My Current Instruments
Mar. 12, 2025
The instruments I currently play are the classical guitar, sanshin, and shakuhachi.
Why these three? It has to do with some of my troublesome character.
First. I don’t like having to be at a certain place at a certain time. I want to play when I want to play. Such a person cannot be a member of a band.
Second. I want to play the song I want to listen to at that moment. In school clubs, I had to practice the same songs every day in order to compete in competitions, but it was not very enjoyable for me.
Third. To tell the truth, I don’t really want to be good at playing. Even if I make a few mistakes, it’s OK because I have music in my head that I am playing well. And if I really tried to practice to get better, I would have ended up hating instruments and not playing every day like I do now, so I would have ended up being much worse.
In short, I’m not the type of performer. But I do love playing instruments. So for me, the best way to get along with instruments is to play a song that suits my mood at the time, on the living room sofa, whenever I feel like playing it.
Then what kind of instruments would be good for me? I play in my living room, so loud instruments like trumpets are no good. Also, I want to play on the sofa, so large instruments are no good. Keyboard instruments that require large hand movements are also no good because my movements are inaccurate. And I want to enjoy music rather than play instruments, so the instruments have to be ones where the music is complete on its own.
I once thought about playing the flute because I like wind instruments, but gave up because most of the flute songs require piano accompaniment.
Not too loud. Not too large. Not a keyboard but a complete solo instrument. There are not many such instruments. But the 3 instruments above fulfil all the conditions. That’s why I’ve been playing for so long. I think I will keep playing them for the rest of my life.
How does each instrument meet the strict requirements? I’d like to continue writing about each of my beloved instruments.