Big Shak Attack

In the intro to my last podcast, I listed six popular songs that use the notorious E-mu Emulator II shakuhachi sound. For fun, here are two I couldn't fit into the show itself.

• Tangerine Dream: Yellowstone Park (540KB MP3)
• Sade: Stronger Than Pride (432KB MP3)

Coincidentally, I came across a bucket of real shakuhachis last week at a camping lodge. As you can see in the photo composite above, the shakuhachi is a Japanese vertical flute made of bamboo. It's also fiendishly difficult to play. When I studied it in Japan, one of the first things my teacher told me was the ancient proverb, "You have to shake your head for three years before you can play shakuhachi."

Indeed, I couldn't even get a sound out of one of the flutes in the bucket. With another, though, I quickly produced that amazing, soulful, wind-through-the-pines sound that enamored so many Western musicians when it came out in digital form. It's just funny so many musicians adopted it as a signature sound.