Magic bits of Bamboo

"So," asked the little boy's mother "how much did you get for the cow?"

"Well," the little boy was very excited. "I met a man on the way to the market, and I traded him the cow for these magic bits of bamboo!"



Whats to say, really :)



I suppose I could tell you that the smaller flute is my normal flute, and is a 1.8 shaku (a shaku is an old japanese unit of measurement similar to a foot) long, and its base note is D above middle C. The new, long flute is a 2.4 shaku, and is A below middle C.


While travelling around on my 2-week tour - which I havent properly blogged yet - I made my way high up into the mountains of Nagano, and stayed with a flutemaker called Tom Deaver. I have been looking for a long flute for a while, and we talked flutes, played music together, and I tried a bunch of his works-in-progress. He asked me what my budget was, and I told him. He responded fairly bluntly that he would rather considerably more. We left it at that, and had a really good evening.

In the morning, as I was about to hop on my bike for what turned out to be one of the most wonderful day's rides of my trip - down the mountains, through stunning scenery - he said he would keep working on the flutes (he wasnt happy with the balance) and send them to Kakizakai when he was done, for me to try.


Many weeks went past in a pretty amazing way, I came back to Chichibu, studied more, travelled again, tried lots of flutes from different makers. While out on my week long trip with Andrew and Nobuko, an email from Kaikizakai arrives, telling me that Tom has visited, and left a flute for me to try...



So, as soon as I'm back, I'm around at Kakizakai's, and here is this flute - one that I tried in an unfinished state while at Toms. At the time, I really liked the sound, but found the hole positions uncomfortable. But having played a bunch of long flutes since then, and changed the style of my hand positions, it was now perfectly comfortable, and sounded even better. Bronwyn can get a huge sound out of it - which is fantastic, as it gives me something to aim for, and also means that I cant blame the instrument if I'm having a bad day :)

I ask what price Tom wanted, knowing already that I would pay whatever he asked, and that it would be a lot more than I could probably afford, and he names the exact amount that I told Tom was my budget originally.

So I feel extremely lucky to have both an exceptional instrument, and a connection with its maker. This kind of personal connection and relationship with the people that make the things I use, the clothes I wear, the music I listen to - is becoming more and more important to me, and it is, I think, by far the most rewarding and wonderful way to do things...