Voldyne

 Last night I tried out the Voldyne and it's pretty amazing. I'm used to exercises all about breathing out, this exercises one's ability to breathe in. And because it gives an indication of rate of flow and total volume, it keeps your technique on point and gives you something to strive for. 

I also got a good practice session in on the shakuhachi. I did a lot of blowing a note in the lowest octave then going up an octave and if I had enough air, back down. And tried working out a few songs. 

I was up around noon today. The wind was really whistling outside so I didn't feel like going out or rather I did, except for the wind. 

Monday's both a holiday, Presidents' Day as we called it in Hawaii, and Washington's Birthday here in California apparently. Different states call it different things. We have a May Day in Hawaii but it's not a thing here on the mainland. It's also what we called Chinese New Year back in Hawaii and probably still is, but here it's lunar new year. Anyway Monday's also a rain day so I'll go out tomorrow.

I noticed in playing the shakuhachi last night that it does indeed get quite a bit of condensation inside. And the outside, which thought was varnished, is just highly polished with only some clear varnish over the bindings. So today I got out the old Tru-Oil which is a sort of linseed oil made for finishing gun stocks and in my opinion very good stuff, and rubbed on a light coat. Since it has to dry fully, I set it up on end on one of these machine shop gadgets we have, that have a weird magnetic base you can turn the magnet "on" and "off". It's got a chrome plated rod that I just put the shakuhachi on, and there it will sit over night. 

A guy's gotten back with me, on r/shakuhachi on Reddit, he mentioned having a "Bell" shakuhachi he'd sell me, for about $230. First I was gung ho, then he didn't answer back for a day and to him, I didn't answer for a day. I told him today that this bamboo one I have now has me pretty happy so I'm going to wait a bit but I'll be on r/shakuhachi so he'll know where to find me. I also mentioned I'd found, on a site called Reverb, a Morty Levinson advanced student shakuhachi for $300 so there are nice flutes out there. 

I've been thinking, while out riding my bike, that what kind of a world is it where I am allowed to live for the purpose of cleaning the kennels at the Blue Cross Animal Hospital, or polishing all that brass at the Bowfin Museum, or even building all those prototypes and making all those clever test jigs, all forgotten now, for that POS terminal company? 

I'm fairly smart, and it seemed insulting to me that someone smart like me should exist for the purpose of hosing down dog kennels. But then I kind of turned the question on its head. Maybe the real situation is that no matter how smart we think we are, our lives are pretty inconsequential.