How To Be A Successful Shakuhachi Student.

Success Is What You Make Of It!

Here is what I believe… Nothing will push you forward farther and faster than pure unadulterated passion. The roaring flame in your belly that burns with fierce desire. That tool, along with motivation are the two strongest tools that will improve your shakuhachi playing and help you succeed in all these difficult pieces.

Learning how to play an instrument is not just routine. Anyone can just take the shakuhachi out every day, blow ro, even earnestly play their pieces but there is so much more to it than that. If you have taken lessons with me before, you know that I love to go deep in a piece. I love narratives and storytelling. Character development, tone colors, and sounds in general. But furthermore, I am all about the mindset of a lesson. Going in with a goal in mind.

There are a lot of personality traits that can help us and harm us but here are a few things I think help with daily and lifetime development.

The Mindset Of Being Teachable

The ability to Say “Okay, and Let Go.”

I did a long interview with Kyle Kamal about this topic. Take a look and listen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy9uVEcOVAk

I have had students in the past when I taught violin who could not get passed a mistake. Once it was made it was game over from that point on in the lesson. They had to destroy themselves, fix it on their own, and then we could continue the lesson. Though half of it was already gone. I can’t stress the importance of being able to recognize a mistake but having the ability to work past it and work on it later. Here is one thing I often say to my students.

If you keep stopping in the middle of a piece to fix a mistake, you are training yourself to stop in general. Keep pushing forward and forget the mistake for the time being. Music is a temporal art, we can’t go back and fix the mistakes like a painter can with their brush.

This next one is pretty obvious but important nonetheless. You have to love to improve. There are so many people out there that say to themselves “that’s good enough.” I would rather hear “that is good enough for now, but I can do better.” I don’t condone a OCD like personality for pitch and color, it just isn’t healthy but we need a balance. Somewhere in-between. However, having that drive to go further and get better, what some call the “thirst for knowledge” is what I have seen gets students better and better.

Do you have the passion and drive?

Now we are on to our last topic. Keeping a list of one’s successes and accomplishments. Many of you who are reading this are probably familiar with the Shihan - Deshi system and the ranking that goes along with it. Shoden - Chuden - Okuden - JunShihan - Shihan - Daishiihan. This system is what I use for certification with my students and it is something I expect my students to be proud of earning. Keep track of hard pieces we have played or performed, awards we have won, certifications we have received is a great thing. It is also a great way to practice humility. It is hard work to earn these titles and one should be proud of them!

Now there are lots of traits that could be added here. Leave a comment with ones you think is invaluable to becoming a successful shakuhachi student, or just student in general!

Robuki for 10, Thanks for reading.

with warmest regards,

Shawn Renzoh Head