Dear email reader,

Thanks for checking in here! I haven’t really needed to send one of these in a while since I’ve been spending a lot of time teaching and practicing shakuhachi/working on a new tea hosting project at work.

I did manage to record a small track for this email It’s the ending of the piece Tsuki no Kyoku (Song of the Moon). It’s one of the 36 classical solo pieces we have in the Kinko school and it’s an interesting one because we know who composed it. It was written by Araki Kodo II (Chikuo I); a crucially important figure in shakuhachi history.

I’ve been playing this song a lot and listening to the recording made by Araki Kodo VI in 2020. The current day Araki sensei has, for whatever reason, been largely ignored by the institutions of the US so far. It’s been striking me as sad that the real oral tradition and history (the person/family based history as opposed to the mythic history) of this instrument that I love practicing is easily swept away in favor of a kind of New-Age Shakuhachi World-Beat vibe. I hope that people wise up to Araki sensei’s importance soon (how often do we as shakuhachi people find someone who is so good at playing, learned from such a rich family history, and has such a story!?)

Nevertheless, Kodo VI is writing new music and I wanted people on this email list to know about it. There’s something that feels very real about Araki sensei’s sound. I’ll put a link to his new video here. His composition is called Ren-Ren.

For gigs, I’m playing on August 7th in Chelsea on a rooftop.

It will start at 8:00 and will be at

Alchemical Studios

50 W 17th Street, NY NY

Here’s the poster - it says Thursday but that’s wrong it’s Wednesday.

After that I’ll play Tradesman with Ben and Ronald on my birthday 9/16 - hit me up abut that!

That’s all for now. Peace

Adam