How Hard is it to Play Shime-Daiko

We've been practicing taiko at Asano Taiko for nearly 14 months now. Up till now we have mainly been learning to play nagado taiko and/or Odaiko. But this past Saturday, at JIGEN practice, we learned that our next song to learn would be all shime-daiko. All nine of us (possibly 11, we may get two new members) lined up on the stage playing shime taiko.
　
We are pretty excited because we have always wanted to learn the technique for playing shimedaiko. It is where you can show how good you really are. Why is that? Because when you play shimedaiko, every little mistake, or uneven stroke is obvious. A group that can play shimedaiko well is likely to be a good group all around. On the other hand, sometimes a group that looks to be pretty good all around is exposed to be amateurish as soon as you hear them playing shimedaiko without the larger drums accompanying them.

You see, the shimedaiko are very high pitched and do not reverberate nearly as much as the nagado or Odaiko. With the bigger drums, little inaccuracies and mistakes are covered up by the sustained sounds. But the piercing sound of the shimedaiko holds a magnifying glass to your technique and stick control. I knew this already, but it was reinforced to me at practice, as we lined up the shimedaiko, sat down and our instructor, Yamada sensei of Hono Taiko, began giving us drills to practice. We played them all together, then we played them one at a time. Playing one at a time, as expected, you can easily hear all the little mistakes and uneven sticking. Our next big performance isn't until March, but even so, at the end of practice Yamada sensei gave a sigh and said, 「道が長い」loosely meaning, "You guys have a long ways to go."

This was no suprise to any of us. After the practice, it was painfully obvious that we had a lot of work and practice to do. Knowing the difficulty of playing shimedaiko well, and having wanted to learn to play it for a long time now, I had asked my older brother (drummer for Chicago Super-Band, the Detholz!) for some practice exercises and suggestions when I was at home this past summer, which, of course, he gave me. Now that there is some added urgency to quickly learn shime technique, we are trying to find every opportunity to practice these drills even just a little bit each day.

We are lucky to have a pair of cheap shime daiko of our own. Although they may not sound as great as Asano drums, they are sufficient for practicing. On the other hand, just like almost any drum, they are pretty loud and living in attached condos makes it difficult to practice. Our downstairs neighbors have complained more than once (oops). Anyhow, we are trying to find ways to muffle the sound enough so that it doesn't bother the neighbors, while at the same time, not losing too much of the stick action. See the photo for our latest attempt.

Asano Taiko Fall Recital 2008 - 今響きが風になる。

Yesterday we successfully completed the 2008 Asano Taiko fall recital. I played in three groups (four, if you count the finale) without making any major mistakes. After all the strenuous work, and moving large taiko around, unloading and loading trucks on Sunday and Monday, I am not even sore. My back doesn't hurt either.

The actual playing in three groups was not so demanding. Each group only plays for about 10 minutes or so. Altogether, that means that I played for about 30 minutes. Weekly practices are 90 minutes, so physically, this type of concert is not so demanding. What was actually the "hardest" part of the thing was changing outfits for the three different groups. For the first group, Yume Mitai there was plenty of time to change after lunch, and it was an easy outfit, white pants and a white sleeveless shirt. After that, I had to change into the JIGEN clothes, which are not so complicated to put on, but there are a lot of pieces to it: pants, shirt, blue thing that goes over the shirt, apron type thing that goes around the waist, blue and black cloth to be tied around the waist and black wrist bands, that need to be tied (It's rather tricky). Then there was Matto Bayashi. This is actually the most complicated to get into because I need to tightly wrap my torso in white cloth, which I need help doing. Then there is another sort of apron thing, a special kind of Japanese pants called Matabiki tabi shoes (which take some practice to put on quickly) and wrist bands. For the finale, the members of JIGEN wanted to finish the concert in JIGEN costume, so for the four of us in Matto Bayashi, that meant changing back to JIGEN clothes following Matto Bayashi's performance. So altogether, I had to change costumes 4 times. That actually exhausted me more than the playing itself.

Sometime I may write more about the performance, but for now, I'll just post a few more pictures from the concert.

Yume Mitai performance (I'm the furthest person on the right)


The members of the new group, JIGEN!


The "boys" of JIGEN


The "girls" of JIGEN

It's a Beautiul Day!

It's a brisk, October morning, there's a beautiful sunrise and today is a taiko concert. There is something about performing that I really enjoy. I'll be performing with three groups today, playing Odaiko for two of them. Mayumi will be playing in two groups. Can't wait.