April shakuhachi class

 I woke up at about 5, which is perfect for what I had in mind. I'd practiced before bed last night of course, then gone to bed at something like 9AM. 

I'd polished my shoes, finished my load of laundry and hung it up and then when the clothes stopped dripping, spaced the clothes further apart so they could dry better, and had a fan blowing on them. Also washed my hair, brushed/flossed, shaved, basically taken care of enough things that when I got up, all I had to do was take a dry T-shirt from the newly dry laundry, some other fresh clothes, clean up a bit, gather my shakuhachi stuff together, and head to class. 

Of course I was early, and there was not that much tempting at Nijiya so I just got a package of sliced Swiss cheese and a small can of coffee, and ate 4 slices of the cheese, leaving 10 for two snacks. 

I went over to the temple and had a seat on the bench they'd built just a few years ago, just before covid I want to think but it may have been during it. It's near some bamboo that was planted the same time and that is doing well.

I thought about the time when I was little that we visited somewhere that had big groves, a forest really, of bamboo. The dry leaf-covers that end up on the stalks look like little boats, sort of, and I wanted one to make into a little boat. I just had to wash it first, as it was dirty, and set about doing this in the little stream that was there. The "dirt" turned out to be thousands of tiny splinters! My mom had a hell of a time trying to get them out using some kind of sticky tape. I'm thinking this was at some state park or something because those tend to have basic first aid stations and people who will have the tape for taking out splinters. In any case, I can't look at bamboo without thinking about that time. It was pretty funny, looking back. 

Pretty soon the two little old ladies who are regulars came along and I went in with them. Rinban was already there, noodling around on his shakuhachi. Kevin was there too. 

We worked a lot on Golden Chain, working on bending the note which I can do, but half-holing is more reliable. The trouble is, when we were actually playing through it, even Rinban wasn't flatting the notes and it made it sound very different. There was a lot of discussion of how to flat the notes, what note we're really talking about, the concept of going up to a note you bend down, because you're going up a half-step instead of a whole step, etc. Then we'd play through it again and people weren't flatting the notes. I even found little places in the discussion to casually play the parts they weren't doing right, correctly, and even singing those parts which due to the key of the song meant sounding a bit like Frank Sinatra but I didn't care, I wanted people to hear it. But they don't. 

I'm not going to make a big deal out of it though. I'm a beginner and we're all beginners, and it's the job of beginners to learn and if even the guy teaching the class isn't hearing what's going on then there's not much to do but just play it the right way, his way when needed, and keep learning. 

What's great about the class is that it's inspiring and makes me want to practice more and it feels great to have other students who are working on the same things as I am. 

I rode back here, got out the step stool and went over to the medical place which had nothing, but got an "English" cucumber and a chayote from the veggie dumpster, and got back in here. Next I took some of the wood and junk that's behind the nearest trash enclosure and took it around to the other side of the complex and tossed them out. My long term plan, of course, to get all that stuff out of there and have it neat and clean.