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The other day, I bought tickets for a Taiko
performance. I had no idea what Taiko was, except that it was Japanese,
involved drumming and that my friend thought it was really cool. So when I
walked into the venue of the event I did so with some trepidation. I was the
kid in school who wondered why anyone would choose drums as their musical
instrument to play in band. However, I figured it would be a good opportunity
to see the more traditional side of Japanese art instead of only emerging
myself in bright Japanese cartoons.
So I sat down. The lights were dimmed and
the audience chatter died. Five people appeared on stage with massive drums and
sticks the length of batons.The largest drum was occupied by a woman, and she
swung around her sticks intricately and then began to pound strongly, but
always disciplined and restrained. The other members of the Taiko group joined
in and I soon realized that I was not only listening to Japanese drumming, but
a theatrical performance. The woman who had been pounding on the largest drum
in some songs exchanged it for delicate string instruments in others. There was
traditional Japanese singing. In some numbers an old man in his fifties would
explode in jumping around the stage, much to the delight of the audience and to
my jealousy. I certainly did not have his agility. In some numbers the drumming
was punctuated by loud shouts in Japanese that I did not understand, but the
members encouraged the audience to join and the courageous majority complied
and shouted with what I can only imagine were really bad accents.
From listening to the host of the evening,
I learned that Taiko used to be preformed solitarily, and Taiko groups did not occur
until the 1950s, at about the same time Elvis was carving his fame in the United States.
The father of Taiko, Daihachi Oguchi, was the one who created Taiko ensembles
as a direct result from his studies in jazz. Influences from other forms of
music were apparent in the Taiko performance I watched, including Jazz and
Funk, and because the group I was watching came from Winnipeg, Canada,
they also included prairie influences. Taiko lends itself well to
integrating new musical approaches and techniques, no matter the nationality.
At the end of the show, the Taiko group was
selling albums of their work. But I knew that listening to this music would not
do it justice. Taiko is more than music. It is theatre. A very different
experience occurs when you watch a play rather than listen to it. I felt the
same way towards this art form. An album will not show you how high an old man
can jump when he beats a drum, and it will not show you the elegant twirls of
large baton-like drum sticks. Listening to Taiko will do it no justice. It is a
performance meant to be watched. I urge everyone, if you have the opportunity,
go watch a Taiko performance. You will not regret it.
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