different Expressions such as Trello or um I can't think of the other words off the top of my head a turn not a turn like a like a Bend or whatever uh um and then I can basically um change the keyboard and set it to a specific scale um and then it's they they've done they've done they've played the same note various times and they put it into like a round robin um around Robin so that it doesn't

play the exact same not again so what do you feel about that well I mean it takes jobs away from music musicians um but you know they did have to hire a musician to do it um so it's you know whatever but you know it's I mean you you do limit yourself there's only so much that those digital performers can do so if you you know if you're looking just for a couple hits from the shakah or a couple Tao strikes you know Tao Tao on digital performer sounds incredible like the virtual Native Instrument

s it's like they really sound great um there is still something that's a little bit off with the with wind instruments especially uh string instruments have gotten better in ensembles um so they can brass I think is pretty good too but you know you can still tell like this is not real people playing like it's it's good sounds it's a real person playing but it's not a real person playing what is on actually this you know this film score um so of course for me I would much rather have you know liv

e orchestras and stuff like that but this is an issue again of just finan and money you know old Hollywood they had an orchestra on call you know they just get the full Orchestra in and they record the score um some some studios still do that who have massive budgets and and there are also a lot of uh um well I mean not not a lot of the music is is being recorded in Hollywood anymore a lot of it's being recorded in Nashville but the music there I mean they still use Live players for all the stuf

f so as much as like those programs are offered they're not really utilized as much as I think people think they are um most of the major stuff that I know of they they hire like for example the new Samurai Shogun film or Disney um yeah that's a a guy in Tokyo who played the shakach part and the goto part I think is the woman in conai and U so they used real players um ginin impact they also hired you know real players full Orchestra and those are real guys real real men and women who are playin

g instruments there so it's not a concern for me I think that you know there's still a desire to have the real the actual body in the room playing the instrument yeah that makes sense I think um what I know of as well is uh there's some people that will actually draft up their ideas onto the um onto something like qbase or whatever and uh for any viewers that don't understand what qbas is it's a digital audio workstation so it's software that you can have on your computer to play Virtual instrum

ents into and record and and basically send it off to people so um yeah so some I know some composers are making up the making up the music on the digital audio workstation and then um flicking through the files or converting the the uh the music into music sheets and then flicking it off to people to show them the idea but then they have to have a Hands-On uh conversation with the person as they're perform in absolutely and I mean as a composer myself I use um East West symphonic orchestra okay

yeah I mean I've I've used their programs too but I would never use them for a like say that this is my performance of this piece you know I yeah yeah right that's that's the difference like it's a great program and it helps gives us a better understanding of what this might sound like when a real player has it in hands uh but you know it's it's going to be it's going to be different and it's going to be more expressive and uh there's going to be imperfections to it which make it so much more i

nteresting and Lively yeah I understand yeah yeah that makes sense yeah that's cool um besides shakach do you have a favorite traditional Japanese song and do you explore other musical genres or instruments I love bwa bwa is such a cool instrument um and I love the tune um Nas noichi he was a famous Archer um who was said to take down an entire Mongolian ship with one flaming arrow there's there's a lot of uh you know you you'll see in video games like the yoichi Yumi the the bow of Y yoichi yea

h so that's that's where that comes from right okay yeah so um yeah I love that that I love that tune so much and I actually really like a lot of the B music I think the yoi chumi perhaps uh Age of Empires it's one of the uh one of the relics that you can pick up and stick in your temple or wherever and it gives archers like 15% extra damage or something yeah the spirit of naso is with him yeah that's cool and uh outside of your professional life what hobbies do you enjoy and how do they complim

ent or contrasts with your dedication to shakach um well there's two things so my biggest I I guess I I don't know she ever say it's a hobby but uh my life of being a father is really impactful for me I mean having U my two daughters is just the greatest thing I've ever experienced and it's the most important thing to me and I absolutely love being a father everything about it is just the coolest thing um just even today before this interview you know I had uh about two and a half hours before a

nd it's like my daughter and I we went to the park and we went down the slide a hundred times and it was great and uh the the quintessential element of shakach for me is uh the the love that you have and then putting it into the instrument but you have to have love in order to to do that um and the love I I think is a term that's been quite misunderstood uh as the sort of like in the Greek sense they would call Eros right it's more of you know erotic and in this way or like even like like someth

ing is kind of cute and adorable but like the actual like um uh to say something like AAP or a you know this unconditional love um or you know um fos you know like having like a brotherly love right this sort of thing that sort of sacrifice that goes along with it I don't expect anything in return of you I maybe I expect my daughter just just keep being cute right you keep doing that but you know I don't I don't think of my sacrifice as unworthy or I don't think of like the things that I do and

they're not burdensome for me anymore to like say I have to do ABCD EFG in order so I can have time with my daughter to hang out and that sort of I want to work so hard so I can spend more time with her or spend more time with my wife and family that kind of sacrif of I want to spend the most precious thing in my life is that time and I want to spend that with them and that kind of thought that really what we would say warms our heart is what for me warms the sound of shakah Hai and makes it so

much more enjoyable to sit through and play a piece and just to think that of the love that I have for my family and be able to express that in a musical medium um the second thing would be uh my my actual hobby which I been on and off for three years but I'm actually gung-ho I'm going to continue doing it this time all the way through which is calligraphy uh and so doing calligraphy there is a uh famous monk called CH he wrote a book called a collection of essays called sud zuda which would if

we translate them it means essays in idleness it's a great classical Japanese um text that if you ever went to a college to learn learn classical Japanese that would be one of the texts that you would translate and read from and in there he uh recommends that every man to be successful learns five things and so one of those five things is being familiar with the classics and writing calligraphy and so because when you write calligraphy you quote from the classics you look at the classical writin

g and then you write it down as well yeah and so out of on the list of all of his things that was the only thing I haven't done and so I was like well I really should just do it take it as a challenge and uh I I love it I love doing I really like the smell of Sumi ink so if you've ever smelled sui ink I recommend just getting the stick out in water and just start to turn and then you know this this beautiful C this really nice scent comes up it's really nice and so all every part of it also help

s me understand the idea of ma right ma is this kind of in undefinable thing because it's a negation of everything it doesn't actually have um being in the in the philosophical sense it's a negation and so this uh the moments between time um the breath in during The Strokes uh the way you posture yourself in Poise with the with the um brush all of these sort of things just only enhance the understanding of what's happening in the music yeah that's cool I uh what you mentioned about uh um the wha

t you mentioned about the uh you you know your love and uh putting your love into the expression of the shakah hatti I thought it was really lovely going back to what you were saying yeah that's a really nice um analogy but it makes sense it's good I think whenever I compose music I don't think um I don't know it's hard to say I think a lot of my inspiration just comes from uh different composers and stuff like that but uh as far as expression goes I just it's in the moment so to speak so um as

opposed to coming from love as such yeah I think it's uh just in the moment but um but I mean there's there's other things too I mean it doesn't and just because I say that that's my primary one doesn't mean it's the only thing and to say that yeah if you don't have that now you can't be a successful Shashi player is absurd you know we all have life experiences and there's people who don't have children in their life but they've had people who are like children or they've been a child and they h

ave love for other people um they have experiences in their life that you know are just unmatched you know say somebody uh born and raised in the 50s and became a sort of a nomad and explores half of India later finds the shakach and takes those experiences that he or she had in India and now puts them into the flute and those special moments that that person lived there serve as the conduit of that the love of that experience and the people that they met and the times that they had something th

at's concrete that's real that they're sharing through the music right that's that's really what I uh what I think I'm trying to get at okay I understand yeah that makes sense and um so I guess that I that's good that you mentioned that because that that you mentioned a person in India it sounds was that person um like a Buddhist or something or oh no I I'm just saying as for example oh okay yeah interesting but I do know people who who are like that who have you know they um uh you know they ha

d lives and work and uh in America they were doing um jobs X Y and Z when you like medical surgeon and uh sound engineers and then they decid like look I'm I'm done with this man I don't want to do this anymore they sell everything they own um they head off to India and Tibet and other places they become they enter in a monastery and you know 10 years 15 years later they come back to America and they're just totally different people um so yeah I mean every everybody has their life experiences an

d you know some people have more ups and downs than others and some people have more interesting experiences than others but you know it's it's what we do with them afterwards right yeah yeah that makes sense yeah I mean I've had a uh a fair you know I've lived in Wales then Australia know that's why I decided it was time to have a change and come to Japan and and and change things up because I've experienced most of uh Western culture for most of my life and I thought it was time to uh change i

t up so to speak absolutely yeah um so I so we've mentioned in previous conversation or at least um through um direct message that you're a Christian and given your Christian background how do you navigate playing the shaki at Shinto and Buddhist festivals are there any conflicts or harmonies between these interests uh I don't play at um either um or if and if I was offered to do so it would be you know um not within like the Hond or anything that would look like reverence or worship U or anythi

ng like that I wouldn't I wouldn't just participate in in it and um with I mean I have lots of friends who are Buddhist monks who come to my concerts and I go to their events I hang out their Temple you know I have dinner with them and we talk and everything there's no issue there on that but but they're very understanding of like look this is my like my thing you know my Lord is number one it comes before everything and that's that right and there and it's not like I'm unique in this sort of se

nse there there there are Japanese shaki players who are also Christian too so it's not like it's not like I'm this anomaly of the world or anything like that um and even those the Japanese guys too they'll say like yeah I I'll play at a temple but I I won't do any sort of you know I'm not going to face Hama and play a piece that is an offering I I won't do that yeah but I don't have a problem being in a temple and performing a piece right so there's a difference there so that's that's usually w

here the the kind of difference is but um no and but Japanese people they you know not run into any problems I suppose if they did have a problem they might not necessarily confront me and say it to my face or like that because they really want to keep Harmony but from even like the my my friends who are I'm very close with who are you know ordained monks whether they be of nen or they be of uh J Shinu josu Shing Buddhism um none of them have had a problem with with that it's and and I'm I'm fai

rly confident they would tell me if they had a problem with it yeah yeah that makes sense so that's interesting and um I I remembered now what uh from earlier on I said I'd forgotten the question but we were talking about how um Japanese people um don't learn the shakah Hai they they don't really pick it up um and yeah I can I can appreciate that like for example um this in my experience from what I've seen a lot of people so far in Japan this definitely seems to be a bit more of a rat race ment

ality uh like you said they either have to do their school work or whatever um and in the case of my wife and some other people they as soon as they've done work they come back from work and then they might have to study to progress themselves to the next level in their career or something like that and they don't have time they just don't have time yeah yeah yeah yeah and then also I mean this goes into a little bit more of the financial situation of Japan but you know they the they I think it'

s important for people to realize that I think in the past 30 years the um the national average for income has only raised 3% yeah so that's just let that sink in you know it's they they don't have that kind of money to you know drop on taking lessons every single week and they're already working I think what is it like 7 in the morning till like 8 at night like ridiculous hours and it's it just is what it is and you know you're lucky to have that day off and you know with my um my father-in-law

when he comes to hang out with us you know he'll hang out with us for the morning for a little bit and he takes an afternoon nap and then we'll hang out again before he goes home but that that afternoon nap for him on his day off is really important because it's he works so much and it's demanding um I you know for me I I've uh one of the programs I'm running is a scholarship program for young Japanese students who really just absolutely love the shakach and show some proclivity with it you kno

w I'm giving out scholarships for that so they can study um but it's you know it's it's very hard to get them interested too because it's it's it's kind of like um I don't even know if it's a good example or not but it's you know like just think of any other Western country that has like oh here's our instrument of our our cultural instrument and um you you know we want our young children to play it and all the young kids are like that's such like a that's such a grandpa instrument I don't want

to play the grandpa instrument you know that I I feel like that's also a little bit of it too and um you know and I and I understand that as well um and uh you know it is it is what it is so but typically like these sort of uh cultural things are more highly praised and valued outside of the of the country than inside uh I hope it would I hope it will change and I I do see I have a couple of young Japanese students who are really really wanting to start playing shakach and uh you know we're I'm

going to do a presentation at their school and see how the see what the you know they all think about it and give them a chance to try playing and if they like it then we'll start seeing some new shakach players and it's it's not even the fact that I I want them all to become professionals and you know open up Studios and start teaching but just to have people to really enjoy the instrument without the pressure of I have to do this or I have to do that no just enjoy the instrument you know don't

worry about ascending ranks or earning these typ and that titles just play the music and love it and enjoy it and have something for the rest of your life that you could live with yeah yeah and I I can appreciate that when you mentioned about the grandpa instrument as well um I would say probably and yeah don't quote me on this but I would say the Wales National instruments probably the Welsh hap and you know yeah so let's take that for example let's say if your dad was like or somebody came up

to like you really should should learn the wellsharp what would be what would be your reaction to that it's a feminine instrument i' think that it's a feminine instrument it makes me think of um you know uh in in the The Hobbit when uh the elves are playing the playing the um the hap and uh and the um the guy with the uh like the earpiece ends up like putting a uh putting um putting a a napkin into it so he doesn't have to listen to it anymore yeah so you know and then they they the bust out in

then to like a shanty or something instead a bit more lively so yeah or um I guess from an American perspective my uh my my my dad uh my dad started to learn the banjo but when I think of banjo I probably think of like uh hillbilly style you know music yeah yeah yeah no and I think that's a good I think it's a good uh example of it too it's you know try to take the you know put the shoe on the other foot and try to make it culturally relevant for yourself and um you know I I think that that wor

ks and people kind of go oh I I kind of understand how they might see it not that that is how it is uh I had a friend in uh in college actually actually who was a a very fine bass player and one of his things was he's like D I just love playing hillbilly music like this is a classical bass player like Symphony or ra degreed brilliant player he just like yeah but man hillbilly music that's where it's at and he loves it so it's for him he's going to take it he's gonna play it he's gonna really lov

e it and and make it big and uh he he really likes that kind of stuff but it's just not for everybody so you know but it's also to say that look your your image of it might be this that that is part of it that's that is one aspect of it but it's not just that right it's not just you know shakach sits down and plays you know hot with a cal player there's much more of shaki than that um it's not just you know the animes and the samurai films it's much more than that there's also this entire lineag

e long um repertoire of music for shakach kotto and shamien which has beautiful poetry with it there's a long history of Hoku music that was uh it's that is just filled with really wonderful and beautiful Melodies and so you know even though we might be in the culture like for myself if I hear banjo instantly I think of this one and only thing but in reality there's actually so much more to it than that yeah yeah that's it yeah and I guess it it just comes down to individual preferen as well doe

sn't really absolutely um I uh I quite like um South American um oh what's the word for it um Amazonian music so they utilize some um pan flutes but it's the I think it's the it's the Rhythm It's the Rhythm that they use in their percussion that sort of resonates with me it's very a bit and uh and yeah I think some of it can um some of it can basically uh some of it can be attributed to Childhood experiences as well so when I was in Spain maybe I was seven or or or maybe eight years old around a

bout that time there was a popular song um called uh tick Tick Tac something like that but it was actually a South American um Amazonian Style song but they were playing it in in Spain at the time and because of the feeling that I had on the holiday it was a very popular song that was playing at that on that particular holiday I've taken that sort of genre with me throughout my life and I've enjoyed that genre so I think it can perhap stem from that as well absolutely and I I think there's a lik

e a the guy from uh dke from wagi band right I mean great player and when people hear him that could be their entry to exploring Japanese shakach flute to a deeper level right or they might hear JN kais on Neptune and they his jazz tunes and that becomes their introduction to all of the traditional music of Japan I mean there's so many different Avenues and you know uh one of my first uh at my first University that I went to uh there was a music appreciation teacher and her her like motto for th

e class was it's all music it's all good and so that uh you know no matter what type of music people want to use whether it's the most Avant guard whether it's the traditional whether it's Jazz pop you know film score music whatever it may be if they're using the shakach I'm happy right I'm that's great it will help to uh expose the instrument to the world and uh you know whoever gets interested I want them to find a way to have a shaki get put in their hands and make it possible for them to lea

rn the instrument yeah yeah that's excellent and um have you talking I asked you earlier on about um your um what your thoughts on um using midi keyboards Etc have you come across um is it the Electronica or airone maybe aone Oh e ewi yeah have you come across anything that um that you could play and connect it via USB or something that's could accurately well it's accurately um be translated or put into midi notes or something like that onto the onto the computer oh not on chakashi I haven't se

en anything like that um yeah there that's a that's tough because yeah trying to generate that into a uh a digital sound that comes through they've tried it with a lot of instruments and I don't think they're there yet on it yeah um so that's uh that's that's interesting what I think would be kind of cool and my students have been saying that I should do this but I just don't have the equipment for it it's like there's like you should mic up your shaki and just place it into a distortion pedal j

ust like yeah it's like all right one day one day I'll get there and I'll do it when I I'll I'll you know have an extra glass of whiskey and I'll go for it yeah that's cool well you don't even need the distortion pedal is um there's plenty of free um virtual instruments that you could chop into a door and just um and just uh play it live but uh um do a sort of a pre preamp or whatever and then yeah and then just put a distortion onto that would be pretty cool yeah just live processing so yeah th

at's it yeah and just put like a a million Reverb on her or something like that or a million delay and just just trip out there it is there I I do think that one of the one of the sort of stere stereotypical sounds that we get from like the Native American flute or you know traditional Japanese music is that like super heavy Reverb you right everything's super Cavin cavernous and it really does give an effect but you know there there are other for there are other ways of you know processing the

instrument that don't sound so so much like that yeah yeah that's interesting and um so I this is pretty much uh the last question now so um thank you for much for um doing the interview today it's been uh great to have you on and how can people follow your work on social media or or uh or on YouTube or whatever and I'll put the necessary links in the description of the video yes so they can go to my YouTube channel at tyu shakach U that's where the bulk of my work goes um I'm also on Spotify un

der my previous name you can basically find all of my work under Shan head or Shan Renzo head uh and for the upcoming cities Sean tidu and then um my personal website seanad music.com and everything else that if they wanted to learn more is on the website excellent and if they wanted to find out the first couple of steps that they would need uh to take in order to learn shakah Hai do you have that sort of information on your website or is that something you could quickly answer now um yeah actua

lly they can go to my YouTube and join the member my membership and I my membership program I have a systematic course to start from absolute zero on shakach knowing nothing and go through the entire program I also give away free flutes uh you know every couple of months on my channel well so they join the membership they could have a possibility of winning a free flute yeah that's excellent yeah that's cool well yeah thank you very much Sean for today it's been great again having you on and uh

thank you very much to the viewers and uh yeah is there anything else you'd like to say learn shakach there you go that's gold well thanks very much Sean and H thank you to the viewers take care bye for now bye for now