It was a different practice: reflective, free and natural. Hutchings lived in Kingston, south-west London, near the expanses of Richmond Park. Like Sonny Rollins, who played his sax on the Williamsburg Bridge in New York, Hutchings took his instruments to deserted public spaces and practiced under trees, in fields, and inside hollowed-out tree trunks, sharing fragments with the public. On Instagram.
“Rollins' sound got bigger because he was blowing in the noise of New York City, whereas when you're in nature, your sound gets smaller and your dynamic range at small dynamics gets much bigger,” Hutchings said.
The main vehicle of these adventures in smallness was not the saxophone, an instrument designed to project outwards, but the flute, naturally more inwards. Or rather, flutes, in the plural. Hutchings brought a tall bag to our interview. It contained a selection from his growing collection, and revealed each flute of her protective floral fabrics with a sense of tactile ritual. The instruments represented a variety of origins and traditions, and were all handmade, mostly from wood. All flutes are also keyless, allowing for detailed tunings, similar to those of a trombone or violin.
“Creation and performance go hand in hand,” Hutchings said. He has already built an instrument himself and plans to travel to Japan to harvest a bamboo crop he planted and create the next one from scratch.
Hutchings acquired his first shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute played vertically, while performing in Japan in 2019, but it wasn't until the pandemic that he really had the time and mental space to devote the necessary amount of energy to it. “It's a tremendously difficult instrument, and the good thing is that no one can get any sound out of it,” Hawkins said.
Even Hutchings struggled at first. (The shakuhachi embouchure requires complete relaxation to make the instrument speak, in complete contrast to the saxophone, where blowing harder – and therefore tighter – is generally rewarded with more sound.) “It's not like he picked it up and had an epiphany,” Hutchings said. “Because, yes, I really am a beginner at shakuhachi.”
