These natural shakuhachi came in from one of Atsuya Okuda’s student. They were made in Japan and one was made by Okuda himself. I was asked to refine them. It’s always an honor to be able to examine and work on a flute made by a master.

The plan is to clean them up cosmetically and make some very minor adjustments for optimal playability for the average embouchure. These flutes are made differently from how I learned to make Hocchiku from Kinya Sogawa and understandably so,they are two very different kinds of players with different expectations from an instrument. I’ll work on these in respect to Okuda’s style of playing.

The owner wanted the bores lacquered with urushi and bound. The urushi will change the sound. The utaguchi work below already changed the sound somewhat.

Before

After

Before

After

Urushi next up.