Old Year, New Year

Happy New Year. I have been sick since December 21st and I am still fighting off the last remnants of this stubborn cold, but now I am mostly healthy and was even able to practice a little bit yesterday. Unfortunately, however, partially because of the holidays, and partially because of being sick, our taiko related activities over the past few weeks have been rather limited. Monday, Jan 7, Yume Mitai practices will start again and the following Tuesday, Jan 15, Matto Bayashi will begin again. I am looking forward to getting back to regular taiko practice. I have been practicing my parts nearly every day, but playing the rhythms on your knees is much different that actually playing it on a drum. My goal was to have my parts memorized by the time the break was over. I still have some work to do before Monday.

We did manage to get a little vacation in even though I was sick. We traveled to Osaka to visit some friends I met in college in Chicago. They took us to a large shrine in Osaka, called Sumiyoshi Taisha. Aside from its large size, another one of its famous points is a rather unique bridge, called "Taiko Bashi" ("bashi" means bridge). It is called this because it has a rather steep curvature and when it is viewed from the side, it looks like nearly half a circle. I guess this invokes thoughts of a taiko. Well, you can decide for yourself, here is a picture:


Hmm, I guess it isn't quite half a circle, but it is at least more of a circle than most bridges. Our second day there, we went to Nara to visit our friends in Wadaiko Yamato. They had just returned from nearly a year of touring Europe and North America and that evening, or the next day they would each return to their hometowns for a week or two before returning to Nara to prepare for another year of touring. They also run a taiko school for children in the founder's hometown of Asukamura. It just happened that on that day, they were holding the final event of the year for the students in the school. The event was a mochi zuki taikai. Mochi is a sort of rice cake and you make it by first cooking a special type of rice, and then it is placed in a large wooden or stone bowl and beaten over and over with large wooden hammers until it reaches the right consistency. It is a popular activity in Japan in the fall and winter. Here is a picture of my daughter hammering the rice.

Many of their students and parents were also there. It all took place at their fairly new facility. It is their house, but it is also their practice space. I believe they had the house built to their specifications, and in the basement (a rarity in Japan) is a nice and large practice space, mainly used for the school.

Once the school event was over, the members of the group had one last meal together before going their separate ways. It was a Japanese/Korean style barbecue. (Luckily we had mild weather). But what did they use for fuel/charcoal? Well, since it was the end of the year, it was time to do some house cleaning, so they used all of their old bachi (sticks) which had broken, or been cracked, or were simply in too poor condition to use. This was actually A LOT of sticks. There were several boxes full.
Here are two members just getting started with the stick burning.

Here is something interesting about Yamato. They all make their own sticks. They will take a long, square piece of wood and shave it down until it is the size they want. Right now, for us, when we need a new pair of sticks, we can easily go to Asano Taiko and pick out whatever we need, but I suppose, since Yamato is touring around the world for most of the year, it is a little harder to come by taiko sticks, so it is just easier, or it is more practical to learn to make their own. I think it is something we should also consider doing when we return to Michigan, seeing how there are not any taiko shops in our area.

Other than our trip to Kansai, I have been trying to recover from my cold, and work on my song little by little. We have one more event to look forward to on my last day of vacation before returning to work. We will return to Nara to see Yamato's concert, before they leave again to travel the world. They are already scheduled in Paris from January 15th. So, next week, look forward to a report of the Yamato concert.

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.

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!