Tag Archives: Tips for shakuhachi

Shakuhachi inspiration

Free Online Shakuhachi Workshop!

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On January 25th, 2026, at 5:00 pm (CET), I will be offering a free online workshop to celebrate the fifth anniversary of my virtual shakuhachi dojo on Patreon 🥳🎶🕊️

Virtual Shakuhachi Dojo

I started this dojo in February 2021, during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since then, this intimate space has been home to many meditations, tutorials, stories, and recordings, created to help you discover the shakuhachi, deepen your meditation practice, or improve your playing.

Beyond exclusive content, the dojo is also a place where you can connect with me personally.

This work is my humble legacy to the world. The motto I wrote at the very beginning still guides everything I do:

When you realise that the ultimate happiness is being yourself and that nobody can be better than you at it, then the competitive ego disappears. Remains the deep motivation to do your best at being yourself, for you and for the world. This is what this project is about.

Registration

To register, join the dojo for free and answer the poll in this post.

Registration is required to receive the workshop link and music notation.

The workshop will be held on Teams and will last 60 minutes.

Continue reading Free Online Shakuhachi Workshop! →
Shakuhachi practice

Effective Tips for Memorising Shakuhachi Honkyoku

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When I started playing in nature a few years ago, I quickly realised that I needed to learn my Honkyoku repertoire by heart. I wanted to be able to play anywhere, without relying on notation.

And then I made a huge discovery.

Why play Honkyoku by heart?

I wrote about this topic a few years ago (in this post), and looking back, I’m still using the same approach—only now, my repertoire has grown a lot.

Oral transmission

Traditional shakuhachi music is an oral tradition. Notation came later, mainly as a tool to remember and pass on the music. But you cannot truly play Honkyoku as it is meant to sound if you don’t know the style or have never heard it.

That’s why I make so many practice recordings for my students. You can find them on my SoundCloud page.

Playing by heart connects you more deeply to this tradition—and to yourself. Your listening shifts. You begin to follow in the footsteps of the Komusō monks.

Continue reading Effective Tips for Memorising Shakuhachi Honkyoku →
Shakuhachi practice

From the Heart

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On March 2, 2025, I’ll be giving a free online workshop organised by the European Shakuhachi Society. Click here for information and registration.

If you are interested, please register even if you cannot attend the event live. You’ll get the teaching material and a link to watch it back afterwards.

From the Heart

The theme of the workshop is From the Heart. I’ll be teaching Nyoi Chōshi, which is a short prelude to a longer piece, Nyoi, composed by Miyakawa Nyozan at the end of the 19th century.

The level is beginner/elementary but the workshop will also be interesting for more advanced students. Going back to the basics is always good!

Playing a simple piece allows for more precision to pitch, ornementation, phrasing, tone quality, etc. The beginners’ version will allow participants to learn the main line and enjoy its simplicity (simple doesn’t mean easy!).

We will also work to embody the piece so that you can make it your own.

You learn honkyoku from notation but you play it from the heart.

Continue reading From the Heart →
Shakuhachi inspiration, Shakuhachi practice

Shakuhachi Blog – 6 years!!

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Since I started this blog 6 years ago, I’ve published more than 150 posts and pages … only about the Japanese Bamboo flute shakuhachi! Which is not really a popular topic according to Google trends, algorithms and all the bunch of digital numbers rating our lives. But this is my life journey with my shakuhachi flute and I’m happy to share it. I’m even more happy if it inspires others – shakuhachi players, flutists, musicians, non-musicians, anyone.

So what happened on my blog in 2022, according to the analytics? What did you, readers, read and like most? Which of my posts written in 2022 became the most popular?

Continue reading Shakuhachi Blog – 6 years!! →
Shakuhachi practice

6 Shakuhachi Practice Tips for Busy People

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When you have little time to practice shakuhachi, what should you do to make progress and be happy with your practice?

Here are some tips to help you. Let me know which one you find the most useful!

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Shakuhachi practice

How to play “Kan”?!?!?

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Why is the upper register Kan so difficult for many of us?

When I started learning shakuhachi, I was already a professional flutist, and still, as a beginner shakuhachi student, I found that the Kan register was a bit challenging, especially the two higher notes (Hi and I). There was something there that took me a bit more time to feel and master. Although the lips technique is quite similar to the flute’s technique, I needed to find some adjustments. What was going on?

Continue reading How to play “Kan”?!?!? →
Shakuhachi practice, Shakuhachi video

Tutorial Videos

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When I opened my Virtual Shakuhachi Dojo on Patreon last February (https://www.patreon.com/shakudojo), I started to film tutorial videos for the patrons of the KAN Tier. Once a month, I address a specific topic or technique. So far I have published videos about abdominal breathing, embouchure for (absolute) beginners, the basic scale otsu, how to play in kan, how to attack a sound, how to warm up, meditation in nature. When you subscribe, you also get access to a PDF-file with basic exercises for practicing long tones, fingers, octaves and intervals. In the coming months, I’ll be filming how to practice these exercises and release the videos in my Dojo.

Why do you have to pay to get access to this content?

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Shakuhachi inspiration, Shakuhachi Performance, Shakuhachi practice

Shakuhachi by Heart

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The two last months I have been quite busy recording videos in the nature (read previous blog post about it here). It started a bit out of frustration: concert halls desperately closed for so long, impossibility to make plans to work in the short run, living on the hope that it would get better after the summer when most people got vaccinated to start to perform again,… But hope is not enough and I couldn’t just stay put and wait for the situation to improve. The current pandemic has given me the opportunity to challenge myself to find other ways to create and still go on, like creating a virtual Dojo on Patreon (visit it here).

Outside my confort zone

Some artists in bigger structures and/or better network manage to organise live streams, I don’t. Luckily I love birds and birdsongs. Playing and recording in nature turned out to be a very nice activity yet challenging. It means playing in the cold, in the dark, in the rain, in the mud, in the wind, without the supportive acoustic of a concert hall or any amplification… It means going out of my comfort zone and letting go of my blockages. It means playing by heart.
But it also means being surrounded by birdsongs, enjoying space, deep inner peace, being present to everything happening. This is so rewarding!

In this post, I’ll describe how I pushed my limits and I’ll give some tips to play by heart.

Playing by heart is a path to meditation.

Continue reading Shakuhachi by Heart →
Shakuhachi practice

Practice Practice Practice

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The student: -I don’t make any progress. How can I make progress?
Me: -Practice.
The student: -But I practiced!
Me: -What did you practice exactly? And how?

Most of the times it turned out that the student didn’t practice that much after all. Or not WHAT I asked him/her to practice. Or not HOW I asked him/her to practice. Why? I wonder. Maybe is it not that obvious for everyone what practicing means?

So here are some thoughts about practicing shakuhachi. And about practicing in general, not only for shakuhachi. I am an amateur photographer and once I asked a friend who is a professional photographer how I could improve my photos and she answered “Practice this and that”. So practice practice practice. Meaningfully.

Even if you think that you know what practicing is, please read this post further. I’ll be happy to hear if it matches what you already know and/or if you have some more tips to share.

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Shakuhachi Performance, Shakuhachi practice

Stress & Shakuhachi (Part 2)

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This is a follow up to my previous post about Stress & Shakuhachi. As I wrote before, this is a topic which cannot be covered in one or even several posts. And I am not a psychologist nor a professional coach. The aim of these posts is to help you setting things in motion if you are overwhelmed by stress when playing in front of your teacher or in public and end up panicking instead of enjoying.

So, how can you work on it?

Continue reading Stress & Shakuhachi (Part 2) →