Exstasia Campaign #1

Yesterday (Sunday) we had this year's first Exstasia Campaign performances. For those who don't know, Exstasia is a big taiko festival sponsored by Asano Taiko, the city of Hakusan and various other groups and companies in the area. I've written about it the past couple years: 2007, 2008.

Anyhow, around this time of year, the groups that practice at Asano Taiko are sent out to do short performances on the weekends at local shopping centers and malls. We perform for about 30 minutes and then observers have a chance to buy tickets for Exstasia at the end of the performance. Yesterday's groups were Sasuke, jr., Yume Mitai, some members of Shin Matto Bayashi Hozonkai and Hono Taiko. By the end of the day, we had sold 13 tickets (8 adult and 5 child). They told us it was a pretty good result.

I was playing as a member of Yume Mitai yesterday (although I am also in Shin Matto Bayashi). Usually there are about 15 of us, but yesterday, there were only 7. Furthermore, I was asked to switch parts the Saturday night. Considering the last minute switch, having no chance to rehearse the new part before the performance, and our small numbers, we did pretty well. There was only one spot where I screwed up. There is a part in the song where everyone crouches down, extends their right bachi (stick) to the left and slowly turns back to the center. I have been playing the shime part since last fall, so I had not done this crouching part for quite a while. I forgot which way to turn and turned to the right instead of the left. Senda san, who was playing on my right, was quite surprised and we nearly crashed into each other. I quickly adjusted my movement to the correct side, but it must have been amusing for the observers to see the surprised look on both our faces. Needless to say, it only happened once, and the next two performances were free from any major, noticeable mishaps.

Last time I said I might have some video to post, but it didn't work out that anyone could take video for me. All that I got was some pictures. Enjoy...


Time for a break.


Lunch time.



Preparing to start the final performance of the day. Hono Taiko wearing Happi coats designed by Kansai Yamamoto for their recent performance in Bali.

And a couple pictures of Yume Mitai (1/2) performing.




I always see something I don't like, or I want to fix when I see pictures/video of myself. For example, looking at these pictures, I notice how my arm is still not as straight as I would like it to be. First I thought of the excuse, "well, my arms are pretty long, if I extend them all the way, I will get behind the tempo." But then I told myself, "No excuses, if your arms are longer than everyone else, you just have to learn how to move them more quickly so you don't get behind." That's right. Instead of thinking of excuses why you can't do something, you must figure out a way to do something that seems difficult.

I guess I did alright, though, because after the last performance of the day Mrs. Asano-san said to me, "You're getting pretty good at performing, aren't you."

How I Ended Up in the Super Beginner Taiko Class

This week I will have taiko practice/lessons on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Since the end of April, my wife and I (and my daughter) enrolled in two new taiko classes that will continue until the middle of the summer, which added to our already busy taiko schedule.

A month or so ago, I went to talk with Kinoshita san of Hono Taiko. She teaches most of the beginning level courses at Asano. Since I imagine that most of our students when we return to Michigan next year will probably be "beginners" I wanted to talk with her to get an idea of what and how she teaches the beginning courses. Actually, I have never taken a beginning/introductory taiko course, even though I have been practicing it for more than two years. To a certain degree, I was able to pick up the correct techniques, movements and so on just from playing with and watching the people in the other Asano groups we play with. What I didn't notice myself was usually corrected by Yamada sensei. So I thought it would be good for me to get an idea of what goes on in a beginner class, what are the objectives, teaching methods, etc. and that's why I went to talk with Kinoshita san. During our meeting she invited me to come and watch either her "Super Beginner" course on Monday evenings, or her "Basic" course on Tuesday evenings.

I hadn't planned on joining either class. Actually, until recently, I always had Yume Mitai taiko practices on Mondays. But because the beginner class was moved to Mondays, Yume Mitai practices were changed to Thursdays, so my Monday evenings were open. Then I remembered my daughter (6 yrs in June). She had been enrolled in Asano's "Taiko Kids" classes on Sunday mornings. Her class was from 9 - 10, then we would jump in the car and race to church for the 10:30 service. After our recital in March, Karen (my daughter) was promoted from the kids beginner class up to the kids intermediate class. I think she was pretty excited and happy. She even got a new headband (new color) to write her name on. Unfortunately the time was from 10 - 11:30, which means we would have to miss church. Because of our own personal priorities, we were forced to "take a break" from the kids taiko classes.

As I talked with Kinoshita san, and she invited me to observe the class, it dawned on me that I could join the class with Karen. It was a "super beginner" class, meaning it was geared towards people with absolutely now taiko experience. I figured Karen should be able to handle that. And besides, as I mentioned, I had never had a beginning taiko course, so it might do me some good as well. It has been a great experience, by the way, but more on that next time.

So, Karen and I signed up to join Kinoshita san's Super Beginner class. We are having some great daddy-daughter time and both are learning a lot. I'll share more about the class and what we are learning next time. right now it is time for me to go to work...

Quick Updates

Has it really been ten days? I apologize. It really has been too long. Recently, I've been hit with several things that take up a lot of my time that I usually use for writing blog posts. One being income tax... yes, it's after April 15, but when you live overseas, you get an extra two months to file.

Unfortunately, today I cannot write much either, but just to let any of you loyal readers know that I am still here, I'll just make it a quick update. Let's see, maybe I'll do this in a list form.

Got $300 plus from the Japanese govn't for their form of a stimulus payment. Technically we're supposed to spend it, not save it, so I guess I'll be making a trip to the Asano Taiko shop to pick up some bachi, chappa, and so on.

I joined Kinoshita Chieko san's (Hono Taiko) Super Beginner class with my daughter two weeks ago. I joined it because my daughter is only 5 (almost 6) and might have trouble on her own, but as it turns out, it is a great learning opportunity for me as well on many different levels.

Mayumi (me wife) also joined a new class with Kinoshita san as the instructor. It is called "Basic" and is also kind of intended for beginners, but there are still a lot of experienced players in the class. As the name suggests, it focuses on learning and polishing up basic skills. Mayumi will likely be working on her Odaiko basic skills.

This Wednesday, the last holiday of Golden Week, JIGEN will get to play at Asano's 400th anniversary pre-event on Wednesday. (Here's my blog post about it, and here's a link to the Asano flyer about it) I'm not sure if we are playing once or twice, but the live performances are at 1:30 and 3:00. We'll be playing the song, Raigun (雷郡) at one or both of them.

I'd like to write more, but now I need to get ready to go to work. After tomorrow I'll have four days off, though, so I suppose I'll be able to find some time to write a proper entry at least once during that time. Until then...

Asano Beat with Hono Taiko and Hikari

Last night (Feb 28) Asano Taiko held what is to be the first of monthly concerts in its Museum (pictured above). The performers were Hono Taiko and Hikari. Hono Taiko I have mentioned many times in this blog (in fact, if you search google for "hono taiko" this blog comes up on the first page of results several times). Hikari, I have not mentioned quite as often (I did a couple weeks ago, though, when one of their members was here for dinner). Hikari is also made up of three women (like Hono Taiko). The Hikari members are all in their early 20s and have been learning taiko at Asano since they were little girls.

The center of the museum had been cleared out and replaced with about 100 chairs for the audience. At the back of the museum, there is a platform, where there is usually an Odaiko placed with bachi so that guests can try it out. This platform had been transformed into a stage for the performance. It looked like this:


The lights went down and ambient (?) music began to play as images of the moon, cherry blossoms, forests were projected onto the face of the Odaiko. Enter the performers. The six women floated down the aisle toward the stage carrying small lanterns. The images projected on the Odaiko ended with a huge picture of the moon. Which was appropriate because the first song was 月光 (Gekko) or "Moonlight". This is one of my very favorite pieces written by Hono Taiko's Mizue Yamada. I am hoping that she will teach it to us before we leave so that we can perform it back in Michigan. Last night it was played with five parts: One person was playing two shime taiko. Two more were playing a large Okedaiko (maybe about 80 cm) along with a shime taiko. The other two people were playing two long pieces of bamboo. If you enlarge the picture of the stage, you can probably see them towards the front of the stage.

Gekko was followed by a short piece featuring a bamboo flute (shinobue) duet called Inishie. Yamada san of Hono Taiko and Okazaki san of Hikari played the flutes while they were accompanied by the other two members of Hikari. Hono Taiko's Kinoshita Chieko san followed the flute duet with an Odaiko solo on the giant drum at the back of the stage. After the Odaiko solo, Yamada san and Jige san, the other members of Hono Taiko, joined Kinoshita san on the stage for an old, Hono Taiko standby number, Nihon Kai(日本海) or "The Sea of Japan" which I suppose is meant to remind one of the nearby Sea of Japan. I have heard Nihon Kai before, but this was the first time I had heard it in its full length. It is pretty long and appeared to be fairly strenuous. I enjoyed it.

After Nihon Kai, there was a break in the music and Jige san took a few minutes to thank everyone for coming out, introduce the performers and explain a little bit about the songs. It is always interesting when Jige san talks because she tends to kind of talk in an almost stream-of-consciousness way, where she'll just say almost anything that pops into her head, start conversations with people she knows in the audience and appears to almost forget that she is in the middle of a performance. But I think that is one of the reasons that everyone really likes Jige san; she is such a free spirit. (In fact, she is one of the reasons I became captivated by taiko drumming.)

Jige san's interlude was followed by a number with just the members of Hikari playing shime taiko called Ranma (乱馬), which means "wild horse". Having spent the last 6 months focused on shime taiko playing, I enjoy and appreciate the shime taiko pieces all the more.

Hono Taiko returned after Ranma with a new (?) piece called "Out of the Blue" (no Japanese title). This was a much different piece than what I am used to seeing from them. It had a slower feeling about it and was dependent on a lot of interaction between the three performers. It was very musical and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

For the Finale, Kinoshita san brought out her shamisen and Jige san got out her voice and led the audience in a rousing version of a folk song. At the end, all six performers took a final bow on the stage to accept the applause. Then Yamada san, who was in the middle held up her hand, and put the finger of her other hand to her mouth, signaling the applause to stop, at which point the ambient music from the beginning began playing again. Each performer then picked up their candle lanterns they had brought onto the stage at the beginning and made their exit.

The concert was an hour, a good length if you have small children with you. It was very professional... well, of course it was, but this is somewhat remarkable because they didn't hire any professionals for lighting or sound, and so on. They only used people that they had on staff already. They called it a "completely home-made performance". The small venue and small number of guests (officially 126) made it an intimate and enjoyable affair. The March concert will be on March 21st, featuring Hono Taiko, some members of Hikari and Kumen Kirishima Taiko's former Odaiko soloist, Mayumi Hashimoto. If you happen to be in Kanazawa, I recommend putting it on your schedule.