Shin nen kai - New Year Party - Matto Bayashi

This past weekend we had a shin nen kai with the members of Matto Bayashi. Shin nen kai is a new year party. Not New Year's Eve party, but rather a party held sometime in January to kick off the new year. We went to a spa hotel type of place. It is basically a hotel with really soft rugs, because everyone walks around barefoot, and they have large, Japanese style baths, restaurants, massage parlors, etc. When you get there, they give you a set of pajamas, which almost everyone wears around the hotel as long as they are there, and you take a bath, eat dinner, relax, and so on. It's quite enjoyable, although we didn't spend the night. It was a nice opportunity to spend some time with the other members outside of practice time and get to know them a little bit.

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.

Another Concert

Yesterday we had another performance with our hozonkai (Matto Bayashi). This time it was more like a recital sponsored by Asano Taiko. The concert was in a nearby hall in a town called Mikawa. The program included the regular groups that practice at Asano: Hono Taiko, Hikari, Sasuke, Matto Yume Mitai, and our Matto Bayashi Hozonkai. In addition, there were performances from some of the beginning level classes at Asano and a children's group led by Jige san of Hono Taiko.

The Children's group is called Kojira, which is a play on words in Japanese. "Ko" means child in Japanese, and Gojira, is the Japanese pronunciaton of Godzilla. I guess it's almost like saying "Kidzilla", I think it's a creative name for a kid's taiko group. The other neat thing about this group is that the parent's played with the children. The kids were up in front, and their parents played taiko at the back of the stage. I think the youngest member was about 3 years old, and the oldest probably was not much older than 6 or 7.

Trying to motivate my own daughter to participate in her taiko lessons is sometimes a chore. After all, her class is early Sunday morning, and she would usually rather sleep a little longer. I think she would probably be more willing to participate if one of us could practice with her. I was encouraged, though, to hear other parents talking about the difficulty motivating their own children to come to taiko practice, so it is not only my daughter. In any case, once she gets going, and finishes practice, she always says she enjoyed it. In contrast, my son, who is 1 year 3 months, can hardly wait to play taiko. If we leave a pair of sticks lying around the house, he will go straight for them and pick them up with a big smile on his face. He loves going to the concerts, too. He would probably get right up on stage and try to play, if we didn't hold him back.

Yesterday was finally a concert with Hono Taiko, where we were allowed to take video. Wouldn't you know it, our battery ran out before they performed. We were able, though to get some groups, including our hozonkai, so if you have been wanting to see me actually play the drums, instead of watching other groups, you will finally have your chance. I even was interviewed by Kinoshita san of Hono Taiko, following our performance. I thought that we would be playing the song along with the members of Hono Taiko like we did last week, but this time, only Yamada san played with us. If you watch the video, she will be the lady with short hair playing the flute.

Unfortunately, I still was only able to play the very end of the song. There are two Odaiko parts/solos, of which the second is the only one I have memorized so far. I am still working on the first Odaiko solo. I have memorized more than half of it at this point, and I hope to have the whole thing memorized by the next practice. Our next performance isn't until March, so I should definitely have it committed to memory by then.

Here is the video of our performance. By the way, this is only half of the whole song. The whole song is more than 20 minutes long. From what we've been told, because it's so long, it's rarely performed in its complete form.

The interview at the end is probably hard to hear, and if you don't understand Japanese, even more difficult to follow. So here is a brief, rough translation:

Kinoshita san: For one of the members of this group, it is only the second time to perform on stage, and I'd like to ask him a few questions. Brian, could you come over here for a moment?
How long have you been practicing with this group?
Me: I joined around the middle of August.
Kinoshita san: So in only 2 months, you are already able to play at this level. Isn't that great, evryone? And where were you from?
Me: I am from the United States.
Kinoshita san: Isn't playing the taiko difficult?
Me: Yes, it's difficult, but it's a lot of fun.
Kinoshita san: Well, thank you for your efforts, and please continue to work hard and play taiko with the Matto Bayashi Hozonkai. Thank you very much.
Me: Thank you very much.

Also, by March, I hope that we will have joined another group. One the other groups that played yesterday (Matto Yume Mitai) announced after their performance, that they were looking for new members. If we can arrange our schedule, I hope that we can join them as well in a month or two. Then, at the March event, we can perform with two groups. My daughter's class will also have her recital at that time, so it will be a whole family taiko event.

Anyhow, I was able to record part of Yume Mitai's performance as well, so you can see an example of what they sound like. The recording starts in the middle of the opening Odaiko solo, so I missed the first minute or so, but the rest of the song is good also.


The first group that performed yesterday was called Sasuke. I do not know the meaning, or origin of their name, but they play quite nicely. They also performed last week and at Extasia in July as well. I mentioned already that their group is made up of junior high and high school students. Here is a video of the piece they performed yesterday.



So that's about it from Sunday's concert. I started writing this on Monday, but the video editing took sometime and I am only posting it now. So when I say "yesterday", I mean Sunday, 7.October.