Biography
TILOPA plays the Japanese flute called kyotaku, from the Zen Buddhist honkyoku musical tradition. This flute is sometimes called the Zen flute in the USA.
Tilopa has studied quite a wide range of different musical instruments since early childhood (recorder flutes, violin, guitar, piano, dillruba, svarmandal, santoor, and so on), but found his real love about 20 years ago when he met with the kyotaku and his flute master Koku Nishimura in Kumamoto, Japan. For those 20+ years, Tilopa has studied traditional honkyoku music with his master Koku sensei, and Koku's son, Koryo Nishimura. He has also done some experimental meshing of kyotaku with other eastern and western instruments.
The kyotaku is also known as Japanese Zen flute or long shakuhachi. It has pentatonic tuning and five (5) holes like the shakuhachi, but the kyotaku has a deeper, mellower sound.
The kyotaku was commonly played until the 20th century, at which point the shakuhachi began to eclipse the kyotaku. Simultaneously, kyotaku evolved from an instrument of meditation (mainly used by a certain Buddhist sect of wandering monk called komuso, into an instrument of secular music. Tilopa's master, Koku Nishimura, was one of the first to revive the old Zen tradition of kyotaku.
Tilopa recently collaborated with Sangeet Sieben, a versatile guitarist, on an improvisational recording called Pictures of Silence, a live field recording of improvisational sessions for an art exhibition in Cologne.
Tilopa currently resides with his family in rural Bavaria, where he works as a kyotaku maker and teacher.
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