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Japanese Flutes and Their Musical Acoustic Peculiarities

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Studies in Musical Acoustics and Psychoacoustics

Part of the book series: Current Research in Systematic Musicology ((CRSM,volume 4))

Abstract

Representative Japanese bamboo flutes, the shakuhachi, nohkan, and shinobue are investigated from musical acoustic viewpoint. The end-blown longitudinal flute, shakuhachi has only five tone holes, and several cross fingerings causes pitch sharpening (called intonation anomaly) as well as characteristic timbre, particularly in the second and third registers. Also, acoustical differences between classical and modern shakuhachis are made clear. The nohkan has a special tube device, “throat” (called nodo in Japanese), which is inserted between the embouchure hole and the top tone hole to narrow the bore. This throat significantly upsets the expected octave relation between the first and second registers. The octave is enlarged for low-pitched fingerings, while it is strongly shrunk for high-pitched fingerings. The nohkan is compared with the piccolo concerning an interesting fingering with two extremely distant open tone holes. The upper tone hole functions as an octave hole. The shinobue has another special device, a membrane hole over which the inner skin of the bamboo node (called chikushi in Japanese) is glued. The membrane vibration driven by the bore resonance pressure produces brilliant and distinctive sounds due to the resulting high-frequency emphasis. These unique structural properties of Japanese flutes bring about their musical and acoustical peculiarities not usually observed in Western flutes.

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  1. 1-27-22 Aoyama, Dazaifu, 818-0121, Japan

    Shigeru Yoshikawa

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Correspondence to Shigeru Yoshikawa .

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  1. Institut für Systematische Musikwissenschaft, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Albrecht Schneider

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Yoshikawa, S. (2017). Japanese Flutes and Their Musical Acoustic Peculiarities. In: Schneider, A. (eds) Studies in Musical Acoustics and Psychoacoustics. Current Research in Systematic Musicology, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47292-8_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47292-8_1

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