Here is a repair this week that was out of the norm - a transverse flute. Not a shakuhachi but still a fun repair.

Hear this flute!

Most of the cracks were along the bottom end but the bindings had to be done through out the entire flute to prevent migration. This flute was made out of river cane, a light weight grass therefore the bindings had to be put on with less pressure than with the shakuhachi.

I repaired a few transverse bamboo flutes in the past several months. Two were shinabue -one belonged to a student of Marco Lienhard and the other, Yukio Tsuji.

The player played this flute a lot. I can see why. It had a wonderful lively tone and begged to be played.