| Imaginary Roads | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1988 | |||
| Genre | New-age | |||
| Length | 51:18 | |||
| Label | Windham Hill [1] | |||
| Producer | William Ackerman Dawn Atkinson | |||
| William Ackerman chronology | ||||
| ||||
Imaginary Roads is an album by the new-age guitarist William Ackerman, released in 1988. [2] The album was reissued in 2009 by Valley Entertainment. [3]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [4] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music |  [1] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [2] |
The Kingston Whig-Standard wrote that the album "consists mainly of [Ackerman] simply strumming his acoustic guitar ever-so-slowly ... five years ago this stuff sounded revolutionary and filled a need for baby-boomers who couldn't relate to the current musical marketplace." [5]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Oxford University Press) describes Imaginary Roads as "one of guitarist William Ackerman’s finest albums, and the one where the new instruments Ackerman had been slowly adding to his sound through the 80s finally jelled with his distinctive playing. The result is that even on the duet pieces, Ackerman and his musical partners sound and feel like an actual band, not a composer and his sidemen. Interesting additions like shakuhachi flute, oboe, and fretless bass join the usual synthesizers, piano and violins, giving a variety and depth to the arrangements that is sometimes missing from Ackerman’s more monochromatic earlier albums." [6]
A shakuhachi is a Japanese longitudinal, end-blown flute that is made of bamboo. The bamboo end-blown flute now known as the shakuhachi was developed in Japan in the 16th century and is called the fuke shakuhachi (普化尺八). A bamboo flute known as the kodai shakuhachi or gagaku shakuhachi (雅楽尺八) was derived from the Chinese xiao in the Nara period and died out in the 10th century. After a long blank period, the hitoyogiri shakuhachi (一節切尺八) appeared in the 15th century, and then in the 16th century, the fuke shakuhachi was developed in Japan. The fuke shakuhachi flourished in the 18th century during the Edo period, and eventually the hitoyogiri shakuhachi also died out. The fuke shakuhachi developed in Japan is longer and thicker than the kodai shakuhachi and has one finger hole less. It is longer and thicker than hitoyogiri shakuhachi and is superior in volume, range, scale and tone quality. Today, since the shakuhachi generally refers only to fuke shakuhachi, the theory that the shakuhachi is an instrument unique to Japan is widely accepted.
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