Playing With The Breath That Keeps You Alive: Shakuhachi, John Kaizan Neptune

John Kaizan Neptune: "Kaizan" is the professional stage name that I received as the equivalent of a black belt for playing the shakuhachi, the end-blown bamboo flute. I first began playing it in college in Hawaii as part of a research project in ethnomusicology. I came to Japan for a year, specifically to study shakuhachi in depth in 1976. I eventually received the name Kaizan, or "Sea-Mountain" [after his last name], and have been here in Japan ever since.

TS: What was it about the shakuhachi that pulled a surfer boy like you away from Hawaii and California to Japan?

JKN: One of the most distinctive features of the shakuhachi's sound is the beautiful tone color, as well as the very spacey use of breath, like wind rushing through the bamboo. Most of the world's flutes strive for a pure, pretty type of sound. Particularly with western flutes, if you're sounding really fuzzy, you haven't been practicing. But the shakuhachi has a deliberately scratchy, breathy sound, and when I first heard a recording of it I thought, "man, what is this spacey sound coming from?" And when I found out that it was a simple bamboo flute with only five holes, oh man, I had to check it out. I was playing drums in a rock-n-roll band at the time, and this flute music was spacier than anything that I'd ever heard. So I was hooked.

TS: Is the shakuhachi a lot harder to play than a western flute?

JKN: All instruments are difficult to play well, but the shakuhachi is notoriously difficult at the beginning. It has a big open mouthpiece and a much larger hole than a western flute hole, so there's more place to go wrong, essentially. It is the placement of the mouth that is really critical and really delicate and makes the shakuhachi so difficult in the beginning. Once you get that placement somewhat mastered, then it is on the same level as any wind instrument, which means you have to use the breath that keeps you alive to produce the sound. Learning how to use the breath is one of the most important things with a wind instrument and entails a lot of work and time and study.

TS: What are the differences in shakuhachi music and, say, a western classical flute sonata?

JKN: Shakuhachi musical genre did not develop within the traditional classic Japanese music. Traditionally, it was not performed as musical entertainment. In fact, rather than being called a musical instrument; it was called a dogu (tool) a tool for meditation. Wandering Buddhist priests would travel about old Japan with baskets over their heads, [but also] this became a way for samurai to travel incognito. If the man under the basket were discovered, he would use the shakuhachi as a weapon, in place of a sword.

Following the general cultural opening of the Meiji restoration (1868), the shakuhachi began to be used in classical chamber music ensembles. Then the music came to resemble western music, with regular rhythm. But the meditation music remained totally free. The space between the notes was extremely important, and it had no regular melody or development of theme. What you did have was the sound, the tone and the texture. This deliberately simplified form produced a very special, quiet space.

TS: Did Zen monks use it for the sound, the focus or the breathing to assist their meditation?

JKN: The answer is "yes!" All of the above. It's really hard to separate it. Having played shakuhachi for 30 years, people frequently ask if I meditate when I play. I always answer "I play shakuhachi; the meditation happens on its own." It's probably the same for everyone. This was not music to be presented in a hall, although it can work quite dramatically in some settings, particularly in intimate settings. Instead, the player played for himself rather than for others to listen to. Playing was a form of discipline. If you do not focus and are not there with the instrument, it does not work. The instrument demands that you pay attention.

TS: When you look back now, do you think you were young and crazy and happened on a good idea, or do you feel that destiny brought you this way? You're in a highly unusual position doing what you do.

JKN: I actually don't think about it very much. I once played in a jazz festival in Malaysia, and a young Malaysian boy came up to me and said. "You are the only person here at this whole festival that can go out into the bamboo grove, pick a natural material, make his own music with this natural material, and make it all work. You're involved in the whole process. You are very lucky!" Yes, I think I am very lucky that for some reason, I just got on the right path.

TS: What was the reaction of [jazz] heavyweights like Kenny Kirkland and Nathan East, when they looked at your instrument the first time you walked into the recording studio?

JKN: I'm sure that they were a little hesitant at first. The concept of a bamboo flute has a cheap connotation to it. But as you can see [showing Tom a shakuhachi], this is a really sophisticated instrument that I have painstakingly tuned. I went into the recording session professionally prepared, and their response, afterwards, was very positive. [Upright jazz bassist] Buster Williams said, "Congratulations on a great recording!" and Nathan East said "It was a really fun recording! Thanks a lot! I liked the music."

The shakuhachi has a fascinating history and tradition. But the music has to work on its own. It can't just be, "this is unique, therefore interesting." The music needs to be able to touch people, whether or not they know anything about it. And also, bamboo is a great natural material, and so, of course, people can also appreciate at that level.

TS: I guess, bamboo is one of the prime symbols of Japan, and of the East in general?

JKN: It's a material of incredible flexibility and usefulness, for everything from food to fuel to building materials. They used it for making record needles, and the first filament for an electric light bulb was made of the same kind of bamboo that I use for my flute. So, it's a really remarkable material with great strength, and yet it's easy to work with. It's hollow, so it makes a very natural flute type of material if you just knock out the membranes inside. It's quite a remarkable plant.

TS: I remember once being in Hawaii, in a bamboo forest on the eastern Maui on a windy day, and the bamboo stalks were hitting each other and it sounded like a [minimalist composer] Steve Reich concert!"

The bamboo looks fairly straight and straightforward a few holes and a hollow tube but in fact, an incredible amount of craft and effort and time goes into making those instruments, and I understand they're also quite expensive. How do you make a shakuhachi?

JKN: Unlike most other flutes, which use basically the natural bore [interior] for the instrument, the shakuhachi has a tapered bore which is completely unnatural. The inside of a well-crafted shakuhachi is a painstakingly shaped putty surface covered with lacquer. It plays so well because it's not perfect the air column is vibrating, rather than the material of the instrument. It's not so much the bamboo as the shape of the air column. The thickness of the bamboo is necessary to make the mouthpiece, but it is the shape of the bore which will determine the real beauty of the sound. The natural lacquer is related to poison sumac. It is a vicious material to work with, and a tricky process involving a huge number of steps. The carpentry, however, is not nearly as difficult as shaping the bore. You have to be able to play the instrument well enough to determine whether removing or adding an infinitesimally tiny piece of material in any area will improve the sound. We shape the bore, we sand it, and we put in and take out material, and are constantly playing to monitor the result.

TS: How old is the shakuhachi?

JKN: It came from China about 1,400 years ago in a somewhat different form and was used to play traditional court music of Japan, called gagaku. Its form today dates back about 200 or 300 years, to the time of the wandering Buddhist monks. A lot of the traditional music that is performed today was codified about 200 years ago. The versions that are currently being performed apparently were arranged around this 200 year level, but since the music was not written out but, rather, passed down from one master to another, the actual history is quite fuzzy. There are modern traditions and modern compositions as well.

TS: Well, by western standards, it is incredibly modern sounding. A lot of modern techniques are used that didn't really come into western classical music until 40 or 50 years ago. What does it say about the music?

JKN: As traditional shakuhachi music focuses, again, on tone color and texture rather than on a lot of notes, this suits the instrument. Remember, it has only five holes, and it is very difficult to play in that sense, so it was well suited for the simple, meditative approach. In western music, the "modern vs. not modern" question stems from the fact that after you have explored a twelve-tone system to quite extensive limits, you start looking to other textures such as tone color to make the music interesting or to take it in a different direction. I played at the University of Michigan, and the classical contemporary saxophone player invited me to play for his class, because, [he said], "it's those kinds of sounds and techniques that all my students are working on in this contemporary field of modern classical saxophone playing." Even in the jazz tradition, people are always looking for new sounds and new textures that they can use in their improvisation. And yes, to hear traditional Japanese music, it can sound very avant garde, very contemporary.

TS: You've worked in many different areas, including the traditional repertoire, the classical Japanese repertoire, jazz, and western classical. What was it that made you want to play more than just the great traditional Japanese repertoire?

JKN: The shakuhachi took me there. It was crying out for a wider expression. In my everyday practice, I was discovering many different sounds that were not found in traditional music. For instance, in traditional Japanese shakuhachi there is no such thing as a short note isn't that wild?! which means that you are not required to employ the technique that wind players employ called tonguing, or using the tongue to initiate the tone. Just because there is no tonguing in traditional Japanese music does not mean that it's not available to the instrument.

This includes double tonguing, triple tonguing, and all the other techniques that are found not only in western classical music, but particularly in jazz, where people are always looking for new modes of drama through improvisation. So singing and playing the shakuhachi at the same time, singing in harmony and circular breathing are all available to the shakuhachi. They are not necessarily easy, but they are things that I use in my compositions and in my improvisation.