Unlike a recorder, where the player blows into a duct—a narrow airway over a block which is called a "fipple"—and thus has limited pitch control, the shakuhachi player blows as one would blow across the top of an empty bottle (though the shakuhachi has a sharp edge to blow against called "utaguchi") and therefore has substantial pitch control. The five finger holes are tuned to a minor pentatonic scale with no half-tones, but using techniques called "meri" メリ and "kari" カリ, in which the blowing angle is adjusted to bend the pitch downward and upward, respectively, combined with embouchure adjustments and fingering techniques the player can bend each pitch as much as a whole tone or more. Pitches may also be lowered by shading ("kazashi" カザシ) or partially covering finger holes. Since most pitches can be achieved via several different fingering or blowing techniques on the shakuhachi, the timbre of each possibility is taken into account when composing or playing thus different names are used to write notes of the same pitch which differ in timbre. The shakuhachi has a range of two full octaves (the lower is called "otsu" 乙/呂, the upper, "kan" 甲) and a partial third octave ("dai-kan" 大甲) though experienced players can produce notes up to E7 (2637.02 Hz) on a 1.8 shakuhachi. The various octaves are produced using subtle variations of breath, finger positions and embouchure.