A Cool Song

If you have been following my journal, you may remember a month back or so I mentioned that I had started working on writing a song. About two weeks ago, I finished writing it. I mean, I finished it in the sense that it had a beginning, a middle and an end, but by no means is it any where near "final copy" quality. It is a first draft. Besides, I wrote it all from my head, or by beating out the rhythms on a table. I haven't actually tried to play it on drums yet. That always brings up new issues, and produces changes in the music. Anyhow, with my limited experience writing taiko music, and limited access to drums to actually try out the song, I decided to ask for some outside opinions. I first thought of Yamada san, of Hono Taiko, who leads the two groups I am a member of, but I thought, instead of going straight for a professional's opinion, maybe I should show it to someone else first. If they had some suggestions for improvements, I could fix it up a little bit before asking Yamada san for help. I was thrilled to learn recently that one of my students is actually a member of Koshu Taiko, the group the played at our school festival. (I also posted videos of their performance.)
So I decided I would ask this girl to take a quick look at the song. I told her, "Teacher needs to see her after school", so she stopped by and I showed her the song. She looked through it and said that she thought it was great. She even said we should play it for a senior graduation assembly coming up in February (Japanese graduate in March). Unfortunately we don't have a place to practice, nor the right drums to practice on at the moment.

My song passed the first test, so I thought I would make a copy of it and give it to Yamada san at the next opportunity, asking her to just look it over when she had time and to give me her overall opinion, maybe tell me some good parts and bad parts. Since giving her a copy, I actually haven't had a chance to go to taiko practice. This week was cancelled, last week I was throwing up and in bed. With the holidays, there wasn't going to be a practice again until January 14! Ahhh! Luckily, Yume-mitai added a practice on the morning of Dec. 24, and the hozonkai added a practice last night. I wasn't able to go last night, but my wife could go. We actually wrote the song together, so when she met Yamada san at last night's practice, she spoke with her about the song. Yamada san didn't say a whole lot about the song, but what she said was a big encouragement to me. Apparently, she thinks it's a really cool song, and she said she will help me make it even cooler! What a boost for my confidence. Well, I mean, "I'll help you make it even cooler" could translate to "I'll help you fix the bad parts", but even if that is the case, if it wasn't any good at all, I doubt she would have offered the assistance. So, I will probably see her at Monday's Yume-mitai practice and perhaps I will be able to set up a meeting time with her to work on it a little bit. I am very excited!