Giant Steps on a Shakuhachi? How is this even possible? I’m going to quit music and take up a new hobby. Maybe farming dental floss.
I guess once he heard the Pennywhistle Sessions, he figured the shak was the next logical progression. ; )
If you do a search for Zac Zinger on YouTube you will find a wide range of videos showcasing his insane musical gifts. Zac has been play-testing flutes for me for the last five years or so (he also plays dizi, silver flute, saxaphone and heaven knows what else), and he collaborates with many equally amazing musicians. One of my favorite videos he did features him playing Chinese dizi along with a mixed ensemble of jazz musicians and traditional Taiwanese musicians. Super cool.
In that video (one post above here), what’s going on in that long extended section of tube to the left of the player’s mouth? Does air space continue up inside it or is it just a counterweight?
The dizi does have a considerable stretch of extra material above the embouchure hole, and there is no crown on such a flute (much like the traditional Indian bansuri). It is open at the end–you can look right down to the stopper. It does provide counter balance, and it might have a genuine acoustic purpose. Transmitting resonance? I know that Robert Bigio makes Boehm head joints and he uses a crown that has a type of vent hole in it, ostensibly for enhancing the sound–for letting it out both ends of the flute, more or less. I’ve messed with those and didn’t really notice that they did anything, but that doesn’t mean that it has no effect.
Another reason for the extra length on the dizi might be purely aesthetic. It’s the traditional look of the dizi, and that might be the real reason it continues to feature.
Thanks for that insight into it. It’s a fascinating instrument which I didn’t know nearly enough about, but having read up on it, I now want one.
Wow! He has enough talent for three or four people.
And to top it all off he is a genuinely kind and amiable person 
That certainly is a plus. 