DESCRIPTION:
"In Which the Sound Contemplates Your Existence"
www.corneliusboots.com

Composed and performed by Cornelius Boots on the 2.74 jinashi Taimu shakuhachi, a root-end bamboo Zen flute made by Ken LaCosse at Mujitsu Shakuhachi, San Francisco.

March 2016 at Esalen, the Science and Nonduality Workshop (S.A.N.D.) just a few yards form the ocean, so that is the sound you hear in the background :-) And this piece was a set-up for the evening talk given by Rupert Spira.

This is an original composition for Taimu shakuhachi, although it can be played on any size flute to great effect.

The long tone honkyoku pieces (like Kyorei) and slow Mississippi blues tunes (like solo Junior Kimbrough, for instance) are the primary inspirations for this piece, which is mukyoku #10. "mukyoku" is the name of the pieces written specifically for Taimu shakuhachi, which is like the cello/trombone/Barry White of the shakuhachi world. The Taimu excels at achieving a tone that is very earthy and glowing at the same time as projecting more than older style large Zen bamboo flutes (hocchiku, kyotaku for instance.)

Taimu are made by Ken LaCosse of Mujitsu Shakuhachi in San Francisco. More information about Taimu and mukyoku can be found on this website:
http://www.mujitsu.com/mukyoku/

Underground Bamboo Flute Music. Bamboo Gospel & Avant-Blues. Zen Taoist Forest Hymns & Anthems. Zen shakuhachi, hotchiku, Taimu. Actively merging the threads of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Watazumido and Jimi Hendrix on jinashi and bass bamboo shakuhachi flutes. 竹の尺
深禅

"I am committed to woodwind performance as a living art form in collaboration with the natural material, with plant consciousness. Because of this, I only play on jinashi or 100% bamboo, unlacquered shakuhachi, hotchiku and Taimu flutes." 竹の尺八

Shakuhachi and Taimu albums at CD Baby:
https://store.cdbaby.com/Artist/CorneliusBoots
Digital albums at bandcamp: https://corneliusboots.bandcamp.com/

Cornelius Boots creates and performs advanced nature and alternative world music on big bamboo flutes. A professional woodwind wizard since 1989, Boots is known as the leader and composer of the world's only original bass clarinet quartet, Edmund Welles. Cornelius is the first student of Grandmaster Michael Chikuzen Gould to have earned a Shihan (master teaching license) and was given the shakuhachi name 深禅 "Shinzen" (depth Zen or deep Zen). In addition to teaching, Cornelius has recorded and written, in shakuhachi calligraphic notation, a series of 27 etudes (mukyoku) for Taimu shakuhachi. He plays all types of flutes, but specializes in jinashi and large-bore shakuhachi.

With his latest releases, Bamboo Rising and Holy Flute , Cornelius continues to develop a soul-based, virtuosic, genre-denying composition and shakuhachi performance style incorporating rock, blues, metal and classical Zen elements. He calls the result “bamboo gospel.” A robust, expressive solo style that merges his own diverse 33-year woodwind experience with the Zen Buddhist shakuhachi tradition, rooted in aliveness, awareness and the natural world.

Longer bio at https://www.komuso.com/people/people.pl?person=1849

Visit www.corneliusboots.com and sign up on the mailing list or contact Cornelius for online or in person lessons. You don't need a flute or "basic sounds" before you start learning: with shakuhachi, these are very important aspects of your first lessons.

"Free Bird" new nature, live music video:
http://youtu.be/DTmf4MChsMY

The raw bamboo flute is the ultimate contemplative instrument, yet it demands ultimate attention and fierce dedication from the practitioner. Played by Zen monks (and samurai spies, here and there) in Japan for perhaps a thousand years, the sound is somewhere between a Western silver flute and wind playing through trees. Some sounds are uplifting, soaring and ethereal, and some are turbulent, gritty and inexplicable. An ancient voice crying out from the modern virtuoso fringe. Sacred art music with a chunk of rock.