Kaga Taiko Lesson

Did I say the last entry would be "short"? I guess I did. Oh well. I've got to work on being less verbose.

As promised, I will write more about Kaga Taiko today. I'll try not to make it too long. There is a lot I could say (and probably will, eventually) about Kaga Taiko, but this time, I will just try to describe what Kaga Taiko practice is like.

The practice begins at 1:00 on Sunday afternoons, but people kind of show up when they are able to. Some are there right at 1:00, others show up as late at 3:00. If you are there on time, Ichikawa sensei will begin by warming everyone up together. Everyone plays on a nagado taiko, if there are not enough, some people will double up. Ichikawa sensei will play a rhythm used in Kaga Taiko, and then we all imitate it until he says stop. Then he will introduce another, slightly more complicated rhythm and we imitate again until he says stop. Usually, by the end of the warm up he has given us about 5, increaslingly complicated patterns, and then the warming up is finished. It probably took about 15 minutes.

After a short break, he begins teaching. Sometimes he will demonstrate a technique, rhythm or movement used in Kaga Taiko, and then we will each take turns trying it out while he makes corrections. Usually, however, the teaching takes the for of mini private lessons of around 15 to 20 minutes.

You see, when playing Kaga Taiko, there are usually only three people playing at a time. One is playing flute, the other is playing ji-uchi (doko don, doko don...), or "kobachi", as it is called in Kaga Taiko, and the third is playing the solo. Therefore, you cannot have all 10 people or so playing at once, you have to give individual instruction. At Ichikawa Juku the teaching is mainly handled by Ichikawa sensei, and sometimes by the assistant instructor, Chiaki sensei.

After the warm-ups, Ichikawa sensei will choose a student and say, okay, play something. If it is your turn, you come up to the front, play the best Kaga Taiko you can. When you finish your little 2 or 3 minute solo, Ichikawa sensei will instruct you and help you fix some of your mistakes. The better you are, it seems that the stricter he is with his guidance. Since my wife and I are fairly new at this, he is still pretty nice to us, but he warned us that he is going to be stricter if we continue.

Anyway, to give you a feel for the lessons, here is a short video from my wife's lesson last Sunday. The man is Ichikawa sensei and the woman is Chiaki sensei.



The drums are covered to mute the sound a little so as not to disturb the neighbors too much.

Well, again, this is becoming longer than I intended and there is still a lot more to say about Kaga Taiko. So, I'll just have to save it for next time. Until then, enjoy the video, don't forget to give it a rating, leave comments, share it with your friends, etc. and come back soon...

Learning Kaga Taiko at Ichikawa Juku

The exit off of the highway is barely noticeable. There is no sign, and hardly any deceleration ramp, just a narrow street that quickly disappears underneath a bridge as soon as it leaves the highway. You follow that street through a small group of houses clustered together, then you come out into an open space with mostly rice fields on either side of the road. On the left is a slightly run-down textile factory, which also happens to be our destination.


We park in front of the building and enter through the side door. It leads into a large room with about 6 desks pushed together in the middle of the room covered in papers, coffee cans filled with pens, ash trays and so on. The walls are decorated with several posters of swimsuit campaign models from the mid-90s for tool companies and beer.


The room behind the door in the back of the office has only a table pushed into a corner, and a few chairs lining the wall. The windows have been covered with thick polystyrene and then covered again with sheets. In the center of the room is one large naga-oke taiko and about 6 nagado taiko.

This is Ichikawa Juku in Komatsu, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan. It is one of the few places where you can learn Kaga Style Taiko, the 400 year old traditional style of taiko drumming unique to this area. We decided to attend this school as often as we could, following our December Kaga Taiko recital.

The Kaga Taiko courses we had taken only lasted from September to December. After the classes finish in December, we didn't have any opportunity to practice this style of drumming. In comparison to modern, sousaku taiko (what most of us probably are playing) Kaga Taiko is much more difficult to play and master. Therefore, if we want to continue it after we return to Michigan, we figured we needed to learn as much as we could.

Ichikawa Juku holds classes on Sunday afternoons, starting at 1 PM and lasting until...well, until the last person leaves, I suppose. It's a tough schedule for us. It probably takes 40 or 45 minutes to drive there and Sunday afternoons, there tends to be a lot of events that come up. In spite of this, we decided to attend as much as we could, at least until November or December, when we are hoping to return to Michigan.

The style of drumming and the style of teaching is much different than what we have been mostly doing/learning here. It is very complicated, challenging and interesting. And unfortunately, today, I don't have time to get into it all, so I must save it for next time. Come back soon to check for the update (with video!)

Kaga Taiko Recital Videos

It's Christmas Eve Day here, in Japan and we are sure busy. You see, Christmas is not a holiday in Japan and most people have to work today and tomorrow and the next day. Thus, for those who wish to celebrate Christmas in a major way, like in Europe or the States, it is a challenge to get everything ready because you are often working right up to, and through the holiday. It's rather depressing, actually. At least working at a school, the winter holidays cover the Christmas holidays so I have never had to work on a Christmas in all my years of working in Japan (well, it's only been four years I guess).

Anyhow, before I spend too much time writing, I just wanted to post videos of our most recent taiko recital. This past Sunday we had our Kaga Taiko recital, which was held at an Onsen (Hotel Suiko) in Katayamazu, near Komatsu Japan. Here is a link to the Hotel Suiko website, in case you want to see pictures.

It was much different than last year's Kaga Taiko Recital, and not just because it was in a different location. This year, we had both our children with us and as a result, we were unable to see many of the other performances. A two and half year old can only sit still for so long, even if he does like taiko. Also, last year's recital featured only Kaga and Fukui style taiko (traditional styles, dating back nearly 400 years), but this year there were also groups that would be considered "Sousaku Taiko" (創作太鼓) which is the more modern form of taiko that most of us probably are more familiar with. On personal level, it was also much different because my wife and I felt much more confident in our playing. I don't know that you can see a whole lot of difference between the technical difficulty of what we played this year and what we did last year, but (at least I like to think) our stage presence is slightly more confident than last year.

Anyway, here is where I will post the videos of this year's and last year's recitals, and you can decide for yourselves. (Please feel free to leave your comments, positive or "constructive")

We'll start with me (Brian)
Last year's recital (2007):


This year's recital (2008):


And now Mayumi's...
Last year (2007):


and this year's (2008):


And I'll just say goodbye with a little bonus video. My son, Kenji, seems to really be starting to "feel" taiko and he will pick up bachi (sticks) any chance he gets and start "playing" the couch, cushions, whatever he can find. The interesting thing is that when you watch him, he has a very serious, focused face, and he seems to be doing more than just "hitting". If he is playing a real drum, this is even more apparent. I was telling my mother this the other day, and she said it was the same way with my older brother (who is now a professional musician). He started learning piano at 3 years old, and although he wasn't necessarily playing songs right away, my mum said that what he played, although random notes, it was very musical. Anyway, decide for yourselves. Here is video of my son playing a cushion. You may think that my judgement is clouded by being a parent, but even if that is so, it is still kind of cute to watch...



Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
From Raion Taiko

Kaga Taiko - Ichikawa Juku School Visit

We haven't really played or practiced Kaga style taiko since our recital on December 9th. Since the course we took only ran from August to December, and won't run again until August, we don't have many opportunities to play in this style. We did always want to visit the Ichikawa Juku School, though, which I mentioned in a post last fall.

Today (10.Feb) we finally were able to observe a practice there. Our intent was to observe, but we were immediately invited to participate in the practice. After all, they knew that we were not totally inexperienced, since nearly all of them took part in the December recital as well, and Ichikawa sensei also visited our Thursday night class on several occasions. We weren't sure how well we would be able to participate because we had both of our children with us, but the practice was fairly family freindly, allowing us to participate, and watch our kids at the same time.

When I wrote about the recital, I compared the atmosphere to a jazz club. The practice also seemed to have the same, laid back type of feeling. Soon after we arrived, they began warming up, which consisted of playing the mitsu uchi base rhythm (don doko don doko ...), followed by incorporating only a few Kaga taiko patterns. This probably didn't last any longer than 30 minutes. Then everyone had a break, drank some tea, smoked a cigarette, ate snacks, talked for a bit. Our kids found some sticks and played on the drums a little bit. During the break, Ichikawa sensei talked and played with our children. He told us that he has a grandchild the same age as our daughter (4.5 years).

Following the break, students came up one at a time, played a bit, and received guidance and commentary from Ichikawa sensei. It was rather like a 15 or 20 minute private lesson for each person, except that the rest of the class is watching you receive instruction. I can see that watching others play and listening to the critiques and suggestions from the teacher is an essential part of learning this particular style of taiko.

The warm up was pretty relaxed, and as I mentioned, Ichikawa sensei took on a kind and grandfatherly tone during the break as he played with our children. I was, therefore very surprised to hear his comments for the first student who played after the break. After she finished her piece, he basically said, "Well, if I were to tell you where you made mistakes, I would say everywhere. I would give you some positive feedback, but there was absolutely nothing postive about your playing." ... I thought "Wow," as I reached down to pick up my jaw off the floor. He then proceeded to work with her on various aspects of her playing, giving her advice and demonstrating at times, but his comments for most of the lesson with her were not very forgiving. Still, I noticed a significant improvement in her playing by the time she was finished.

Imagine my surpise (and horror) when he then said, "So, who's next? How about you, Brian san?" Seeing how he tore apart the previous student, who was much better than me, I could only imagine what he might say about my playing. Somewhat reluctantly, but trusting that he would be fairly kind to me, as it was my first visit to his class, I got up and played what I had played for the December recital, as best as I could remember. Being two months from that performance, of course, I made plenty of mistakes, but luckily, he was kind as I had hoped. His comments to me were basically, "You've made a good start, and if you practice, I'm sure you will become a good player." Next was my wife, and his comments to here were pretty much the same, except that he added, "I think you're just a tiny bit better than your husband." Well, I had thought that since we started practicing, so it wasn't a total surprise to to hear that.

The strictness and directness of the lesson suprised me mainly because the beginning of the class had been so laid back. I actually understood that this was just his teaching method, and not meant to be mean, but rather to motivate. The first student had been practicing Kaga taiko for some time and was fairly advanced. I'm sure he was simply trying to get her to play at a higher level, since she was probably capable of it. Although he mentioned several times, "Maybe you aren't as good as I thought you were, maybe I'm pushing you too fast." I think that anyone who has worked at something, be it an art or a sport, probably has noticed that the better you get, the more your teacher's seem to criticize you. As you improve, their expectations rise, and a good teacher will hold you to those.

If you are over-sensitive, or need positive comments along with the negative, you probably wouldn't last long in this class, but if you understand the purpose of the comments, and are able to not take them personally, you'll probably be fine. I think we are fine with that, and hope that we will be able to visit the school on a regular basis to continue learning Kaga style taiko during the "off season".

Kaga Recital Videos

If you prefer to watch taiko videos, rather than read my taiko journals, then this entry is for you. I think I have about 10 new videos to introduce to you today. They are all from the Kaga Taiko recital a few weeks ago (December 9). You may want to read that entry first, before watching the videos. Also, if any of our personal friends have been waiting to actually see Mayumi and I play taiko, instead of watching other groups, here is your chance. Of course, as I mentioned in most of my posts about Kaga taiko, it is not an easy style to learn, and it is largely improvisation, which is something kind of new for me.

Anyhow, I will start with videos of our performances, please do not view them too critically. We only started learning this about 7 months ago. Without further ado, here is my Kaga Taiko recital performance, December 9, 2007:


And next, Mayumi's. Personally, I think she did a better performance than I did, of course, she says the opposite.


As I mentioned, after the recital portion, there were many other much more advanced Kaga Taiko/Mitsu uchi drummers there, so they took turns performing. Here are some of them. The first one is a lady who is a student at the Ichikawa Juku Kaga Taiko school:


This next man was the most impressive, in my opinion, and I don't just say that because of his tight pants. My daughter, however, seemed to notice them. When she watched the video, she kept saying, "look at his bottom". Anyway, don't let his toit rump distract from his drumming:


The next performer was also pretty enjoyable to watch. She is actually doing a different style than Kaga Style, but closely related and based on the same base, mitsu uchi rhythm. She was from Fukui, the prefecture next to Ishikawa. From what I understand, this is Fukui style mitsu uchi drumming:


Now we have a sort of cross over performer. He was from Fukui, but performs Kaga style instead of Fukui style. Enjoy:


Here is another pair from Fukui. This time, it is a grandfather, performing with his grandson:


This boy is pretty young. I think they said he was in 2nd grade. He looks just terrified to be on the stage. In the end, though, his nerves do not get the better of him and he delivers quite an impressive performance:


This next performer was special because he had recently received a designation as a meijin. I am not completely sure of the meaning of this term, but he had received a special plaque and certificate from the government recognizing his talent/ability as a performer of Kaga Style drumming. From what I can understand, I think it means that he is probably one of the top players:


And finally, our instructor, Matsuya sensei. He was not the last performer, but soon after this, our camera battery ran out, so we could not record any more anyhow. I really enjoy his style of playing, it seems to be very powerful:


I hope you enjoyed the recital.

Taiko Jazz - Kaga Taiko Recital

For my birthday this year, my brother, Andrew, took me to the Green Mill Jazz club in Chicago for a jam session. As I am used a father's and a high school teacher's schedule (waking up around 5 AM) the 1 AM start time was a bit rough, but I managed to make it there, and once the music started, I got a second wind and was able to stay awake through the whole session. It was an enjoyable, relaxed evening (morning). After a few songs, the regulars called several musicians up from the audience (including my brother) to sit in for a few tunes. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. The audience was enjoying their drinks, or talking with friends, or listening to the music. I think I would describe the feeling at our Kaga Taiko recital in exactly the same way. Not only because it was held at a restaurant, but the way the music was peformed also reminded me of a jazz club atmosphere.

As our teacher reminded the audience before we began, mitsu uchi style drumming (on which Kaga taiko is based) is several hundred years old and many of the traditional drumming in the Hokkuriku area (Fukui, Ishikawa, Toyama) has developed out of this style. Having been around for so long, many different styles have emerged and each person even seems to have their own signature style when they play. This actually adds a certain degree of difficulty to learning the style. We talked to one of our class members who has been studying for three years, and attends the Kaga taiko school in Komatsu. He said sometimes you are instructed in a certain way by one of the senior members, and then later, a more senior member comes along and gives you instruction that contradicts what you were just told, and later, yet again, another, even more senior member will come along and give you more instruction that contradicts both. So it is very difficult to know what is "correct". But my guess is that none of the instruction he received is wrong, but more because of the individual drummers different personal styles. Eventually, after enough contradictory instruction, you can develop your own personal style.

More recently, perhaps in the last 50 years or so, the mitsu uchi style became popular and was performed not only at festivals and community events, but in restaurants also. In fact, I heard that there was a player who even opened a taiko restaurant. Sort of like a dinner theater, but dinner taiko. As I mentioned, yesterday's recital was at a small cafe style restaurant. The setting was even dramatic. It was right on the Sea of Japan, on a day when the weather was changing every 15 minutes or so. It was quite windy, so the waves were crashing into the rocks, throwing spray up into the air. The clouds were moving quickly across the sky, sometimes letting rays of sun through, and other times blocking it out completely. At times there was rain, and other times hail, and at one point, to my daughters delight, there was a bright and clear rainbow out over the ocean.

The atmosphere was very relaxed. I think most of the people in attendance were also drummers of the mitsu uchi style. There was friendly banter between the MCs and the audience, and unexpected "challenges", like dropping a stick in the middle of a performance, or a performer being in the bathroom or something at the time he was supposed to perform, were easily laughed off and remedied.

Our recital was the first part of the afternoon. Our instructor, Matsuya sensei, began by giving a little background about the class. (He actually seemed to be a little more nervous than some of us) This is the third year the Ishikawa Taiko Association has offered this course. They hold it each year from August to December. There were nine of us in the class. Two had take the class all three years, four were in their second time, and for three of us, it was the first time. He shared that several years ago, at an event featuring Kaga Taiko, he noticed the average age of the performers was rather old. Worried that this style of drumming in danger of slowly dying out, they started the class, in hopes of sparking some new interest. It's certainly worth saving, and we hope to be able to study it enough to bring it back with us and incorporate it into our own program.

We each received a short intro from Matsuya sensei, and then performed our own Kaga taiko improvisations one at a time. It is actually two people, but the other person is really only an accompanist. So it is like you are playing a solo. I suppose it could have been quite intimidating (which maybe it was for some) to play an improvised solo, in difficult style of drumming, in front of a lot of people who are all fairly advanced players, after only studying for about 4 months. For me, though, it wasn't so bad. I had just that slight bit of nervousness that actually makes you play better, but not so much that you cannot concentrate. I think the relaxed atmosphere played a large role in it. You could tell that the audience was not watching with critical eyes, even though there were many very high level players there. They all seemed to be happy to see new people with a growing interest in Kaga taiko, and they wanted us to do well. Besides that, my daughter sat right down in front and smiled at us the whole time we played.

We all made it through our "solos" without any major mistakes, and then we could sit down and enjoy the rest of the afternoon, featuring players from Kaga and Fukui (the next prefecture just south west of Ishikawa. As I said, it was a fun and relaxed program. It didn't seem to have a set order. Most of the performers did not have any type of costume. There was an MC and he would announce, or ask someone to play next. Sometimes they came right up, other times they resisted at first, but were eventually persuaded to play, and other times they were in the bathroom. We really got a good feel for some of the different styles of drumming within Kaga taiko, and between Fukui and Ishikawa.

We did take video of our own performances, as well as about 5 or 6 of the other, more professional players before our battery ran out. I wanted to post them along with this entry, but my fear is that it will take me some time to do the editing and get them uploaded, so before I forget the details of the recital, I wanted to get them written down. As soon as I have a chance, I will put them up, with short explanations when I can. In the meantime, here is a picture of me, our instructor, Matsuya sensei, and another class member, Jingu san. If you're wondering what is sticking out of the back of his neck, well, he nearly died in a bizarre gardening accident last year... just kidding. It is his flute. You'll notice when the videos are posted, that nearly all the performances are accompanied by flute. I guess that's just where he wanted to carry it.

The Asano Taiko Family and enjoy

Now that my schedule has settled down a little bit, I will try to make more frequent entries. In the last two weeks, or so, I've actually had quite a bit to say, but haven't had the time to write it down.

About two weeks ago, we attended Hono Taiko's concert in Kanazawa. I don't think that I have ever seen them "in concert". I've seen them many times at various events, but they were always there as part of some bigger event. So this was the first time that I saw just them. It quite enjoyable and made me think about many things. One aspect of the concert in particular which I paid close attention to was how they constructed their pieces. They are only three people, so it limits them somewhat as to how many parts their songs can have. At this point, my wife and I are only two people, so we also, are limited in what we can do, when we try to create songs. One thing I noticed was that most songs involved a kumi-taiko set up. This means that one person is surrounded by maybe three to five drums. It is basically a taiko drum set, I guess. This allows the song to have a little more variety in the parts.

My wife was commenting on how Hono Taiko is rather like Kanazawa's "Home Team" taiko group. Everyone in this area knows them, and likes them. It provides them a nice atmosphere to "work" in, and they have a lot of support and help. In fact, I am guessing that most of the people who attended the concert actually were acquainted with at least one of the three members. The interactions with the audience were very friendly and even included some personal greetings from the members. It was a very relaxed atmosphere. It seems Asano Taiko (which sponsors Hono Taiko, and the other two groups in which I am playing) is rather like a big family. At the concert, I saw almost every member of the two groups I am in either working at the concert, or attending the concert.

Sorry if this is a bit rambling. I had a lot to say right after seeing the concert, but it seems that I have forgotten what it was.

There are a couple other news items to add, but I'll save them for another time. For now, I'll just mention that our recital for the Kaga Taiko class is on Sunday and we had our final practice last night. There are nine students and at last night's practice we got to each perform our own improvisations twice. The first time was sort of practice, and Matsuya sensei (our instructor) gave advice and suggestions. The second time was rather like a dress rehearsal, and we ran through everything without stopping in program order. One of the comments that almost everyone had during our first run through, was to smile more. If you have been reading along with me, you may remember that I said Kaga style taiko is supposed to be relaxed and fun. Most of the nine of us don't have much experience with this style, so we probably all look like we're concentrating very hard on remember the correct rhythms and not making mistakes. Matsuya sensei said that many of us even looked scary. So for my second run through, I decided to not worry about anything and enjoy myself, have a good time. (This is what I have been telling my students at every speech and drama contest we have had, and so far the results have been good.) I think it worked for me. I smiled, and enjoyed playing the taiko. I am certain I made more mistakes than usual, but when I finished, I noticed the applause of my classmates was noticeably louder than it had been previously. I was even praised by the teacher. Perhaps I did make more mistakes than usual, but I think I played better than usual. Of course, playing well and accurately is important, and if you play too poorly, your audience will probably not enjoy themselves, but also, if you are too serious, your audience will also probably not enjoy themselves. If the performer is obviously worried about making mistakes, the audience will not be able to relax either. They will be on the edge of their seats wondering if the performer will make it through without screwing up. Even if he makes it through without mistakes, the audience is probably relieved when he finishes, instead of wishing they could hear more. Anyhow, lets enjoy playing taiko together! (heh heh heh).

As I said, the recital is on Sunday. Hopefully I'll have video to post of my performance, and Mayumi's (who is better than me, in my opinion).

Encouragement

It's getting pretty cold here finally. I'm starting to wear sweaters around the house, and for more than a week now, I've been wearing a coat when I go outdoors. The leaves, however, are only just starting to turn colors. If I recall, the peak season for fall color in this area of Japan is closer to the beginning of November. I would imagine that in Michigan, and the mid-west (where many of my readers probably are) it is about the peak season for fall colors. Actually, if you compare latitude, I believe Michigan is around the same spot as Hokkaido, so it makes sense that the colors would turn a little later down here in Kanazawa, which is probably more like Kentucky, as far as latitude is concerned. (And I hope I have not mixed up latitude with longitude, if I have, what I am refering to are the lines circling the globe from East to West)

Before this turns into a weather blog, I suppose I'll get back to the topic of taiko. Things are moving right along, as far as our training goes. We are practicing with different groups/classes about three times a week, and our daughter is attending twice a week. She is 4 years old, and we are wondering if twice a week isn't too much for her, or if she should maybe be a bit older. She is very reluctant to join in the practice for the first half. After a great deal of arguing and so on, she finally joins in, and although before the practice she is insisting that she does not like playing taiko, after the practice, she says how much fun she had playing. Anyhow, when this class finishes (in March) we are thinking about giving her a break, or finding a group where the parents and children practice together. She seems to do better in that type of setting. Furthermore, she is not the only child reluctant to join in at the start of practice. There are a few other classmates (close to her age) that also make a fuss about practicing, which is what makes me wonder if she would do better in a year or so. The other option I just mentioned is a parent-child group so that we could practice with her. This seems to be the way that the Kojira group, taught by Jige san of Hono Taiko, which I mentioned in the last post, is set up.

Over the past two weeks, my wife and I recieved several very encouraging comments from some of our instructors/mentors. In the Kaga taiko class this week we were each asked to improvise a solo. We each had two chances to play. In the end, we learned that the instructor was trying to gauge each of our ability in order to decide what each of us would be expected to do at the recital coming up on December 9. So it was sort of like a test. Most of the class, actually, has been practicing about a year longer than we have, so they did quite well. I think there were only three of us who just began learning in August. Since we started, we have learned probably about 20 different rhythms for this style of drumming. The improvisation, of course, is simply stringing these rhythms together in different combinations. Actually, I shouldn't say simply, because there is some style and guidelines about how they should be connected, so it is not necessarily simple. Anyhow, when it was my turn (both times) all I could remember was about 3 rhythms, so my improvisation was very short and very repetitive. Needless to say, I didn't feel all that great about my "performance". My wife, however, was by far the best of the beginners. Of course, I may be a bit biased, but the instructor validated my feeling by his statement after she finished her turn. He looked ever so slightly impressed and said, "Well, you've certainly been studying (practicing) haven't you." Of course, she played down the comments, when I mentioned it to her, but in my opinion, he wouldn't say something like that unless she had exceeded his expectations.

Although I didn't perform so well this week, I did receive a compliment from the same instructor last week. We were practicing a set phrase of about 8 measures or so over and over. The instructor was moving around the class, giving advice to each individual about areas to improve and so on. When he came to me, he stood and watched for minute, kind of smiled, and sincerely said, "you're doing really well!" Not to say that I'm suddenly an expert Kaga taiko player, (as was shown at this weeks practice), but I guess, last week, I was just "feeling the spirit".

The other compliment came after our hozonkai practice on Tuesday. I mentioned in the last post about the group named Yume Mitai, which advertised that they were looking for new members, and that we are interested in joining. Three of the members of the Hozonkai are also members of Yume Mitai, so I mentioned my interest to them after our Tuesday practice. One of them said, "Actually, Kinoshita san suggested to us that you could join Yume Mitai". Just to remind you, Kinoshita san is one of the members of Hono Taiko. Needless to say, I was filled with pride to hear that she had actually suggested that I join the group, without any suggestion from anyone else. Again, I don't take this to mean that I am suddenly a virtuousic taiko performer, but the fact that in professonal, internationally known taiko player saw enough potential in my playing (after only seeing me play twice) that she would suggest that was a great encouragement to me. After all, if I wasn't any good, she wouldn't have said it, and I probably wouldn't have been able to play with the Hozonkai in the first place.

Just in case we are getting too much encouragement, we are attempting to arrange a visit to some other well-established professional taiko friends in Nara next week. These friends will almost certainly give us a healthy dose of reality. Which is always good to balance things out, and keep focus and perspective.

More on Kaga Style Taiko

I am becoming infected with taiko. It seems that I go to bed with taiko going through my head, and when I wake up in the morning, it is still going through my head. I suppose this is a good thing, seeing as we are hoping to eventually get our bread and butter from playing the taiko.
Perhaps we are just filling our schedule so full of taiko, that it is saturating my mind. The performance last week took a lot of preparation and time, and it turns out that I will get to perform again this Sunday. It's kind of unbelievable for me. Within 7 days, I am able to perform twice with Hono Taiko. This performance also will take up a lot of time. There is a rehersal on Saturday night, and then the performance on Sunday will take up part of the morning, and most of the afternoon, by the time we load the drums and unload the drums. Video may not be allowed at this performance either, but if it is, I shall definitely try to get it recorded and post it.

In the meantime, perhaps you can enjoy learning a little more about Kaga style taiko, which we are also learning. The more we learn, the more we realize how little we know. Often, the result of learning, is realizing that I made inaccurate statements on this blog. For example, I believe I said in an earlier entry, that taiko is never improvised, or nearly never improvised. Hopefully I wrote nearly, because it seems that Kaga taiko is one of the rare styles that is improvised. We have been learning set rhythms in the class, but when the style is performed, the performer strings together the different rhythms any way he likes.

The instructors seem to emphasize being relaxed while we play, and enjoying ourselves. It seems to have a fairly long history, at least its roots go back several hundred years, I believe. I think the style we are learning has been developed more recently, and was developed almost as a style to be played in restaurants and such places, where people might not necessarily be coming strictly to see taiko. It was sort of meant to be entertainment during dinner, or a drink.

In case my earlier descriptions of Kaga taiko have been insufficient, or have, perhaps, left you wanting to know more, we located a site with a couple of short videos demonstrating the style. The site is in Japanese, if you cannot read Japanese, just look for the videos and you can enjoy them.
http://www.kuni-net.com/ichijyuku/ichijyuku.html

Kaga Style Taiko

We live in Kanazawa. That is a city on the western coast of Japan in the prefecture of Ishikawa. Ishikawa is partially a peninsula sticking out into the Sea of Japan, and the southern half is attached to the mainland. The Peninsula is called Noto and the southern half is called Kaga.

After attending the Exstasia concerts last week, we immediately began searching out taiko learning opportunities. There were several options listed in Taikology magazine (a publication all about taiko), like beginners class, advanced class, classes teaching a specific style and classes taught by different teachers, some more well known than others. The only class which started meeting in August, however, was a class for Kaga style drumming. Since we wanted to start as soon as possible, we registered for this class.

Last night was the first meeting. The class meets at Asano Taiko, in Matto. Asano is actually divided into three or four buildings. One building is the factory, another is a taiko/percussion museum and then there is a store, with a practice facility upstairs, which can be rented out by groups wanting to rehearse. It felt good to finally be receiving some proper instruction and to be able to play nice Asano drums.

As it turns out, Kaga style drumming is the Mittsu Uchi style drumming I mentioned in the previous two posts. I also stated that this style was rare these days. Funny how in the past two weeks, I've encountered it twice. As it turns out, I may have misunderstood what was said regarding Mittsu Uchi style in last Saturday's lecture (big surprise there). After discussing this with my wife, it seems that the style Mr. Mogi spoke of as being rarely performed these days was only based on Mittsu Uchi style. The style which has died out I believe is called Hokkai-Uchi. If I have a chance, I will research this style a bit more and perhaps elaborate on it at a later time.

So what is Kaga style? I had better not attempt to give any type of comprehensive explanation of Kaga style taiko seeing as I've only had one lesson. For now I will just give a description of what we did in class. We were split into groups of three. Each group had two drums to play on. On the floor was a nagado style taiko. Nagado taiko are shaped like a fat barrel and come in various sizes, from 30 cm all the way to nearly two meters. The body is usually made from a single piece of wood and the heads are stretched and tacked on. The nagado taiko we were using were probably around 45 cm or so. The second drum was an okedo taiko. This style of drum also comes in all different sizes. It is constructed more like a barrel from slats and the heads are tightened and held in place by ropes. The okedo drums we were using were maybe about 150 cm long and perhaps 60 cm or so wide. They were placed horizontally on stands just below shoulder height. (You can find better, more detailed descriptions of different taiko drums at the Rolling Thunder Taiko Resource http://www.taiko.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=39)

One person in the group of three beat out the ji uchi, or base rhythm. There are three basic types of ji uchi, the one used in Kaga style is an 8th note followed by two 16th notes repeated over and over. Taiko is usually learned through vocalizations of the drum beats called kuchi sho ga. This ji uchi would be vocalized as "ten te ke ten te ke ten te ke ten te ke" etc. The ji uchi was played on the okedo. The other two members of the group practiced three rhythms. All three were based on 8th notes, with rests placed at different spots. Here are the three rhythms in kuchi sho ga

1) don don tsu don don don don
2) don don tsu don tsu don don
3) tsu don tsu don tsu don don

The "tsu" represents rests. The last don is accented and followed by another 8th rest before repeating the rhythm again. We rotated so that each person had a chance to play on both drums and both parts.

It probably doesn't sound like much when I write it here, but it was a very enjoyable 75 minutes and a good work out. My arms were a bit sore the next day and I had three blisters on one hand.

Since Thursday, we returned to Asano Taiko to buy new sticks and visit the Museum. We also went to a neighborhood festival this afternoon where we heard a small taiko group, and we are now preparing to go out this evening to the Matto Hi-matsuri, where there is almost certain to be more taiko. So I have plenty more to write about, if I have a chance. The Hi-matsuri is a fire festival. From what I've seen, it looks like they basically light huge haystacks on fire. Fire is always exciting. Hopefully I'll have some nice pictures to post.