Happy Halloween - Gojinjo Taiko

Happy Halloween. We took a little road trip last weekend. We had been hoping to travel to the Osaka/Kyoto area, but it did not work out, so we stayed closer to home and traveled up into Ishikawa's Noto Peninsula to Wajima. This is the town where the group, Koshu Taiko, which played at our school festival is from. It is a small town right on the Sea of Japan. It is known for it's morning outdoor market, which is nearly all fish related products.

Although unintended, the trip turned out to have a bit of a Halloween theme. Noto is mainly countryside and the people who live there are probably either fisherman or farmers. We drove up on Friday evening, after it was dark, so we could not see much of the scenery, but on the way home it was light. One of the most frightening things I saw was in a rice field. A farmer had set up two scare crows in his field, but instead of making a traditional looking scarecrow, he had used two fashion mannequins! It was rather surprising, a little scary, and I was glad I wasn't walking past them at night.

The other Halloween themed event we attended was planned. The Wajima area is well known for a certain style of taiko playing called Gojinjo Taiko. There is a performance of this style nearly every evening in Wajima in a small theater on the second floor of what used to be the Wajima train station. This style of taiko drumming uses only one drum, and there are about 5 players. For most of the performance, there are only one or two people playing at one time, at the most, three. One of the most unique points about this song is that the performers all wear masks of demons, or what are meant to be ghosts of the deceased. Most of the masks also include long, straggly hair, which was originally made out of dried seaweed. While one performer plays a base rhythm of straight eighth notes, the others take turns striking menacing poses and playing sporadic rhythms on the taiko. For the majority of the piece, there are only two players on the stage at a time, but for the climax at the end, all the players come out on the stage, each playing a measure or so before moving out of the way for the next player.

This is a well known style of taiko in this area and this was probably the third time I have seen it performed this year. Of course, there is some history and a story that is behind this piece. The original performance of this piece was actually more of a military defense tactic, than an entertainment event. Back in 1576, the village of Nafune, on the Noto Peninsula was under the threat of attack from a warlord named Kenshin Uesugi. The townspeople, realizing they were at a large disadvantage, decided to attempt to frighten away the army. Some of the villagers were able to sneak behind the enemy lines in the middle of the night. They brought with them a taiko drum, and frightening masks made of bark and seaweed for hair. They began playing the drum in the manner described above. The opposing army, being awoken from their sleep by the sound of a war drum, and subsequently seeing the “unearthly beings” who were playing the drum, were thrown into confusion and fear and fled, and the village was saved.

I intended to take a video of this performance and post it. I even brought my video camera with me. When I went to set it up, however, I realized that I had forgotten the battery, as well as the wall outlet adapter. I did attempt to take a short video on my cell phone, but the quality is so poor, it would be worthless to try and watch it. I was able to find someone else’s recording of another performance on youtube, though. In my opinion, this performance is not as well performed as what we saw, but perhaps it is just the recording and/or editing. At any rate, you can get a better idea of what the piece looks and sounds like. There are two parts.







Finally, following the performance, there was an opportunity to take pictures with the performers. My wife took our two children up, while I prepared the camera. Both of our children (4 years and 1 year) watched the whole performance, with the scary masks and all, without any indication of being scared, so we figured they would be fine for a picture. As my wife went up on stage to stand next to one of the “demons”, he reached out, to hold our son for the picture. I guess this was a bit too much for our son because he began to cry. My wife offered to take him back, but the “demon” just asked, “Where’s the camera?” I suppose he is used to that kind of thing. Also, the Japanese tend to think it’s cute when little kids get scared. We snapped the picture quickly. You can see how unhappy he is below. But he cheered up very quickly, as soon as he was back in his mama’s arms.

A Milestone?

I've been waiting several weeks to post this blog. I waited, because I was not sure if it would actually happen or not, but it did. On Sunday, I was able to perform on the Odaiko on the same stage, at the same time as Hono Taiko. For those of you who do not know, Hono Taiko is an internationally known (they just returned from a tour in Spain) group of three women taiko players from Matto. I wrote about them back in July or August and noted them as the first real live taiko performance I experienced. When I saw them 9 years ago, I never would have dreamed that I'd be sharing a stage and performing along side them.

Just to make it clear, it is not necessarily through any great ability of mine, that I was able to have this opportunity. It wasn't as if they invited me to perform with them, but rather, I was allowed to perform with them. It also was not just the three Hono Taiko members plus me. It was the three Hono Taiko members, plus about 20 other people as well. It was a big finale to an outdoor concert. At any rate, it was quite exhilarating to play along side performers of their caliber. I do not think I will ever forget it, and it has only furthered my resolve to continue with taiko studies.

I was sincerely hoping to have a fair amount of video from this concert to post, including a video of my own performance. We were all set to tape, and right before the concert began, they asked people not to take videos or other recordings of the performance. We weren't even able to get pictures. Oh well. There is a chance, though, that we may eventually be able to get our hands on something.

The concert was an outdoor concert in the parking lot of a large shopping center located in Togi, Ishikawa, Japan. Togi is located on Ishikawa's Noto Peninsula. Some may remember about 6 months ago, there was an earthquake in Noto. It was unfortunately soon forgotten because of the larger earthquake in Niigata a few months later, but there are still many people in need and recovering from the Noto earthquake as well.

It has been several years since I have been up in the Noto Peninsula and it was nice to return there. It is very beautiful. The shore is often rocky, and sometimes reminds me of the coast along the Pacific Northwest. One of my favorite parts of Noto are the pine trees near the shore line. They are always slanted about 60 degrees, facing inland, as a result of the constant wind off the ocean.

It seems that the festival where we played was in its second year. It was about 4 hours altogether, but the first 3/4 was filled up by local performing groups, including other taiko groups, high school bands, and dance troupes. The main attraction was, of course, Hono Taiko, along with 3 other taiko groups sponsored by Asano Taiko. These groups are not known internationally, but are still quite good, and are well known in the area. They are Hikari, Sasuke, Matto Yume-mitai and the Shin-Mattobayashi Hozonkai (of which we are members, and why I was able to have the opportunity to play).

Our group was playing in the middle of the program. I think I have mentioned before that the piece, Shin-Mattobayashi, is quite long. I am playing the Odaiko (large drum) part, which does not play for the whole song. There are two sections, though, where it is featured. I have learned the shorter section, but am still memorizing the longer one. Since I have only learned the shorter part, I was not able to play when our group performed. Fortunately, the encore planned to be only the shorter part of that song, which I have learned, so they allowed me to perform with them for the encore. As I already mentioned, it was quite an experience and I will never forget it, and hopefully, it won't be my last opportunity to perform with these people.

There was one more thing I learned from this experience, but it has more to do with fashion, than taiko, perhaps. All four groups met at Asano Taiko in the morning to carpool up to Togi. I wore a dark green shirt, and jeans. When we arrived, I felt a bit out of place. Every single person there was wearing all black. When I thought about it a little more, the taiko groups I've seen here always wear black, when they are together as a group, and not performing. I guess I'll wear black too, next time we have a performance to go out to.