(woman) the roots of shakuhachi music lie in zen meditative practice.f buddhism--they believe playing the shakuhachi, playing even a single tone, was a means or vehicle for enlightenment. [soft flute plays] shakuhachi has such a palette of different color sounds. for example, if we want a very strong round sound, more like a western flute, very hard-edged sound, we have [hard-edged flute sound] very, more strong kind of shakuhachi sound. then we also want a very airy sound so the same kind of [airy flute sounds] (narrator) when another instrument and voice are added to the shakuhachi, what kind of texture results? (hahn) when shakuhachi plays with the ensemble, with koto and with vocalist, these kinds of lines together are heterophonic in nature. the same melody is being played, but there are little nuances partular to each instrument. so the koto might play a line that sinks down [sings example] like this. shakuhachi, they may not play in that kind of ornamentation, that kind of subtlety, so we might play just an introductory note to the phrase, where