"The flute is the groan of the literati in the study, and the shakuhachi is a gust of wind blowing through the bamboo forest in the cold night", so people who love this instrument commented.
how many people still know the instrument shakuhachi today? The origin of the name "shakuhachi" is due to its length of one foot and eight inches. Most of them are made of bamboo, with an opening at the top, inclined cutting at the mouthpiece and vertical blowing. The earliest bone flute can be traced back to the Neolithic Age 9 years ago. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Qiangdi, the predecessor of shakuhachi, had spread among the people. It became the main music of the court in the Sui Dynasty and was used for court music and dance in the Tang Dynasty. It disappeared in China at the end of the Song Dynasty. In the pottery figurines of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the three-color camel figurines of the Tang Dynasty, we can see the trace of the shakuhachi, but for a long time, we can only find the description of the shakuhachi in Shen Kuo's Mengxi Bi Tan.
shakuhachi is a bamboo wind instrument similar to Xiao, which originated in China in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It became the main court instrument in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and was introduced to Japan by envoys to the Tang Dynasty in the Song Dynasty. Later, due to the social turmoil in the Song Dynasty and the cultural fault caused by the minority rule in the Yuan Dynasty, the shakuhachi was gradually lost in China, but it was widely spread in Japan, and several schools such as "Qin Gu Liu", "Du Shan Liu" and "Light and Shade Against Mountain Liu" were formed.
when it was first introduced to Japan from China, the shakuhachi was a kind of instrument. Every time there is a major ritual in a temple, it is necessary to perform the shakuhachi in front of the Buddha. In the view of monks, performing the shakuhachi, like offering flowers, burning incense and offering food, is a way to support the Buddha and a part of the ritual. This tradition is still maintained today. Among the various schools of shakuhachi performance, "light and shade to the mountain stream" advocates "being natural and not carving", which can best reflect the essence of Zen.
there is still debate about how shakuhachi, which is now regarded as a national music in Japan, inherits history. At present, the generally accepted historical materials were introduced to Japan by Japanese monks in Kamakura era after they came to Hangzhou to practice meditation in Song Dynasty. It is said that there is also an interesting story here: Xin Juexin, while attending meditation with his younger brother Zhang Shen in China, overheard Zhang Shen playing a musical instrument, and only after asking did he know that it was shakuhachi. The shakuhachi was handed down from Zhang Shen's ancestors to Zhang Bo in the Tang Dynasty. According to legend, in ancient times, there was an enlightened person with a rather pretentious personality, who often played with a bell-shaped duo in alms. After his death, people didn't find his remains, but they heard the wonderful sound of duo coming from the air. Zhang Bo admired this charm very much, and randomly wrote the song "Virtual Bell" by chanting and vibrating Duo with shakuhachi. This piece of music has been spread to Zhang Shen, and the Buddhist monk took it to Japan, went to the temple to practice, and passed it on to the Meiji period. Thus, the shakuhachi became a Zen instrument.
In today's Japan, the Masakura Courtyard of Todasi Temple in Nara, which specializes in the collection of important ancient cultural relics, houses eight shakuhachi made in the Tang Dynasty. These shakuhachi, whether bamboo or jade, or stone or tooth, are regarded as Japan's national treasures. This ancient musical instrument with a history of thousands of years has become the national music of Japan, and it has developed into a magical instrument that can be solo, ensemble or joined in a band ensemble. It can play both classical elegant music and modern music.
In Yoji Yamada's A Knight's Minute and Twilight Seibee, we can hear the bleak tone played by the shakuhachi, and in the concerts in Europe and America, we can also hear the ensemble of the shakuhachi and jazz-all these wonderful things actually come from the wisdom of the ancient people in China, but like many Chinese civilizations, they are spread and developed in a foreign land. "The shakuhachi is spreading in Japan, Europe and America, and there are many excellent shakuhachi performers, composers, pipe makers and more and more fans. In China, there are only a dozen shakuhachi performers. "
According to legend, Lv Cai, a miscellaneous expert in the Tang Dynasty, was good at making shakuhachi. Although shakuhachi is short for one foot and eight inches, it doesn't actually have a definite length. According to "Biography of Lv Cai in the New Tang Dynasty", there are 12 pieces of shakuhachi, and eight pieces of ancient shakuhachi with different shapes and lengths introduced from China are indeed preserved in the Japanese Zhengcang Academy. This early ancient shakuhachi was all six-holed, with different materials and ornate decorations such as stone carving, jade carving and ivory carving, which was very different from the five-holed shakuhachi in Japan in the later Middle Ages. Juexin, a Zen monk in Kamakura in the 13th century, studied in the Southern Song Dynasty. It is said that he brought back shakuhachi in the Southern Song Dynasty and learned the corresponding songs. This kind of shakuhachi and its music developed into the popular shakuhachi in the future. The so-called universal shakuhachi is mainly used in Buddhist music, and the players are basically Zen monks. Later, during the Tokugawa shogunate, shakuhachi gradually developed into its present form. In the early Meiji period, the Puhua Sect was abolished, while the shakuhachi was widely played with other musical instruments as a folk musical instrument. Nowadays, shakuhachi is not only a basic five-hole, but also a seven-hole and nine-hole shakuhachi. Because the range of wind instruments is relatively narrow, different lengths of shakuhachi are produced in order to adapt to different keys. Especially in some modern works, porous shakuhachi can provide more combinations of sound patterns and more means of playing. Although for professional players, even five-hole shakuhachi can blow out a lot of differential intervals and rich timbre, but for more hole shakuhachi, the volume and richness are much worse, which can't be compensated by skills.
besides the origin of the Zen shakuhachi, there are various other music types in the history of shakuhachi. For example, if you cut the shakuhachi in one section, now there is basically only music and it is extinct. There are also three-step ruler eight and folk ruler eight, both of which, as the name implies, are used for the corresponding music types. However, this record only provides classical shakuhachi music, that is, shakuhachi music developed from popularized shakuhachi. The classical shakuhachi can be divided into two schools, Qin Guliu and Dushan Guliu. Guqin Stream is relatively old, which was founded by Kurosawa Guqin (171-1771) in the 18th century. Dushanliu, on the other hand, is relatively young, and it was founded by Zhongwei Dushan (1876 ~ 1956) in the early 2th century. The classic shakuhachi music is called the shakuhachi song, and the famous songs include Void Bells, Far Sound of Deer, Cage of Crane, Three Valley Guanyuan, Moon on the Lake and so on.