DESCRIPTION:
Live at Trinity Chapel in Berkeley, CA - February 14, 2015.
Performed by Cornelius 深禅 (Shinzen) Boots on 2.74 Taimu shakuhachi, made by Ken LaCosse of Mujitsu Shakuhachi in San Francisco.

What's that on his left arm?
That is a tattoo of the beginning lines of notation of this very song, TAMUKE. Yes it is a real tattoo, but permanence is the topic here. Or, impermanence.

This piece is from the honkyoku ("classical") repertoire of the shakuhachi, a Zen flute used for breath awareness and cultivation of nature music and chant for over 1000 years in Japan.

The title of this piece is translated as "hands folded in prayer" and it is played over and over at the alter while putting attention on those ancestors or loved ones who have crossed over to the other side. In a sense, the "requiem" piece of the honkyoku repertoire.

The flute on this piece is a 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 or kyotaku for instance.)
Taimu are made by Mujitsu Shakuhachi in San Francisco and more information about Taimu and mukyoku can be found on this website:
http://www.mujitsu.com/mukyoku/

Other honkyoku [Buddhist nature hymns] played on Taimu:
https://youtu.be/3ziJdWhu5QM
https://youtu.be/PBEjEypvP2E
https://youtu.be/R7eLNeseoDc
https://youtu.be/g2TGj5F0CIk

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.

Underground Bamboo Flute Music. Bamboo Gospel & Avant-Blues. Zen Taoist Forest Hymns & Anthems. Zen shakuhachi, hochiku, Taimu. Actively merging the threads of Watazumido, Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix.

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.