Q+A with Kiku Day!
Periodically, as part of my brogging experience, I’ll be featuring a conversation with some people I view as very important figures in the shakuhachi world. Hopefully, this is the first of many—but no better person to start and / or finish with!
Ethnomusicologist, performer, teacher, and researcher of shakuhachi Kiku Day is at the forefront of jinashi shakuhachi; both as a player and ethnomusicologist. Jinanshi is a term referring to shakuhachi made without ji (a paste made of urushi lacquer and polishing stone powder)…
photo by: Anja Blaksmark
Hanz Araki: We finally had the chance to meet in person in Dublin over the summer of ’23 which was an absolute treat. This was where I learned at least part of your shakuhachi Origin Story, which might just be the most fascinating one I’ve ever heard. Can you share with us an abridged version? And was shakuhachi your first instrument?
Riley Lee, Kiku Day (me, in a failed photo-bombing attempt), Dublin 2023
Kiku Day: The shakuhachi was not my first instrument. I played piano from I was 3 years old and then flute from I was 15. I was a terrible pianist by the way.
I encountered the shakuhachi while I was practicing for my entrance examination for the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen on flute. A friend from Austria brought an LP. He insisted I had to listen to it. We found a turntable and it was shakuhachi music. I can't remember who was on the LP or what music was played - but it struck me deeply as something very special and that I had to play that. On the spot I decided to go to Japan to study shakuhachi. About 6 months later I took the Trans-Siberian Railroad to go to Japan with various deviations such as visiting my father in Stockholm, and a great night in Helsinki, Finland, and some days in both St. Petersburg and Moscow, not to mention some time in China where I visited my stepmother's family and travelled to Tibet.
Once I set my feet on the ground in Japan, I had an intuition that I should wait for the shakuhachi to come to me. If this was as important as it felt, it should come to me. I therefore began to study Japanese language, calligraphy, suimi-e, tea ceremony, kitsuke (leaning how to wear a kimono). I also began working in Japan. The shakuhachi came to me in the form of a Japanese hippie, who was selling crystals and things from India on the street. He was sitting and playing shakuhachi. HIs name was Kosuke. I had a chat with him, and he told me he would go and buy bamboo in a shop that sold yokobue (traverse bamboo flute) in Akihabara. The owner, who was making the yokobue, also made shakuhachi. But that was just a hobby for him, so he told them cheaply. Kosuke suggested I could come along, and he would choose a shakuhachi for me. Few days later Kosuke called and we went to get my first shakuhachi together. It was a jinashi 2.3. I asked Kosuke about getting a teacher. He answered, "You can already play flute, so I am sure you can teach yourself. I do know a very good teacher... but he has such a bad mouth, so maybe learn by yourself". Then he left to travel in India. I was left alone with a flute I didn't really understand. I could get a sound yes... but not much more. I didn't know the music I longed to play. Some months later, I met another hippie street seller, Taku, who was also playing shakuhachi while waiting for customers. I went to speak with him and told him about my shakuhachi experience and about how stuck I was. He knew Kosuke, who was also the person that had inspired him to begin playing. He told me he was studying with the same teacher Kosuke talked about. Few days later I went with Taku to the teacher's café that was built into his house with 2 other friends of Taku. That is how I met Okuda Atsuya. He served a great coffee and started to play on his large jinashi shakuhachi. I had never heard anything like that. I immediately said, I will begin studying. Apparently he did have a bad mouth because Taku's friends did not like him, only his playing. I was the perfect student for Okuda. He may have criticised other players a lot, but I didn't know who he was talking about so I never listened. Fortunately, he changed a lot since then and became a mellow person open to many new things. I was very lucky to meet Okuda. I loved the sound of the jinashi shakuhachi and the deep sounds of his long flutes. I lived in a small flat in Yoyogi Uehara. A friend of mine visited me and pointed about to me that there was a shakuhachi keikoba just opposite my flat on the other side of the very small road. I just hadn't been able to read the sign. I was so happy I wasn't able to read the sign because it surely was Okuda I had been waiting for. Had I started playing some of the more common styles, I would have returned to Denmark and continued my flute studies. This is not meant as a critique of other styles of course. It is more an expression of what I was looking for.
HA: Did your interest in shakuhachi lead you into ethnomusicology or the other way around?
KD: Certainly the shakuhachi lead to ethnomusicology. I would never even have known the study of ethnomusicology had it not been for the shakuhachi. After I had played the shakuhachi for around 10 years, and I had also traveled quite a bit around the world in order to understand the world, I began having a sense that it was time for me to study. I was in New Zealand celebrating New Year 2000. Riley Lee's lawyer happened to be a friend of a friend of mine. He really wanted to talk about Riley Lee with me. I had hardly at this point heard about Riley, I only vaguely knew who he was. When I was leaving New Zealand and I went around to say goodbye to all the friends, the lawyer gave me a Riley Lee CD to look at. I took it in my hand because I wanted to be polite. I opened the CD and took the booklet out and read the first sentence: Riley Lee is a shakuhachi player and ethnomusicologist. I slowly closed the booklet and put it back into the CD and gave it back while inside my heard the world ethnomusicology was repeating over and over. I immediately checked out the study of ethnomusicology. I wanted to study in Paris in order to firmly establish my french language skills. I was living in Geneva at the time. They told me in France I was too late and I could apply next year. I contact SOAS, University of London and asked if I could still apply even it was too late. Here I was told to just apply. September 2000 I began my studies of ethnomusicology, and my deep relationship to London and also the academic study of shakuhachi began.
HA: Obviously, we share a love/borderline obsession with shakuhachi. But we’re also both of mixed heritage—Japanese and American. However, you were raised almost entirely outside of both Japan and the US if I understand correctly. What, if any, challenges did that present in your life growing up, and later in your shakuhachi study?
Father, mother and daughter at Meiji Jingu Shrine (courtesy of KD)
KD: If I should describe my upbringing with one world, I would say 'ousider'. I was an ousider in kindergarden in Harajuku, Tokyo and I was an outsider in school in Denmark—due to my mixed heritage. Both Japan and Denmark are countries that had a homogeneous population. But despite that, the environment seeps in and I grew up as a Dane. That is what my identity still is. But a complex one of course. I resisted being Japanese because it has always been my trouble aspect; the reason for being an outsider and for being bullied at school, the reason for people can't just take me as a normal Dane. Had it not been for the shakuhachi, I would probably lie myself out of having anything to do with Japan.
America never caused me trouble (except for kindergarden in Japan) because that is not what is different in me. The wrong drop of blood is the Japanese. Later in my shakuhachi studies, I was told for many years, I play nicely, but I sound like I am playing Mozart. They probably heard me racially. But what-ever that meant, it changed after a while to, you sound very close to Okuda sensei. I liked the latter better. When I had become an experienced player, I was often told in Japan well that must come from your mother's side. Had they known my mother's family were lovers of western classical music and not min'yō nor shakuhachi music...
It is funny, isn't it. My family name Day can of course only be written in Japanese in katakana. But when I began to be active in the shakuhachi world, I tried to use my Japanese full first name and write my name as デイ菊壺 (Day Kikutsubo) but it never worked and my name became Kiku Day written in katakana. Oh well. I accepted that after some time.
HA: I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with a number of people who studied with my father over the years, many of whom are women. One of my best students in Japan was a woman; but it’s no secret the shakuhachi was once—and until very recently—almost entirely male dominated. To whatever degree you’re comfortable speaking on the matter, I wonder if you could share some thoughts about the role of women in shakuhachi, both historically and from your own perspective?
KD: To me, being a foreigner was much more pronounced than being a woman — at least in the Japanese shakuhachi world. I never experienced anything negative except in normal Japanese society, where shakuhachi has the sexual connotation it has. I don't quite understand why it is not just as strange for me to do it... but that was how it was. In the shakuhachi world outside Japan, I have had experiences such as men writing to me after I began to enter the international shakuhachi world saying, So now you are the shakuhachi babe, eh? I also have experiences of men who get a crush from photos of me playing the shakuhachi. And they could be quite pushy. Other than that it has been interesting to feel how shakuhachi and women's value in general falls with age—much faster than men's. So in a way, once people stopped thinking of me as the "shakuhachi babe," the respect fell. It is hard to talk about because I also risk sounding like someone who liked that attention and being self-absorbed. But I never asked to be the shakuhachi babe. I have had men who wanted to meet up, interview me and be part of their PhD thesis, and the moment they meet me, I am of no interest. I couldn't help wondering if it was my value as shakuhachi scholar, shakuhachi player, or woman that affected that.
I am not sure women have a specific role in shakuhachi. But I think the shakuhachi world—which was very masculine dominated—would always benefit from a balanced approach. Not that I think that the music is gendered. But I think any art realm would benefit from more equally balanced representation.
I, myself, have taken on a role as one of the first very exposed women within the international shakuhachi world. Maybe because I was the primus motor in the creation of the European Shakuhachi Society and the European Shakuhachi Summer Schools, and also the World Shakuhachi Day. I was also the chairperson of the World Shakuhachi Festival 2018. I guess one could say it is more community oriented. Maybe one could argue that it is a more feminine approach but I am not so sure about that. Maybe it is just my way of doing things; I like community and I like being with people.
HA: I was fortunate enough to catch your presentation on the shakuhachi during Japan’s war efforts which is such important work. Can you talk a bit about that project?
KD: I actually came across this subject by chance. In Hosshin-ji in Tokyo, which is where the Komusō Kenkyūkai (Komusō Research Group) is located, they had collected books from the time of the second world war. When I began reading about it, it fascinated me how many times the role and the image of the shakuhachi changed over such a short period of time. From an instrument that many men played—younger and older—to an instrument that could connect the so-called "samurai spirit" and "war effort" together and as a symbol of Japan, to a more sleepy occupation of retired men with a Buddhist background. I find this fascinating.
HA: What do you see or hope for the future of shakuhachi music?
KD: My dearest wish is for a mutual respect of shakuhachi players, whether they come from the mainstream shakuhachi world within the professional hōgaku world of Japan with conservatory education, or players who have been through the NHK Japanese Music Artists Program. Or from the other end of the spectrum, the more hidden world of Myoan players, jinashi shakuhachi players, and players of the few local styles scattered around Japan. And min'yō players for that matter. I hope through festivals, other events such as World Shakuhachi Day, or other online events, we would hear and learn from each other.
A: Thank you so much Kiku!
More anon,
Hanz