greetings everyone michelle grander and here welcome to positive energy once again bringing un lightning television for your evolving soul the shakuhachi is an ancient japanese food traditionally made from bamboo this monks used it as a form of meditation my guests blend swan has been flying the shakuhachi for over twenty three years he's here to introduce us to the sacred and beautiful and storm and take a few deep breaths and stay where you are because positive energy starts right now so glen swan welcomes a positive energy nice to have you here thank you nice to be here so you play the shakuhachi yes tell us about the shaka haji a little bit of the brief history and what sort of instrument is court music of japan and then little by little it actually died out for a brief period of time and then it was taken up by a sect of zen priest so from that on from that point onward it had a very strong affiliation with zen so tell me a little bit more about use it myself in that context as simply alone in my room or out in nature or what have you using it as a sound meditation uniting breath sound and intent at the same time in addition to of course performing w very interesting so it's a meditation in of itself and it helps us deep and enhance our meditation and the mechanics of that is a little bit it's the sound it's the length of the sound i guess and the vibration or the tone it's it carries us into taishan it's definitely that for the player it's the breath of course sick the meditation tradition music is not doesn't have a metronomic rhythm to it because you're not playing with another instrument you don't have to stay and be with someone so the phrases are basically determined by the length of your own natural breath so there's an inhaler and an x l i dislike and sitting meditation also there's no like coughing and puffing in the traditional zen pieces it's just a long flowing exhale all repeats are done with fingers so in such a names to have the fullest and deepest breath possible plus the sound there are five major tones on it that are related to five elements five organ systems in the body there's a whole kind of correspondence between chinese medical theory and shakuhachi music as well well that's really interesting it sounds like it's just the series it's natural it's like a natural extension of being human using breath to create sounds absolutely it is that and although we do him to develop technique of course ultimately we want to let go of that technique and just have the natural breath so you became interested in began to study in one thousand nine hundred four is that correct so what was it that originally piqued your interest so that and how did you get started w practice because i was able to rent a room from a meditator and he did tibet and tradition but he also had affiliation is and center so i basically deep in my experience at that point then at the same time i had been playing other miscellaneous kinds of foods like american indian flute or other kinds of sign blue flutes and cetera when i got back from california i actually bought a honda scooter from somebody and he had on display in his living room when i came to pick up a scooter i picked one up and i was able to get some sound out of it so he actually gave me my first shakuhachi at that point i you know i kind of played around with it for a little bit but  an easy instrument so i was lucky enough to find teacher at the time there were two teachers in princeton so i started off with tommy hahn who was my very first teacher and from then on i just kind of got hooked and you know i've been  yeah it sounds like you in the shaka hot you were meant to be really meant to find each other it's very interesting yeah i think say it so and usual and it's unique and not many people pick it up and as you say it's hard to play so say a little bit more about that and maybe give us  a short demo you're going to play a little bit of a longer piece by talk a little bit about the system of musical notation and learning it right i mean basically the first step in learning the shock watty is just getting sound at all most people even if they've had prior experience with wind instruments tend to just get a minimal sound if anything usually has a because the nature of the flute you have to break the  exactly on this blowing edge right here so the way you shape your lips is essential and it's really for a troll your breath and control the muscles in your lips and mouth that's exactly it it's of the muscles in the lips and mouth to get the right richer used to expanding i guess it's about deep breathing and die for matter breathing breathing from your tongue and then in japanese done ten the chinese name for it breathing from down in your lower belly otherwise you're not going to get the proper shock what you sound those who first step in learning is to get a sound at all then it's refining the sound being able to play in pitch you can bend notes on it so that's really flexible and adaptable as an instrument it's a good thing but also that makes it more difficult to exactly play in pitch kind of like a violin doesn't have frets to show you where you are you have to know same thing with shakuhachi you have to know the angle you're blowing and how you're blowing and then be able to hear are you in pitch or not so the second step would be pitch then from there you know you develop more technique and then after that point and it's all about kind of letting go of the right amount of that it technique so that you can just play with it you know so  much intellectual thought on it so show us how you maybe i don't know if you prepared you do any kind of exercises before you play to get yourself warmed up and give us a little sound a little sound taste of sound there sure this is actually well i guess  afterward i can talk a little bit about the differences in the flutes with this is a flute that i made myself feel ok so play just a little scale basically so those are just all the open holes the it's a pentatonic scale so five notes in it that's usually what i played to get warmed up i love that even just with that little sample i feel like i'm just whisked to japan i already feel that meditation coming on yeah it does have you know really different because the pens dug nature it does have it in a different quality to it than the western scale syria and i'm used to the native american flute a little bit and i can definitely hear the differences between the two as well so i know that he teaches instrument to adults and children adults and teens so talk a little bit about how you teach or how easy or hard is it for folks  lucky enough to be able to study with him but through him i was able to get this master's license or permission to teach in his lineage essentially you can develop your skill and teach people of course without that but the real goes all the way up my oldest student was in a seventy s you know children of course if their hands are small would have to play the smaller size flutes the shorter lengths you know but other than not the kind of the method of teaching is pretty similar you know just coaching them to get a sound at first teaching them how to read the sheet music and you know then just going from there typically there's a repertoire that we go through from simple pieces you start with children's literally children songs japanese children's songs and then just get more and more complex pieces as you go along so you teach a lot of people to a lot of people while learning or how do they  out you know people have different ways of coming to it the child that i mentioned he had heard it somewhere when he was quite young and just fell in love with the sound you know and he just really really wanted to start playing other people just maybe happen upon it randomly almost like i like i did you know there's i think as far as i know i'm the only license teacher in new jersey so if people do develop an ins lineage there's only a few in america that's a less common lineage i believe only about like two or three including myself but you know there are teachers in new york and other areas but as far as specifically new jersey i think  certainly in this area on the only person so in japan is it still as popular as it has always been is there a resurgence is it a dying art are there many many thousands of teachers there would you say you were less than or less well you know i think all  traditional arts in japan and i would say they're dying but they're certainly not as big as they used to be my teacher specifically actually i remember he gave a speech at shakuhachi festival there was a world chuckle at the festival held in new york a while ago and he said that he was actually hoping that at least in japan as the baby boomer generation retired and had more free time they would be older people would come to reinvigorate it simply because there weren't as many younger people you know as he would've hoped but you know there are say college clubs and things like that in japan or even grammar schools might have you was a century ago you know something like that so i wonder i would think there would be more interest here because there is more interest than ever in just the east you know and meditative arts and movement a becoming increasingly popular here and so that's really the music that is really the soundtrack to that so do you see any of that as well because more and more people are coming to meditation you know that i think probably especially free younger people you g people starting in the twenty's or whatever it may be that internationally outside of japan that's where it's getting much like say more reinvigorated you know or more of a resurgence that's true so we're going to hear  chinese martial art that is a meditation and health building exercise as well as being a martial art yeah moving your energy and your body and finding balance and it's meditative as well i love it so i had braces i do hope to record a cd soon i recorded one a long time ago and kind of sold it on a very very small scale but that was like two thousand and four or something so not really happy with that anymore so i would love hope to a new one soon but you know there's oh probably a couple hours worth of music free on sound cloud and on reverb nation as well so maybe in closing is there any final words what you would say to people what you were really want people to know about the shakuhachi and about zen much more inside and on the present moment i think that you know refining the self through whatever our you are practicing has a lot lot to offer in this world of distraction you know and everything else that we have  shakuhachi in particular i think it's just that it's you're working on something that is rather difficult but ultimately you're cultivating yourself you know the perseverance and patience that it takes just to get through it at the beginning is really good for character building out say so it's a good i'll use a little self discipline right and i would end up some kind of contemplate of practice whatever resonates for you and in the shakuhachi resonates for someone they should reach out to you or do some more research on that so i would suggest anyone who has any in claim you know that they would like to try it give it a shot because i would you know i can really say change my life in a really positive way so beautiful you're on your path you're following your masters of the early twentieth century was active from the one nine hundred twenty s really into the one nine hundred fifty s this his pieces are really special to me because this flute which is my main flute actually has his mark on it he didn't make it but it says that he approved the tuning so at least at some point he probably actually played this flute and so you know antique flute from the one nine hundred twenty s your thirty's but this particular piece is really international in its origin it was commissioned by a polish count who wanted him to write something that kind of had an exotic feel for a ballet that this count was putting on that depicted ancient greek shrine maidens dancing and offering a prayer to the greek gods so it's kind of like a really international peace and that's one reason why i like playing it as well it sounds beautiful i hope people will listen to it with that here as well so thank you glen swan for what you've shared thank you for the work that you're bringing to the world thank you for being here and positive we're wrapping up another enlightening show i hope we left you feeling energized inspired and relaxed remember only you can design a life you love and allow yourself to bring your unique gifts out into the world a special thank you the monday morning for the beautiful floral arrangement and thank you for watching join us next time on positive energy