A new photo gallery is now available on my website, with pictures from the November 2019 Japanese instrument session for my album "Shifting Perspectives." It took place at the Bunker Studio in Brooklyn.

Contracted by Tomoko Akaboshi, it featured performances by Zac Zinger on Shakuhachi, Kaoru Watanabe on Shinobue, and Sumie Kaneko and Yumi Kurosawa on Kotos.

https://www.jeromeleroy.com/galleries/shifting-perspectives-japanese-solos-the-bunker-studio

#recordingsession #shakuhachi #koto #shinobue #bunkerstudios #audionetwork

it's so frustrating that I can play each phrase of Sakura pretty well on the #shinobue, but always stumble on the full song. currently there's two parts giving me trouble: the lowest and the second-lowest notes. the one is the only note in the kan register so you have to change how you blow, and the other is a 1—a note at the bottom of the flute, with all fingers closed, and due to how the shadow scale works you have to jump to it from a 3. this is the easiest note to lose.

that I've been here for so long feels like I'm stagnated. it takes some willpower to remember that not long ago the charge from kan to dai-kan at the third "riff" used to trip me every time, or even playing in the kan register in the first place. now I don't even think about it, I can play any of the base fingerings in otsu and kan at will and that one dai-kan note is just as natural, comes whenever I need it. I have to belive that at some point also the switch into low register will become as unthinking. and that's the only hard part left, after I get fluent in that little shift, I can straddle the 3 registers to play Sakura, and probably the next song will be much easier...