Nose Flute Quartet at Tsurugashima

A nice video made by a joyful quartet at Tsurugashima Nose Flute Exhibition! The musicians are members of the "Nerima Nose Flute Friends" association ('日本鼻笛協会　練馬友の会'). Their YT channel is here.

Oji ~i and the Nose Flute Angels

Mr. Makoto Yorokobi Nozaki (眞歓野崎) is the founder and president of the group 天使の鼻笛 スマフル笑会 ("The Nose Flute Angels"), also called スマフル笑会, which is read Sumafuru Emi-kai: Sumafuru is the Japanese reading of the english word "Smileful", and Emi-kai means "smile". The Facebook group gathers already 110 members after just a few month of existence.

The Nose Flute Angels logo and its president "おじぃ" (Oji ~i : "Uncle"):


This video is the 3rd "Smileful nose flute" journey, and Makoto Yorokobi Nozaki plays 坊がつる賛歌 (BougatsuruSanka). Before it, the "Smileful noseflutist" had recorded the 1st and 2nd journeys, available here and here.



But Oji ~i is not only a nose flute player and group leader, he also spends lot of time in teaching hanabue playing to adults, but also and mostly to Japanese children, in children clubs. The following video is really great:

7 Hanabue in Mie Prefecture

A short article from the Asahi Shimbun Digital introducing the nose flute. There is an embedded video with 7 players blowing their hanabue, in Uneme Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, Japan. All the flutes look to be made by Mr. Takuma Ikeyama, and I guess I can recognize Misses Sanae Maekawa and Emiko Sato (President of the Ise Association), Mr. Kanetoshi Nakaya and other fellows that I don't recognize.

Here is the original article and here the Google-translate version.

A great page dedicated to the "9th event"

Don't miss the page published by salsica.com, about the "Ninth Symphony" event performed by the Hanshin Hanabue Association (日本鼻笛協会　阪神間友の会) on 28th of December. It was conducted by sensei Mosurin and broadcast on TV.

The black and white photographs by Mr. Matsubara Yutaka are **splendid**!

click here to access the original page
click here to access the google translated page

and here for Matsubara Yutaka facebook page with the 342 pictures!



And here, the video posted by Mosurin:



And the TV footage:

Ode to Joy, finally!

It's been some time now, that Sensei Mosurin, Master Kato Hideo, and their nose flute association have been working on a polyphonic and collectiver version of the Ode to Joy. We already published the different parts there.

Here is rehearsal video, found on 1968fuu Youtube channel. And... it sounds great!!

Christmas Gift Exchange Party

A Christmas little ceremony in Japan, gathering friends of the Hanshin hanabue association, on the Oyaji channel. It's a funny gift exchange party during which the participants play the Ode to Joy.

A Joyful Band in Mukonoso !

Members of the Kansai Friends (関西間友の会) joyfully playing before the passerbies at the "Mukonoso Freedom" event (武庫之荘フリーダム), in Mukonoso (Hyogo Prefecture). Video by Hanabue114.

NHK Association on TV!

The NHK (Nihon Hanabue Kyokai), nose flute fellowship of the Hanshin, is very active. Many meetings, rehearsals and public performances. And this morning, it appeared on Yomiuri TV, for a presentation.
Unfortunately the emcee doesn't manifestly know how to play a nose flute, and tries to blow her Bocarina like a whistle :) Then the NHK plays a sweet melody!
Thanks to Mr. Hisaaki Matsui for sharing this video.

A video by Shoko Mihira

A new joyful video by Mrs Shoko Mihira, president of the NHK (Hanshin Hanabue Friends Association) on the Youtube channel hanabuehanshin.

Training session at Great Hansin NF Association

A very interesting video made by the Great Hansin Nose Flute Friends Association, which, by the way, inaugurates its brand new official Youtube channel.

1 flute, 9 nose flutes, percussions and a bit of musical saw, to play the "Eternal Legend of the Wind" from Final Fantasy III soundtrack.

I definitely want the same mouse (?) hood that Mr. Kato Hideo wears!

The brand new Nerima Nose Flute Association

A new nose flute organization is born : The Nerima Japanese nose flute friends association (日本鼻笛協会　練馬友の会). It's brand new, and its creator is no less than Mr. Jun Tanioka himself, well-known by the nickname Hanabue 114.

The Nerima association has its Facebook page here.

Let's take the benefit of this news to tell that June Tanioka published a new batch of videos on his Youtube channel. I cannot resist the pleasure to show you this one, a very energetic YMCA karaoke version, played on a Bocarina^™ and that Mr. Tanioka calls himself a "performance version" :

A beautiful picture!

On 13th of June, the Hanshin Nose Flute Friends Japanese Association played live at the "Chicken George" in Kobe, Japan.

The sound was recorded : here and here
The image too : here (the sequence starts at 28'00" and the music at 32'30").

On the Facebook page, you can see this great picture of the band, among all members one can recognize : Mister Sho Hirasawa with its 2 ISE flutes by Takuma Ikeyama, Miss Shoko Mihira with a On-Lak hanabue, Miss Jasmine Sakamoto with her purple Humanatone, and Mr Kato Hideo with a clay flute by Hiroaki Sasaki around the neck, and its red Bocarina^™ by Chris Schuermans on the nose!

Big fun in Kyōto : Encore!

To conclude this great day some happy fews had in the forest, Mister Tanioka just posted a very long video (25 minutes!) of an non-interrupted great jam session. If you are too lazy to view the totally, just pick moments in it... : lots of nose flutes, and an acme (near the end) with 5 hanabue players! Really big big fun!

Big fun in Kyōto !

Yesterday, there was a huge open air party in the Tadasu Wonderland forest in Kyōto. Many attractions for a large public : concerts, outdoor cafes and restaurants, a bicycle workshop and more than 100 stores selling clothes, food or hand made goods.



And that was also the nose flute paradise! Nose flutes to buy, nose flute to play. The Nihon Hanabue Kyokai (Japanese Nose Flute Association) had organised a gathering. Mister Tanioka (谷岡淳さん), aka Hanabue114 on YouTube, was there and taught how to play to some people, and was responsible for the On-Lak hanabue booth.

(All photos by Jun Tanioka and Kato Hideo, big thank to them!)

Mr. Kato Hideo playing a red Bocarina	Jun Tanioka at the Kiyoshism booth (On-Lak)

Even the famous japanese singer Keizo Nakanishi (中西圭三さん) joined the group and played the hanabue and the musical saw!

Mr. Keizo Nakanishi - 中西圭三さん
Left to right : Keizo Nakanishi, Jun Tanioka, ?, ?, Kato Hideo and Kiyoshi Suzuki (On-Lak nose flutes)
A nice band!

Mister Tanioka made some videos, so you can appreciate the great ambiance in Tadasu forest yesterday!




You can check a few other videos there.

And last but not least, have a look at the great costume worn by Hanabue114! :

Review : A nose flute by the Ise Association

The Japanese Ise Nose Flute Friends Association (Nihon Hanabue Kyokai Ise Tomo no Kai) is a very active organization. It was founded in December 2009 and gathers many members. Lead by their President, Mrs Emiko Sato (who is a writer and notably has created a blog dedicated to hanabue), they have playing sessions, but also travel to meet the other Japanese associations and organize ceremonies with guests.





The Ise association vice-president, Mr. Takuma Ikeyama (池山 琢馬) is a carpenter, but also crafts the wooden nose flutes branded and sold by the association.

Thanks to my good friend Sho Hirasawa (ShowNoseFlute on YouTube) who sent one to me, I was able to put the nose on a Fuu nose flute (Fuu, « wind and rain », is the brand of the Ise association nose flute workshop). Let's just say : Yeehah! and thanks a lot to Sho!

First of all : this flute is absolutely beautiful. It's been made in persimmon wood, with raw bark kept on the edges, and with a two-colored piece of wood on the front of the air duct. It has a very original design, very Japanese. It has a comfortable size (5 x 7 cm).


The second thing I noticed is that the Fuu hanabue smells very good. It has been gently oiled for protection, and the mix of wood and oil aromas is very pleasant.

The craftmanship is at a high standard, with clean edges and assembling, the finishing has been done with care, sweetly sanded, and a waxed lace has been added for handfree playing, with a simple yet efficient pair of sliding knots.



What is amazing on the Ise association hanabue, is the thinness of the air duct : it is less than 1 mm thick and faces a very sharp rounded labium, with a 5 mm gap at its farest. This provides a very powerful and precise loud sound.



The backside is of « vietnamese » type, with a half-pipe nose rest bored with a round hole. Generally, this arrangement does not fit well the western noses, oftenly ended with cartilage. But on the Fuu nose flute, the half-piped nost rest has been slanted and the problem is nonexistent (with my nose at least). The fact is this flute is very comfortable and very ergonomically designed regarding my physiognomy.
The internal side feature the round seal of the association, stamped with a hot iron.


The Fuu nose flute comes along with two papers, one teaching the way to play nose flute in general, and the second about the Ise habanbue in particular, how to take care of it, etc. Thanks a lot to Sho Hirasawa for having taken the time to translate them for us :

On the sound side, I was really amazed. I generally say that a flute can be a good instrument for one player and not for another one, depending on the ergonomy, the size and so... And I think it is true. But in this case, there are also objective points : the way the technical parts are made and designed. The air duct / labium system is really efficient. Then the ergonomics and sizes fit very well my face. This flute is without no doubt my best wooden nose flute, or should I say, the one that fits me at best.

The sound is loud and very precise, and the flute is able to reach from high sharps to low bass, both clear and clean on more or less 3 octaves, depending on your buccal abilities. The Fuu flute offers a very quick answer to solicitations, thanks to the powerful air flow system, allowing very quick playing, and the precision enables easy modulation (vibratos) with the tongue.

Here is a sound sample I made (just added a pinch of reverb) :



---

Links :

>> To Japanese Ise Nose Flute Friends Association website
>> To "Emiko Sato's hanabue blog

---

And as a bonus, look at the beautifully designed postacard that Sho sent to me, and the nice little drawing on the back of the envelope... Thank you Sho!

A new Japanese nose flute association

The Hanshin Nose Flute Friends Japanese Association is born, dedicated to group nose flute players from the region between Osaka and Kobe. It's the fifth japanese organization, besides the already active Setagaya, Ise, Mount Fuji and Rikuzentakata Nose Flute Friends Japanese Associations.

The association has just started a blog, and we wish it a long and prosperous life full of nose flute activities!

The Hanshin Nose Flute Friends Japanese Association (original)
The Hanshin Nose Flute Friends Japanese Association (translated by Google...)

An interesting organization : the ACIMV

Founded in 1987, and thus ready to celebrate its 25 years of existence, the french Association des Collectionneurs d'instruments de musique à vent (ACIMV) is an non-profit organization which goal is to gather wind instruments collectors and enthusiasts, and to introduce « french instruments making and increasing knowledge on this subject ». But no chauvinism, since the organization is also interested in foreign instruments and collections...
His founder and president, Mr. Bruno Kampmann, told me that a third of the members are spread around the world, even as far as New Zealand.

The ACIMV has a blog with nice pictures of stunning instruments, and publishes a biannual paper bulletin called « Larigot » (from the name of an organ stop, coming itself from an old small flute name), plus an annual special catalog.

Checking the contents of Larigot past issues, I found four short articles dealing with nasal flutes :

- Larigot #27, Aug. 2001 : Le Vociphone : un gadget instrumental..., by Jacques Cools, which was the inaugural text dealing with nose flutes in Larigot and mainly exposed the belgian Vociphone (about which we'll post later).

- Larigot #29, Jul. 2002 : Les Flûtes nasales (suite), by Jeremy Montagu, trans. by B. Kampmann, which began to draw an inventory of modern nose flutes (with some tiny mistakes :) [Read a related article by J. Montagu published in English in FoRMHI bulletin (P. 7-9)]

- Larigot #30, Dec. 2002 : Les Flûtes nasales (suite), à propos du Mellibrou, by Jacques Cools, dealing mostly with a french contemporary nose flute called Mellibrou or Nasiphone, built by René Mellier (about which we'll post later).

- Larigot #34, Oct. 2004 : Les Flûtes nasales (suite), à propos du Cello-Phone, by Jacques Cools, and exposing a stunning swan-neck nose flute.

With a very kind generosity, Mr. Kampmann authorized us to publish those whole pages, and provided the original files, with the color pictures. Thanks a lot to him, to the ACIMV, Larigot and the authors.

---

From Larigot #27 (All rights reserved, ©2001, J. Cools & ACIMV/Larigot) :

From Larigot #29 (All rights reserved, ©2002, J. Montagu & ACIMV/Larigot) :

From Larigot #30 & #34 (All rights reserved, ©2002 & 2004, J. Cools & ACIMV/Larigot) :

---

ACIMV : c/o B. Kampmann - 136, Bd de Magenta - 75010 Paris - France
tel/fax : +33 148 787 009
e.mail : acimv[dot]larigot[at]free[dot]fr

ACIMV blog : http://acimv.blogspot.com

Subscription : Active member : 30€ / Benefactor : 40€ +
(includes Larigot bulletins)
contact : claribole59[at]yahoo.fr

Larigot past issues (#1 to #46) : 8€ per copy, 15€ per 3 copies.
Special issues : 10€ per copy, 20€ per 3 copies.

---