Mindful playing: a practice research investigation into shakuhachi playing and meditation

Abstract

This article describes a practice research project investigating how the practice of meditation may be integrated into the playing of shakuhachi, an instrument utilised during the Edo period (1603–1867) as a tool for spiritual practice by monks of the Fuke sect and later becoming part of the hōgaku (Japanese traditional music) world as a stage instrument. Although we cannot know how the monks were trained to use the shakuhachi in meditation, I have combined my own shakuhachi and meditation experiences, in order to investigate how a shakuhachi player today may approach the incorporation of meditation in their musical practice. In transforming my experience into words, I here employ auto-elicitation, a micro-phenomenological interview technique developed by Claire Petitmengin to describe the subtle and fine-grained experiences of meditation while playing. The project here is regarded as a practice research within the field of ethnomusicology and challenges the narrow kind of scholarship in academia, which overshadows the practice research—the research of the act of playing music.