Thank you for the amazing night, you guys!

Just got home from a really nice night of sushi with a group of friends.  I haven't had so much sushi at once in a long time, and I am actually physically uncomfortable right now.  I even managed to coax two cups of Chinese saké down my throat and, an hour and more later, I'm still burping the terrible stuff.

Anyway, enough moaning.  I had a really good time and for once got to sit in on some nice and naughty conversation that made me think, "I should be blushing at this."  IT WAS SO COOL!!

So, I'm working on a secret project.  Only two people know the details.

Check out this instrument:  it's called a sanshin, and is both precursor and cousin to the traditional Japanese shamisen.  It was based way back then on the Chinese sanxian (notice how they all the sound the same, or similar, when you say their names?) and developed in Okinawa before it spread to the rest of Japan and became the shamisen.  If memory serves it's because of the amount of trade happening between China and Okinawa at that stage, but hey, Wikipedia would know more specifically.

This version is the traditional python skin version...

... while these two images are of 'kankara sanshin', or tin-can sanshin, made

during and just after WW2.

It really sounded like an ugly little instrument when I first heard it, until I watch a little 8-minute documentary of it on Youtube and listened to a master play a kankara.  Wow, what a sound!  I suppose it once again just goes to show the difference between amateurs and maestros.