Daily Routine Exercise

Would love to hear Jim's lecture.

John Neptune has a great How to Practice sheet he hands out at his workshops. It might posted somewhere. It's basically how musicians practice - with a goal to get better at something specific with each session.

I usually practice as if I was going to performing the next day. With that in mind, it could be a passage in a particular piece or improvising. I always like to discover something I haven't done before.

For those who only play for meditation or relaxation, practicing how to inhale fully could be beneficial in all ways.

- Perry

Good idea!
I will ask Jim if he can share here

If not, perhaps for the ESS Newsletter?

That is indeed a very good idea, LowBow. Later on perhaps our new website which is on its way!
Thanks!!!!!!!

Hi,

I am currently on internship in Lisabon and have much more time on my hands than in Prague. So, I started to practice more. I play a 1.8 and 2.7. My day consists of a lot of pentatonic scale excercises (mainly with the 2.7) - focusing on posture and relaxed hands - and one piece of either sankyoku, honkyoku or tozan. I do a lot of walking around the city, about seven kilometers every other day, and daily push ups - not too many. I do not do any longer meditation sessions.

I have started to notice that my playing deteriorates in about 2.5 minutes of playing straight. Until that the intonation, tone colour and general ease are good. It takes only about twenty seconds pause for me to regain my skill. Obviously everything is much more apparent with the 2.7 - where I suddenly even find myself having trouble with the top notes of kan register.

What would you recommend to improve my playing stamina? Did you experience this when you were "growing up"?

Many thanks for any input.

Marek

Hi Marek,

I like playing robuki along with Kaoru Kakizakai, the recording available on http://www.kakizakai.com

Cheers.

Hello Marek
Push ups are fabulous... I find they open up my capacity a lot, so just gently keep increasing the number.
I practice Pranayama at the end of my daily Yoga session, particularly Kapalbhati (here's a link to a funny but great swami teaching it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d3erUbB3uw) and Anuloma Viloma (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqyYhNFE0l4)
Learning circular breathing also helped me a lot in general, whether you end up using it or not (touchy subject )
And of course... no need to mention Robuki... that should be religion!
Long tones in the upper octave chi and hi strengthen the embouchure a lot...

Hi,

Thanks for the input!

I included some robuki into my practice (I dont want to do it too much because I find it stiffens my posture and lips as the body gets accustomed to one tone). So far, the development was rather tremendous. On the 2.7 all the non-meri figerings come much easier (still top tones response is sometimes too long). Not at a full speed, but way better than two weeks ago. I am starting to incorporate few meri tones.
Bottom line, I endorse doing those scales, not just up n down, but diagonally, sideways and anyways.)

Jose, I will take a look at those body exercises.

Are there any exercises already available of different scales?

Regards,

Marek

I've devised some exercises that I enjoy practicing and sound great. The idea is to have a four note scale instead of five by moving two fingers together as if it were one... at speed this can be fun and challenging.
First scale: ro - re - chi - ri
Second scale: ro - tsu - chi - ri
Third scale ro - tsu - re - ri
Exercises: a) play the scales, both octaves, increasing speed, up and down in one breath.
(using the first scale)
b) ro - re - ro - re - chi - re - chi - ri... etc.
c) ro - re - chi - re - chi - ri - chi - ri - ro... etc.
Make up your own!
Remember, the important thing here is to move those given two fingers as one, so you don't hear any "passing" notes.

As far as Robuki goes, Marek, the whole point is to do it while observing, correcting, and eventually avoiding stiffness of any kind!... that's at least 50% of the point of doing it, as far as I'm concerned.
Hey! I'll be on tour all of November in Europe and have quite a bit of "time to kill" in Prague. Let's have a visit!

Hi Jose,

thanks again! I am using pentatonic (ro, tsu, etc.] exercises written by Teruhisa Fukuda. They are very well structured.
I was wondering, however, if someone has exercises for scales like C major. Of course, I can write them myself, but just to save time.

Jose, I am now in Lisbon, so if you can find your way here. I can put you up.

Cheers,

Marek

PS: It's great to see flute slowly getting brown and your fingerprints developing.

You can find the C major Scale on page 27 from James Nyoraku Schlefer "The Practical Shakuhachi, Etudes for Technical Development".

"The Shakuhachi Workbook, Daily practice Exercises...." from him is a good "read" (read play, practice) as well.

Hi,

I'm getting back with some more insights. On the basis of the pentatonic exercises I wrote some major C exercises, but I didn't like them very much - probably because the internal logic of this scale is different. But, few days ago, I tried change the modality (if this is the correct term) of the pentatonic exercises and I'm very excited about it. Instead of practicing within the ro,tsu,re,chi,ri frame, I practice with tsu,u,ri-meri,ri,tsu-meri frame. The beauty of this is that the intervals here natural to the shakuhachi (and to me, not having properly studied western music), and can be easily verified by playing the standard shk scale. This also allows me to play without having to write down the exercise, thus letting the head and the ears figure it all out. It feels like my mind is really working hard

Btw. do you have any thoughts regarding Japanese traditional arts and the austere (and perhaps even purposely ineffective) methodology of their teaching? Looks like a very samurai thing...

Again, thanks for any input.

Cheers,

Marek