The Brown Buddha

Zhan Zhuang for Honkyoku Phrases: Standing Still So the Music Can Move Honkyoku is a strange thing to call music. The classical solo pieces of the shakuhachi tradition, many rooted in the old Fuke Zen world, aren’t really compositions in the way a concert hall would understand the word. They’re more like weather. “Kyorei,” “Hifumi Hachigaeshi,” pieces like these don’t want to be performed so…

And so it begins…New Year’s Eve I followed the same routine as in past years. A couple of days before the year-end, house cleaning. In the States, it is spring cleaning; here, it is New Year Cleaning. I did my share, threw out stuff, washing, and dusting places unseen, behind, on top of…etc. My studio is the most ordeal. Moving instruments, weapons, knick-knacks. Then finally done. Whew… New…