Okuralo

[Toby]

My Okuralo is finally home! I've posted an album of pix with comments on
Photobucket:

http://s471.photobucket.com/albums/rr78/kymarto/

Toby

[shmiz]

Toby:

Beautiful! It's the first time I've seen close up picture of the real
thing. How does it sound? Also you know better than I, but "Okraulo"
is not necessarily a misspelling but was Mr. Okura's attempt at mating
his name with Aulos, the Greek piped instrument (Okura-Aulos = Okraulo).

I'm bookmarking these pictures. I hope you're enjoying it.

-Shmiz

[Toby]

Hi shmiz,

I think that this was a model made by an independent company, probably not
by Okura-san. The company name is "Mirabilis Auditu". No information I can
find on the net. The serial number is Z200004, my guess is that it is
actually the fourth one made.

The sound is quite interesting. It definitely has some of the bright
intensity of a shakuhachi, but since the bore is significantly smaller than
a shak at the utaguchi (18.8mm compared to a nominal 20.0 for a 1.8) it is
harder to find the sweet spot and not quite as--how can I say it?--smoky as
a shakuhachi. It is clearly all handmade, with soldered tone holes and a
seamed tube.

Interestingly, whoever owned this flute had a standard flute headjoint made
for it. It has to be custom made, because it is significantly longer than a
normal flute head joint (the okuralo has a short body) and also a bit larger
in diameter than any standard headjoint. It has a very interesting "wing"
designed embouchure. I will post a pic and let you know.

Anyway with that headjoint the okuralo becomes a quite respectable concert
flute, but with a much darker sound than a standard flute. This I put down
to the head geometry, but it is interesting that it changes character so
much with the two different head joints.

That's a very interesting conjecture vis-a-vis the name "misspelling". It
sounds completely feasible, but I have always seen the name written as
"okuralo".

Best,

Toby
"shmiz" <75270...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:uvidnQ0m5sf5nl_V...@earthlink.com...

[Toby]

I fired up my old Rev7 and produced a spacy little demo mp3 comparing
shakuhachi, Okuralo and concert flute. It's just a bit of improv, and be
warned that I am very rusty on all three of these instruments (and
completely self-taught on all three), so don't expect great stuff. But at
least you can hear the Okuralo in action. I quite like the sound, and find
it a very nice mix of shakuhachi and flute. Here is the download link (it's
safe):

http://rapidshare.com/files/145480353/shakuhachi_okuralo_flute_demo.mp3

Toby