Hello and welcome back to reading my newsletter.

First things first - I have some show announcements

Friday July 29th - Sanctuary NYC 7:00 PM (1519 Decatur Street, #104 Ridgewood, NY) With Gamin, & Chang Jin Lee performing Unforgotten Song - a musical / video based remembrance of the Comfort Women. Free Event!

Monday August 8th - Tradesman Bar 222 Bushwick Ave 6PM with Derek Weaving and Ben Murphy playing what I call a Candle Light Concert. I used to do a bunch of these semi organized mostly improvised drone concerts juxtaposing traditional shakuhachi vocabulary over a drone. I'll be doing it this time with 2 upright bass players. It should be fun

And now for a short Lunation Report - it was a big busy month of moving apartments and traveling - more on that in emails to come. I actually saw very little of the moon this month - I spent half of it in Alaska where it's almost never dark enough to see it and NYC has been a semiconscious whirlwind since I got back.

--

Shakuhachi Practice Thoughts

I get most of the joy in music from carving out consistent practice time. It does not really matter to me what I'm practicing, although I have set a pretty rigorous rotation of music that makes up the actual material of what to play when I sit down and engage with the instrument. The thing that keeps me coming back is the joy in building on a consistent routine of work. La Monte used to say that music is no fun unless you're the best and I've found that to be true although less about being better than anyone else but more about learning how to face yourself and build rather than just show up to the gig and vibe. There's a feeling of triumph in turning something difficult into something routine and then another level of triumph when that routine becomes something joyful. I should say that this isn't true just for music but that dedication to something that you actually love doing (your practice should be something you actually like even when it's hard) brings actual joy, actual relaxation, felt by yourself when you are practicing. If it's not doing that than you need to consider what you're looking to get out of the art form you practice. For me, playing shakuhachi and sticking to pretty much only practicing traditional repertoire frees up mental space to focus on these practical aspects of practice itself. I don't have to worry about anything other than getting to the studio - from there I plug into the work and let it take me somewhere. Shakuhachi rep in the Kinko tradition has a deep vocabulary that is built up as you work through the pieces in order. The music itself reinforces the idea of consistency of practice through gradually building on itself using similar elements and expansions. Phrases that appear in the first piece of the rep are present at the end of the rep albeit part of a much larger and longer structure.

Studying with great teachers is crucial for building a good foundation so you can actually listen to yourself and realize what it is you really sound like - but the actual work is done alone, in the shed so to speak. I'll preach it until I can't anymore. The shed is holy.

--

I'll leave with a link to this video of me playing Sagari Ha no Kyoku (Song of The Falling Leaves) - it's a little early seasonably to be thinking about falling leaves but nonetheless I am fairly proud of how it sounds. Click the photo below to take a listen. Thank you!