Can Playing Taiko Drums Cure the Common Cold?

I caught a cold earlier this week. It isn’t so bad, but there were a couple days of a sore throat and now it has moved on to my nose. No matter how many times I blow it, there always seems to be ... well, leftovers. So I was looking forward to my Kaga Taiko class yesterday (Thursday). Why is that? Because taiko always seems to help my ailments. Whether it is a small cold, or the flu, if I have enough energy to drive myself to taiko practice, taiko is the most effective medicine I have found. Without fail, playing taiko will clear up my nose, lower my fever, soothe my sore throat, not to mention the inherent health benefits which come from the exercise.

Last Sunday I discovered that I was not the only person to feel this way. I visited Ichikawa Juku, a “school” in Komatsu where you can learn Kaga Taiko. It’s a very interesting place and sometime I will have to write extensively about what it is like to learn there, but not today.

A significant amount of time there is spent not playing taiko, but talking (which is actually part of learning Kaga Taiko). The head teacher asked me what jobs my wife and I did in the States and I was telling him how my wife had studied music therapy and was hoping to do something with music therapy and taiko when we return next year. He was a little skeptical about whether taiko could be therapeutic until I began sharing with him all of the research I've read about how drumming has been shown to increase antibody levels in your immune system, and how drum circles have been shown to be effective in helping people recover from addictions or strokes and so on. (Want to read those articles too? Here are the links: Sound Healing, Drums, not Drugs, Should Drums be Sold in Pharmacies?)

I guess it sort of made a connection in his head somewhere, because he then said, “Come to think of it, playing taiko always seems to cure my colds too. I’m in my 50s now and have been playing Kaga taiko since I was in my early 20s. Whenever I got sick, I hardly ever went to the doctor, except for major ailments. I found that playing the taiko always cured whatever it was that I had.”

Last Thursday was the final class of this year's Kaga Taiko course, and Sunday we will have our recital. This year we will have it at an Onsen (Hot Springs Resort), which is kind of exciting because that is the type of place where this style of taiko playing was traditionally peformed. Besides, we'll get to eat nice food and have a good bath. It will probably be a lot different than last year's recital, which included a lot more guests. Still, we'll try to get some videos, at least of ourselves, and we can post them and we'll see if you think we've improved since last year.

In the meantime, I'm curious about the rest of you taiko players out there. What types of experiences have you had with illness and taiko? Does anyone else find that playing taiko helps your colds get better more quickly? Leave a comment below and share your own stories.

A New Way of Training for Taiko

Professional taiko teams are well known for their rigorous exercise and training programs. Some of you may have even heard the story about Kodo running the New York Marathon and then performing a concert on a stage at the finish line. I've never run a marathon, but from what people who have, have told me, performing a physically demanding taiko concert at the finish line is probably not the first thing they would want to do. Nevertheless, performing taiko is a physically demanding activity and anyone who doesn't want to be huffing and puffing on the stage ought to engage in some sort of regular physical exercise.

Since we have set our aspirations on creating a premier taiko group in the Mid-West, we have also tried to keep to a fairly regular exercise program. It's not always easy when you have a full-time job, two small children and practice taiko 3 or 4 times a week in the evening, but we try to do it whenever we can. Sometimes we run, swim, bike, do dumbbell workouts, sit-ups, push-ups, stretches and so on.

Yesterday, my wife discovered a new, challenging and effective way of doing push-ups. As she was doing a set of push-ups yesterday, our two-year-old son came into the room. He said, "Wait, Mama, I'm getting on," and before she could do anything else, he was climbing onto her back. As she finished out the set with him on her back, he kept saying, "Wow! Mama, that's great!"

So, if you don't have a two-year-old, I suggest that you go out and get one as soon as possible so that you, too, can try this new, innovative way of physical training for taiko!

How is Classical Ballet Like Learning Taiko?

Can I write about classical ballet today? My daughter had her first ever ballet recital on Monday. The whole event was a pretty impressive production. And it should be, considering the cost. In the end, after paying our share of renting the hall, renting costumes, printing up programs, making a professionally produced DVD and so on, we probably payed between 8 and 900 dollars! *A warning to anyone who is thinking of having their children take ballet lessons in Japan: The teachers are wonderful, the lessons are reasonably priced, but the recitals, which happen anywhere from annually to every 5 years, are incredibly expensive.*

The last two or three months have been pretty busy with extra practices and rehearsals gearing up for the recital. I was able to attend some of these practices and I was impressed with one particular aspect of how my daughter's teacher, Kawamura sensei ran the rehearsals. When she first started taking ballet lessons, about 14 months ago, when the recital was still a long ways away, the one hour lessons would begin with 30 minutes of basic, fundamental stretches and exercises. Then there was a short break, one to two minutes, when the children (between 4 and 6 years old) could have a quick drink, and the remaining 30 minutes was spent working on pieces for the recital.

What impressed me was that as the recital drew closer, and the pressure to perfect and polish the performance numbers grew, Kawamura sensei never once changed the lesson format. No matter how much work needed to be done on the recital, the first 30 minutes of the lesson were strictly basic exercises and stretches. I think this type of teaching will produce some excellent ballet dancers in the future.

Such dedication to basic skills is also important for taiko playing and performing, I believe. Practicing fundamental exercises with a metronome is not necessarily the most exciting part of playing taiko. Playing the songs is much more fun. Furthermore, when there is a performance approaching, there is always the temptation and the pressure to skip over the basic warm ups and jump right into the song, to make sure that all the wrinkles are ironed out before the show. In my opinion, however, remaining dedicated to fundamental metronome practice, will likely improve your taiko playing, and perhaps, smooth out some of those rough areas all by itself. I am willing to bet that the more you practice fundamentals and basics, the less time the group will need for polishing the song.