Taiko For Beginners

[Saionji Shonagon]

Apr 18, 2008 11:07:23 GMT -5 AJBryant said:

Don don don karakaka dondon click dondon karakaka click don click dondon karakaka karakara dondon click!!!!

(IIRC, that's Matsuri. )

More or less - they've been teaching us that one.

Anyone interested in following my struggles can go here:
gurdymonkey.livejournal.com/tag/taiko

[dianet]

Was it just the changing to a different Taiko that helped, or perhaps it just clicked in?

And are your hands and arms doing better after class?

[Saionji Shonagon]

Nope. Just muscle and muscle memory developing.

Shannon-sensei says, "Nobody goes to LISTEN to a taiko concert, they go to watch."
I've always had a good memory and ear for music - and I do OK picking up the sound of a piece pretty well. However, taiko is a lot more physical than any of the other instruments I ever played. It's not just thumpin' on a tub, it's a dance as well.

[dianet]

I'd love to do Taiko, but I'm afraid my knees wouldn't handle the dance. Hope you can get someone to take pictures so you can show us how it's done.

[Saionji Shonagon]

[Snort!] You want to see how it's done, go order "Kodo at the Acropolis" from Netflix.

In the meantime, from the dojo across the Bay from me.....
au.youtube.com/watch?v=J3ilm7EXYZ0&feature=related

[dianet]

I've seen it up close and personal, Makiwara-hime. I was just wanting to see you bang the drums and dance the dance.. maybe even let loose with a holler or two.

*Yes, I'm teasing you.*

[Saionji Shonagon]

I am as a palsied tanuki with a hangover next to these people. Trust me, it is not something you want to see.

[inume]

May 29, 2008 21:27:43 GMT -5 Saionji Shonagon said:

In the meantime, from the dojo across the Bay from me.....
au.youtube.com/watch?v=J3ilm7EXYZ0&feature=related

Holy crap... did that drummer just cartwheel?

Amazing!

[dianet]

I think the entire front section did. Very nicely done. I've never seen them do the double drums before.

I think, though,t he sound is not in sync with the video... hehehe But no matter, it was fun to watch.

[Saionji Shonagon]

Some friends of mine went to a benefit for the San Francisco Taiko Dojo this weekend and Richard caught this photo:

didjiman.livejournal.com/361793.html

I can't do that. I don't think I could've done that when I was their age. Amazing.

(You may remember Richard Man as the photographer who did the official shoots for Costume Con 26 and made me look so good.)

[roninpenguin]

Nice vertical there!

[Saionji Shonagon]

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080627/ap_en_mu/japan_obit_oguchi

TOKYO (AP) — Master Japanese drummer Daihachi Oguchi, who led the spread of the art of "taiko" drumming to the U.S. and throughout Japan, has died after being hit by a car, an official at his ensemble said. He was 84.

Oguchi was crossing the street when he was struck by the car Thursday. He was rushed to the hospital but died of excessive bleeding early Friday, said Yuken Yagasaki of Osuwa Daiko, the group in Nagano prefecture (state) in northern Japan that Oguchi had led.

Oguchi helped found top U.S. taiko groups, including San Francisco Taiko Dojo, which has performed in Hollywood movies and on international tours since its founding 40 years ago.

A former jazz musician, Oguchi was one of the first to elevate the traditional folk sounds of taiko to modern music played in concert halls, not just festivals and shrines.

He led and starred in the performance of drumming and dance at the closing ceremony of the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

"Your heart is a taiko. All people listen to a taiko rhythm dontsuku-dontsuku in their mother's womb," Oguchi told The Associated Press at that time. "It's instinct to be drawn to taiko drumming."

Charming, fiery and vivacious, Oguchi had been scheduled to perform with Kodo, a well known taiko group, later this year, although he was in failing health in recent years.

Along with Kabuki theater and "ukiyoe" woodblock prints, taiko is one of Japan's most popular — and respected — art forms in the West. Part dance and part athletics, modern taiko can be dazzlingly visual and acrobatically physical.

Taiko, especially the big ones that tower over the drummers, make dramatic booming sounds. A taiko drum is made from a single hollowed out tree trunk with cowhide strapped tightly across it.

"In taiko, man becomes the sound. In taiko, you can hear the sound through your skin," is the way Oguchi described it in the AP interview.

Thanks partly to Oguchi and his followers' efforts, hundreds of taiko groups, both professional and amateur, have sprung up not only throughout Japan but also in the U.S., Brazil, Europe and other nations.

Oguchi also was one of the first composers of modern taiko, writing catchy tunes based on historical themes, such as samurai storming on horses, and helping make taiko a household word in Japan.

Yagasaki said other details such as funeral arrangements and information on Oguchi's family won't be available until later Friday.

[Saionji Shonagon]

I am NOT in any of these, but I have friends who are members of the Emeryville Taiko dojo. Here are some links to video of their performance at Berkeley's 4th of July celebration:
au.youtube.com/watch?v=NxBVyzqucIU
au.youtube.com/watch?v=StSfDybXCVA
au.youtube.com/watch?v=bs1g-MOHaIc is woefully short as I was trying to figure out the video feature on Richard's camera at the time....

[Saionji Shonagon]

Haven't updated this in awhile, so I probably should.

I moved up to the Intermediate/Advanced session on September 16. I love it. My quads are still singing "Ave Maria" after last night's high intensity practice. (Taiko stance is about halfway between a squat and modern fencing lunge. Try holding it for the better part of an hour...)

Enough interest was displayed by enough of my classmates that Sensei bought two six foot sections of sewer pipe and we spent two consecutive Saturdays in September building practice drums. www.taiko.us/cheap.html shows a process very similar to the one we used. The main difference is that you CAN make this work with a single car jack as long as you are very careful to keep it centered beneath your plywood base. (To prevent undue disturbance of my neighbors threats, I stuff the un-skinned end with a twin sized egg crate mattress topper - and limit practice time to before 6PM.) I have also discovered that one of my X-stools I use for camping events, seat-side down, makes a perfect slant stand.

This is a photo of my friends Chris and Richard after last weekend's concert by Emeryville Taiko. Do take a good look at the okedaiko if you can - I realize most of it is out of frame. It's made of cardboard tubing, steel rings, strapping tape with a layer of plastic film between the cardboard and the tape, and nylon rope. imagecraft.smugmug.com/gallery/6314439_ULXqF#398225119_Kqcp7-A-LB

Images of drumming from the Genre Scenes of the Twelve Months screen in the Tokyo National Museum.
www.tnm.go.jp/gallery/search/images/500/C0022482.jpg
www.tnm.go.jp/gallery/search/images/max/C0022476.jpg

Note that only one guy gets an o-daiko. Everyone else is playing small drums. No rows of nagadodaiko like you see in modern taiko performances. Why? Because big drums are costly and labor intensive, particularly when you had to find a tree trunk big enough to carve the body out of. If you were lucky, the local shrine owned one. Or the daimyo.

Anyway, I believe it is likely that when the gang turned out to celebrate some seasonal festival during our period, the smaller rope-tensioned tsuzumi and shime-daiko drums were more common than the large ones we tend to think of when we think "taiko."

With winter coming, I hope to try constructing a shime-daiko using the cardboard tubing/strapping tape technology I saw the E-ville drummers use. I believe Chris told me they got the idea from Wadaiko Newark (Newark, CA).

[solveig]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig!

May 29, 2008 13:40:29 GMT -5 Saionji Shonagon said:

However, taiko is a lot more physical than any of the other instruments I ever played. It's not just thumpin' on a tub, it's a dance as well.

That is correct. But, this observation needs to be extended to Japanese music in general. The posture, appearance, gestures, &c. of the musician are important, even if the musician is not actually seen. You can find this in: gagaku, dengaku, noh, kabuki, &c.

Incidentally, congratulations on your promotion to the intermediate/advanced section.

Larger taiko show up in gagaku illustrations, but Noh uses something the size of a shimi daiko. Basically, iconographic evidence shows different sorts and sizes of drums used for different purposes. I posted a link to a picture of dengaku several years ago. As I recall, they use a drum rather larger than a shimi daiko. Also, the pictures of carpenters in pre-modern and Edo Japan show them sawing boards from rather large tree trunks. So, I doubt that there was a significant lack of trees large enough for taiko. Further, shishimai (lion dance) masks are carved from a single block of wood which is rather large. Basically, I believe that each village would have a full sized taiko if not one of those extraordinarily gigantic taiko.

Please understand that even today a significant fraction of Japan is forested and that some of these forests are centuries old. It is fairly easy to find large trees in Japan even today. As I recall you can easily find large trees at Takaozan which is in Western Tokyo.