Hey guys,
I’m currently without a scanner, which makes it super difficult to post kunkunshi. If you would like to contribute to the site, please e-mail me your scanned 工工四. I’ll select the ones I find to be most accurate to what I’ve heard in Okinawa, and will post them up here with a romanji translation and a small description of what the song is about.
Thanks :)
-Kenji
I’m finally back! Life has it’s quirks, and so I’ve been unable to keep up with this site as well as many of my other blogs. Hopefully that will all change now that I’ve settled down in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Expect further postings and updates to come!
Just another update on the downtime. I’m roughly a week away from moving back to the States, and needless to say, I’m incredibly busy. I would have loved to put up some simple kunkunshi only posts as eye candy until I can get back and serious, but I just haven’t had the time. My apologies!
Hopefully my move will be a quick one, but I wouldn’t expect any big posts until I’m settled with stable internet and a scanner.
~kenji
Sorry for the recent lack of posts! It’s a busy season here in Okinawa, Japan. Old students leaving or graduating, new students pouring in, and me currently in the middle of a move.
However, I’ll try to keep on updating through all this business.
Also, thanks to those constantly contributing to the site through comments or kunkunshi donations! In this busy season, such help is invaluable to a single-handed amateur site like this one.
Hey guys! Sorry for the past two weeks of inactivity, but it’s been a busy start to 2009. I’ve gotten a few requests for more kunkunshi, and I plan to scan and upload these as soon as I can:
Shima Uta （島唄）
Shimanchu nu Takara （島人ぬ宝）
Menso-re （めんそーれ）
I’d also like to announce that simplesanshin.com’s ranking on google searches has risen! Thanks for the support and e-mails, and I’ll do my best to keep this site going while I avoid infringing any copyrights. I’ll also work on making another one of my random videos.
*Corrections:
I’ve corrected the post about setting the uma. You want to make sure the slanted side of the uma faces “inwards” towards the neck of the sanshin.
Some of you may have noticed that I created a YouTube account for the Simple Sanshin Source. I’m not that great of a speaker, and most of the videos are ad-libbed on the spot, but I hope that my videos can be of some use to you.
P.S.
I’ve been a tad busy with my own things lately, but I’ll be sure to post a few new kunkunshi before the year’s end.
P.P.S.
Thanks to everyone for showing interest in this website. Over the past month that this site has been up, I’ve gotten quite a few e-mails and hundreds of site visits from all over the world. I only hope that I can continue to provide useful information and resources for us sanshin lovers.
Thanks for the support.
I’ve been making regular updates to the site, but the kunkunshi section is one that hasn’t seen much action. The last edit I made was this:
*edit: 08/11/22
I’ve decided to only upload kunkunshi I’ve personally redrawn/rewrote to avoid possible trouble with copyrights. Although I don’t imagine there to be many problems because most Okinawan songs are shared folk songs, I figure that I should choose to err on the safe side.
I got an e-mail from someone saying they’d like to share their kunkunshi with me, but they were worried about possible copyright repercussions. At first I didn’t really care, or didn’t want to care because of a belief that no one should be able to “own” kunkunshi, but I decided it best not to take my chances.
Anyways, I was finally able to make this update to the lonely kunkunshi section:
*edit: 08/12/04
It’s been some time, but I’ve managed to finish one piece of music! It took a while because I had to redraw/rewrite it—see the above note for why—onto my computer using Photoshop. Anyways, now that I’ve got the basic layers and such down in Photoshop, I’ll be able to upload more kunkunshi more easily. (I think.)
It’s been exactly one week since I started this site, and if you don’t mind me saying so, I think I’m doing a decent job so far! I’ve got some of the basic how-to posts out of the way, and I’ve been trying to think of better ways to organize the site—like adding a “how to” section that links to specific how-to posts. If it’s easier for users to navigate, I’ll probably organize the entire site into a separate hierarchy of links and blogs.
Other than that, I’ve been trying to keep a one-post-a-day pace that seems to be working for me, but I’m sure I’ll slow down to once a week or once a month after I run out of sanshin topics.
I purchased a new domain for this site!
Just type “simplesanshin.com” into your browser and voila, you’re here. I went with simplesanshin.com because, after some discussion with friends, I realized that it’s best to be clear and to the point when establishing a site with a purpose; this is such a site.
To those who have been e-mailing and contacting me about the site, thank you for your interest in this little pet project of mine. I hope it’ll become one of the main stocks in helping non-Japanese speaking users spread the sanshin love.
-kenji :)
I edited the chindami post into two parts, adding a separate post about tuners in the process.
I also figured that some people might want quick access to tuning, so I added a new “quick links” section to the sidebar. This way you can get in, tune, get out and start playing.
I added extra information about this site in the “About me” section. Hope you check it out! :)
