Online Shakuhachi Community

A community of 4! ;)

Kiku Day asked me to be interviewed about my experiences with getting to learn about the shakuhachi and how I see the community.
Kiku is giving demonstrations about online shakuhachi comunnities at a conference at University of Toronto 11 - 14 November 2010.

The conference title is: DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media. http://diycitizenship.com
She interviews several people with these theme in mind and makes a digital presentation for others to see. She is also giving online Skype lessons at the spot, so if the schedule  fits I might be one of the testcases :)
I think as an entity the community can be hard to define, there is no one community. There are many aspects to it: meeting others at local events, at European events, even wordly events (not yet for me), the contact with a teacher, online contacts: facebook, skype, e-mail and of course the shakuhachi BBQ (the international forum). They are all part of the shakuhachi communicty for me. They add in the feeling being connected to a Western part of the shakuhachi playing 'world'. The Japanese community of shakuhachi players is much more farther away, although the tradition has that history breathing through its veines. As it is, the Western community of players and enthousiasts may be even more connected then the Japanese one, which is much more segregated and unfree. I feel that is a nice thing to have here: feel free what to play, what flutes to choose, which teacher to study with and do as you like.