Okraulo is a metal recorder invented and produced in the early Showa period (at the beginning of the 20th century) by Baron Kishichiro Okura (1882~1963), who was known as the founder of Hotel Okura, with a view to playing Western music through the sound of shakuhachi (a five-holed bamboo flute) that he played himself. Whereas the number of finger holes of the traditional shakuhachi is five, that of Okraulo is 15 to 16, the same as that of a flute because the keywork of the flute was introduced into Okraulo. For shakuhachi, it is equivalent to one with many tone holes. While music activities using Okraulo, including developing performers and holding regular concerts by a band, had been actively conducted from the middle of the 1930s to the 1940s, after zaibatsu was dissolved following the end of the war, it became difficult for the Okura Family to back up these activities. In consequence, the opportunities of concerts plummeted and Okraulo ended up as a long-forgotten, phantom musical instrument.

You can imagine shakuhachi to be a musical instrument made of bamboo but it may be difficult to instantly recall the shape of its utaguchi (mouthpiece) i.e., the part that your lips should be on. The head joint of Okraulo has a shakuhachi-style mouthpiece. As a general impression, it may look like you are playing the flute vertically. The sound is more of a hybrid of shakuhachi and a flute, featuring clear sound typical of a metal pipe combined with shakuhachi’s rich power of expression that makes human breath felt, which is its big appeal.

In 2011, Okura Museum of Art kicked off activities to revive Okraulo prior to the 50th anniversary of Kishichiro’s death. Through various activities, such as concerts, CD sales and reproduction of the instrument, its hybrid appeal attributable to the Japanese sprit combined with Western learning is garnering attention anew right now.

Kishichiro, who succeeded to the Okura zaibatsu from his father Kihachiro, who passed away in 1928, made notable achievements as a Japanese hotelier among others while focusing on cultural activities and being unstinting in his support for the music arena. Based on his experience of studying at the University of Cambridge, the U.K. when he was young, he contributed to making Western music become widespread in Japan by sponsoring orchestras or composition contests while showing his deep love to Japanese traditional music. He established the new Japanese school of music Yamatogaku from the end of the Taisho period to the beginning of the Showa period and invented and produced the new musical instrument Okraulo. Kishichiro was good at playing the shakuhachi himself but he was not satisfied with the simple structure of the pipe that was used in those days and thought of improving it so that the twelve-tone equal temperament of Western music can be played with the accurate chromatic scale. It was 1935 when a prototype of the Okura-style shakuhachi made in this way was unveiled under the name of Okraulo, more than ten years after it was first conceived. The name Okraulo, based on an association with Okura’s family name and the Aulos, the ancient Greek end-blown flute, was given by music critic Takashi Iba, who also assumed the post of chairman of the Okraulo Institute.

Not only the number of finger holes was increased but their width was expanded as well to allow the Boehm system keywork applied to the flute to be introduced into Okraulo. Moreover, instead of bamboo, metals, such as silver, came to be applied as material. Other than the head joint that has the shakuhachi-style mouthpiece, Okraulo has nearly the same structure as the flute does but in terms of its details, ingenuity was exercised to make it closer to shakuhachi, with the shape of keywork being finely tuned to be in line with specifications of the recorder. It also comes with a finger rest on the back so that the shakuhachi-specific vibrato, such as kubi furi (a head shake), may be expressed.

After Kishichiro visited Rudall Carte, a flute maker based in London, the U.K., in person to ask them to make Okraulo, five types of the instrument were made, namely, in addition to a standard soprano pipe, piccolo, sopranino, alto and basso pipes. The Method for Okraulo was published the following year; when trainees were called to gather at the office of the Okraulo Institute on the second floor of the Sippo Building in Ginza, besides Kishichiro, up-and-coming shakuhachi performers, such as Iccho Koga, Seicho Kishi, Shincho Fukuda (Rando Fukuda) and Wacho Araki (Kodo Araki IV), took the lead in giving instructions.

With the Pacific War approaching, musical activities had been carried out, with a training school being established and regular concerts being organized by a band five times in total. Whereas primarily sankyoku (koto, shamisen and shakuhachi) was performed in a practice session at first, the band came to commit itself to Western classical music gradually. As flutist Seizo Miyata joined as an instructor at the training school, performing Western music by shakuhachi, i.e., Kishichiro’s big vision, was brought a step closer to fulfillment on the one hand; on the other hand, it was exposed to an easy comparison with the flute; as a result, Okraulo was given a negative image as it was perceived to be on neither side as a music instrument, which was ironical. Tansui Kikuchi, a member of the band, had used Okraulo in taking a folk melody from various parts of Japan down in staff notation for a while after the war. Its existence ended up being forgotten little by little, however. Production of the instrument by Japanese makers, including Nikkan, during the war had no choice but to meet with a setback, with issues, such as improvement of performance or reduction in production cost remaining unsolved.

In this way, Okraulo became a very phantom music instrument, whose existence is merely passed on to the next generation as part of the history of Japanese music, on the back of rapid westernization of the Japanese music market after the war.