Japanese Madaké Bamboo for Shakuhachi

Over the years, I’ve been in many Madaké bamboo groves hunting for prime pieces with which to craft my shakuhachi. When I enter and explore each grove I step outside of time and place. I’m dwarfed by towering bamboo giants which stand as a testament to the resilience of life on earth. Potential shakuhachi are swaying in the breeze around me as living bamboo. Yet, because each stalk has a lifespan of at most around eight years, it also reminds me that all things are transient.

What also becomes apparent upon seeing living Madaké bamboo is that shakuhachi truly embodies it. For instance, we hold the shakuhachi upright with the roots facing down which shows us how bamboo grows out in nature. Indeed, with no small amount of effort, bamboo provides us with an infinite variety of shakuhachi. I invite you to accompany me into the Madaké bamboo grove. Let me tell you all about this wonderful grass. Both the how and why shakuhachi makers like me use it.

Videos of me harvesting Japanese Madaké Bamboo for shakuhachi

(The videos above show me harvesting Madaké Japanese bamboo, or také hori. They also show me processing the bamboo, including performing Aburanuki or “heat curing”. I edited down hours, days, or even weeks of my labor to just minutes for my videos.)

Madaké 真竹, Banzhu 斑竹, Phyllostachys bambusoides, Giant Japanese timber bamboo – A rose by any other name

For over a thousand years, craftspeople like me have been primarily using Madaké 真竹 for crafting our shakuhachi. This is because of its favorable characteristics and its abundance within Japan. Like many things Japanese, it originates from China, Zhejiang province to be exact. Japanese people imported the first live plants during the Nara period (710-794 AD). However, Madaké bamboo all over the world has the exact same DNA. This is because it reproduces asexually directly from the roots or rhizomes. However, growing conditions have significant effects on how it forms. Regardless, these rhizomes snake and knit through the soil like subterranean dragons. At times, they burst out of the ground, often diving back in again. They alway forge ahead, even if that means taking a few detours.

These subterranean wombs give birth to each stalk as a new shoot bud which soon breaches the earth, climbs toward heaven, and fans out their leaves like an umbrella in order to process light into life. The whole grove is one large tightly interconnected collective. When we harvest a piece the whole grove knows it. In fact, every one-hundred years Madaké stalks all over the world flower at the exact same time, and then die. The last time this happened was in the 1960’s and it devastated the Japanese craft world. Thankfully the rhizomes survive.

It’s amazing to see these new shoots telescope out to their full height, and nearly their full girth, within just a few months. With some shoots as big around as ones thigh, it can make one feel like a small insect. As we saw in the image of me further above, Madaké is indeed a “giant” bamboo; it wants to get big. When the growing conditions for it are ideal, it will get as large as possible, with few stalks at the correct size for shakuhachi. Over each growing season these new stalks put out new limbs and leaves until three to four years of age. What surprises many is that these stalks only live for about eight years.

Why only Madaké bamboo for shakuhachi?

We shakuhachi craftspeople greatly favor Madaké bamboo because it typically grows very straight and with good distances between the nodes for finger-hole placement (internodal spacing). The lower portion that we use can also have a nice inner taper which is essential for the correct shakuhachi sound and feeling.

However, we shakuhachi craftspeople can and do try other bamboos, and even materials other than bamboo. For example, I’ve found that sub-varieties of Madaké bamboo can work excellently for crafting shakuhachi. In fact, one rare sub-variety of Madaké that I’ve used tends to produce objectively better sounding Jinashi and Jimori. It’s also possible to craft very fine shakuhachi from above root bamboo, i.e., bamboo without the roots.

In actuality, Japanese makers didn’t use the roots until nearly a thousand years after the introduction of shakuhachi from China. While we makers can craft them without the roots, their bell-like silhouette has become the quintessential hallmark of the shakuhachi.

Harvesting Madaké bamboo for crafting shakuhachi

I began harvesting my own bamboo to craft my flutes around ‘01~’02, age fifteen or sixteen. Back then, I lived between Florida and Norfolk Virginia, USA. Both of those States are teeming with amazing bamboo groves. Of course, I’ve also harvested Madaké bamboo in Japan. Every bamboo grove is totally unique, yet each one feels like home to me.

Before harvesting I occasionally need to make a positive ID to determine if the bamboo in question is Madaké. For instance, Vivax and Makino can look nearly identical. To do this, I must find and examine a bamboo shoot. I ideally like to ID bamboo shoots in Spring when they’re budding. However, a dead shoot can also suffice for identification. As for Madaké, its shoots are smooth and waxy, leopard spotted, with leaf tips a bright pink. Most notably, they possess vivid green spider-like “auricles”. Truly magical looking. Makino shoots look quite similar, however, they’re darker and covered in coarse hairs. Additionally, the shoots of Vivax and Hachiku aka blue henon do not have auricles.

Next, I spend many hours searching the grove for suitable pieces for my shakuhachi. I like to get a feel for the whole grove, when possible, before beginning to dig. After I meticulously consider suitable stalks for my shakuhachi I then spend many more hours digging them up. This is no easy task. In addition to the roots of the bamboo stalk, I also have to contend with the immensely tough rhizomes. These solid and unbelievably hard rhizomes have shattered my tools on more than one occasion. For example, on one of my harvesting trips to Japan my “indestructible” “Slammer” tool shattered on a rhizome.

While it may at first seem somewhat cruel to rip living stalks of bamboo from the earth to craft our shakuhachi, it’s just like picking a vegetable. For shakuhachi, we also strive to only harvest old, dying, or dead stalks which serves to actually keep the bamboo grove as a whole more healthy (culling). Removing these stalks makes way for the new and prevents overcrowding which helps stave off infections and infestations.

As mentioned previously, the average lifespan of one stalk of Madaké is only about eight years. The ideal time to harvest is from four years of age onwards. When they begin to die, harmless fungi might create lovely mottled splotches or “spalting” which some shakuhachi enthusiasts have come to love. Japanese people call these spalted pieces of Madaké goma, which translates to “sesame seeds” after the small bumps of dried sap that usually form on the skin of these pieces of bamboo (see picture above). In fact, some famous shakuhachi makers bury their bamboo in fungi rich medium and or chicken manure in order to create spalting (this process is also done in the West for spalted wood).

Danger! Why we harvest bamboo for shakuhachi in winter

We harvest bamboo in winter primarily because potentially dangerous insects and other creatures have mostly, hopefully gone dormant. Not to mention wild boars are somewhat less active during the winter (also venomous snakes in other parts of the world such as North America). Of course, when harvesting Madaké all of the dangers of doing hard manual labor with sharp tools are present. Lastly, in winter the bamboo will tend to be more dormant with less water content which makes the drying process somewhat faster and less likely to cause cracking. Similarly, the mild winter sun provides for a more steady drying process that’s also less likely to cause the bamboo to crack.

Fire curing bamboo for shakuhachi or Aburanuki

There’s nothing like the smell of cooking green Madaké bamboo. After many long hours of harvesting, transporting, and cleaning, the time finally comes for the next magical process in shakuhachi construction called aburanuki. Aburanuki is the act of sweating bamboo over a heat-source which drives out moisture and cooks the juices of the bamboo which makes them more viscous like glue. This in turn makes the bamboo dry faster and somewhat stronger and hopefully less likely to crack.

After performing aburanuki I place my bamboo in the full sun to dry for a month or more. During this time, I rotate each piece so it receives even sunlight. After sun drying I move my bamboo indoors to further dry or “cure” for three years minimum, but often at least five years (if worked too soon the bamboo will gum-up tools, among other issues).

In conclusion, I hope you’ve enjoyed this walk through the bamboo with me. You’ve emerged from the grove with a better understanding of this rarified craft and with an even deeper respect for bamboo. You can see one of my most recent harvesting trips to Japan in my journal entry here or read about my odyssey with Japanese Madaké growing in North America here.