KYOTO -- In 1973, a week or two after Brooklyn native Ronnie Seldin began playing the shakuhachi, his teacher asked him what he planned to do after he returned to the United States.
"Teach shakuhachi," he answered.
"I had no idea then how pretentious that was," laughed Seldin, here last month on an annual tour of Japan with some of his own shakuhachi students. Now a certified master of the Kinko style of shakuhachi, Seldin is the head of Kisui-an (The House of Blowing Emptiness) in New York, the largest shakuhachi dojo outside of Japan.