The Nose-Monica by Happy-Flute

Through the years, Gillette and its competitors have added blades and blades to their razors. They have recently reached the number of 5 blades on a single razor, and there is no reason they stop there, and I suppose that in 20 years we'll have razors with a blade dedicated to each one of our hair. The world of nose flutes is not exempt of this More contest, and the talented and inventive Mr. Akio Takamura (Happy-Flute workshop founder with Mr. Go Nagayama), after having crafted some double-fipple nose flutes (look at this one), just finished his triple-flute. Not a triple fipple with one air entrance, but a real triple nose flute in one. Akio Takamura named his new model Nose Monica (鼻モニカ)



Why three nose flutes? Well, if you take a look at the pictures above, you can see that whether the 3 air entrances are rather similar, the 3 fipples are increasing in size from left to right, from a treble to a lower tonality range. Mr Takamura wrote (with an optimistic humour) that he hopes to reach a 7 octaves range all in all :). Great job, anyway!

Mosurin's Long Nose / Happy Flute

Sensei Mosurin was yesterday the guest star of Club Parrhesia. As far as I understand, the Club Parrhesia is a weekly online broadcast animated by a Japanese band of musicians. It was the 169th broadcast of this program and it was 2 hours and a half long!

So, I picked the footage where Mosurin plays (beautifully, as usual) or talks about hanabue. Here it is:



It's the opportunity to show you the new Mosurin's nose flute. The sensei still uses his indestructible Sasaki hanabue (the little ceramic mask) mounted on its special stand, but also regularly plays a very peculiar wooden nose flute, with an extra-long nose (and that he, apparently, now owns in 2 versions):

This nose flute was acquired at the great Nose Flute Exhibition that was held in June in Saitama, where many nose flute makers were present. The Long Nose was made by Happy Flute. Happy Flute, once again as far as I was able to understand, seems to be a kind of funny and happy joint venture between several makers (and friends), like Akio Takamura (ceramist/potter), Go Nagayama (great painter/designer on nose flutes), and some others (notably a wood craftsman...) that I have not yet been able to identify...

Happy Flute booth at some summer market, with a framed Noseflute.org postcard (HanabuElvis!). What an honor!



And beautiful nose flutes on the Happy Flute blog!