This paper proposes an investigation of the acoustical characteristics of the sound of the shakuhachi. We have worked on the hypothesis that a study of this kind would not only provide an exact description of physical phenomena but would also offer a description of the music itself. Our point of departure was the observation that traditional shakuhachi music has shown virtually no interest in architectonic formal relationships; on the other hand, highly structured smaller units – what we have called tone cells – clearly have great musical significance. We set ourselves the task of studying these tone cells as the primary vehicle by which musical meaning is conveyed.

In this ‘world of a single sound’ we found structures whose musical meaning mirrors their physical evolution. As the tone cell stands somewhere between the tone as a physical event and the independent musical phrase, so is our description of its qualities both the representation of physical characteristics and the analysis of music.

The Japanese musicologist Tsuge Gen'ichi has said that in Japanese music ‘there is a deep-seated attitude towards realization of a self-sufficient musical world within the scope of even a single sound’(Tsuge 1981: 110). We hope with this study to contribute to an understanding of this important characteristic of Japanese of music.