"No Pain No Gain" Does NOT Apply to Shinobue Playing!

If you experience pain during or after playing the shinobue, you may be playing it incorrectly. When I first began studying shinobue, I felt pain in my cheeks and around my mouth because I was using too much tension. I found myself forcing high kan on (higher octave notes) and dai kan on (highest octave notes) with tense muscles around my mouth. After about 20 minutes of playing, my face would hurt. ☹️

As a pianist and opera singer who later took up the shinobue, I have read extensively through interviews and books by professional musicians. I knew that if I experienced pain while playing, I was not doing it correctly.

Consider this: if opera singers frequently felt pain in their throats, how could this art form have endured for so long? Similarly, if pianists consistently suffered wrist pain after extended play, people would have abandoned the instrument long ago.

The side-blown bamboo flutes have been a part of Japanese culture for centuries. If playing these flutes caused pain, musicians would have stopped playing them.

And practically speaking, how could I perform professionally if my face started hurting after just 20 minutes of playing? Being a professional musician sometimes requires playing for 2-3 hours at a time. Therefore, I knew that my technique was not correct.

I worked very hard to learn to relax my lips. The journey was difficult but incredibly rewarding. (That's another newsletter).

There is more than one way to play the shinobue, but if you are experiencing pain, it’s essential to stop and focus on improving your technique. Here are some types of pain you might experience, along with possible reasons for them.

These are simply examples, and the causes and solutions can vary significantly depending on the specific issues of each individual.

Even if your pain is not too bothersome, you need to pay attention because it is telling you that you need to work on something.

Just learning the basics, such as holding the shinobue correctly and placing the fingers correctly, eliminates a lot of pain in your body.

To learn how to hold the shinobue correctly, watch this video.​

Also, read this blog.

​https://www.saitomusic.com/blog/all-about-posture-for-shinobue-flute-fix-your-tone-just-by-standing​

To learn how to place your fingers correctly on shinobue, read this blog.

​https://www.saitomusic.com/blog/how-to-place-fingers-on-shinobue-flute-​

Pay attention to your body and your shinobue will start rewarding you with a beautiful tone!