ABSTRACT
The shakuhachi is a bamboo vertical ‘notched flute’ born in China and developed in Japan. It is extremely simple in shape, with a sharp blowing-edge (utaguchi) at one end, on the side of the cylinder opposite the performer, and five fingerholes, four on the front and one thumb-hole on the back. The standard length is one shaku eight (hachi) sun in the traditional Chinese measuring system (one shaku equals ten sun); hence the name shakuhachi. The Chinese characters shaku and hachi are pronounced chi and ba in modern Mandarin. A shaku/chi in Tang-period China (618–907) was shorter than today, so that one shaku eight sun was 43.7cm, whereas in Japan today it is 54.5cm
