Yamato Concert at University of Notre Dame

This past Friday my wife and daughter and I grabbed an overnight bag and made the three-hour road trip to South Bend, Indiana.  No, we weren't on our way to see a football game.  We had tickets to see one of our favorite taiko groups, and one of our biggest inspirations, Wadaiko Yamato. Since Mayumi worked for them as a tour assistant/translator during their 1999 European tour, we have remained in contact with them and do our best to go and see their shows whenever they are within 300 or so miles of us.  The past two years we have been able to see them twice on their "home field" of Nara for their New Year concerts, and twice at Asano Taiko, in Ishikawa.  (If look back through the blog archive, particularly in January 2008 and January 2009 you can probably find accounts of the concerts.)  But it had been several years since we had seen them in the US.  Besides that, we had not seen their new show, "Matsuri", so we were looking forward to lots of new songs.

As usual, they did not disappoint.  Although there were only 10 out of the 16 or 17 members who performed, it was just as impressive as ever. Perhaps two thirds of the songs were new and there were a few old standards that are always nice to experience.  Yet even with the old standbys, there had been changes and improvements made even since the last time we saw them, in June.  Something I've noticed about seeing Yamato five times over the past two and half years is that they are always making little changes and improvements to their pieces.  I don't think I've ever seen them perform a piece in the same way twice.  And here's the impressive thing: sometimes people make changes thinking it will improve a product, and it actually makes it worse (Windows Vista, for example), but Yamato's sense of artistry, musicallity, performance seems to be as close to perfect as you can get.  I have never seen a show and thought, "I liked it the way they did it before better."  It has always been, "Wow! They are even better than the last time!"

After seeing their performances so often over the last two and a half years, I may be going through some withdrawal since they probably won't be back in N. America until 2011.  At least that is plenty of time for us at the Great Lakes Taiko Center to make sure they bring their show back to Michigan next time around, and maybe even arrange a few workshops, if we're lucky.

I am very grateful for our friendship with Yamato. They have been incredibly kind to us, as I have mentioned in previous post, and they are excited and supportive of what we are starting here, in Michigan.  They have certainly been an inspiration to us.  I have often wished that I was a bit younger, young enough to be accepted as a Yamato apprentice (the age limit is 25) and at least have the chance to train and practice with them for a few months.  Although I haven't been taken on as a Yamato apprentice, I did have the chance to do a bit of training with them Saturday morning.  I woke up with them at 6 AM and accompanied them on their morning jog.  This is something, believe it or not, that I have been training for the past two years.  I knew that someday I would have the chance and I was determined to be ready for it.  And I was! Thanks to regular jogging on my own, I was able to easily keep pace with them and didn't even get out of breath.  It meant a lot to me to be included on their morning run and it was quite enjoyable, even if it was a bit chilly.  I'm looking forward to the next time.

Unfortunately, they had to move on to their next destination (Erie, PA) directly after breakfast so we didn't have a whole lot of time to spend with them. (My daughter did, however, have a chance to play a bit of billiards with Takeru and Midori in the hotel lobby.)  We did have time to snap a picture before they got on the bus.  Here is the normal one...

and the required "Strike a pose" one...

Neighborhood Concert

Last weekend, on Sunday, we gave a mini-concert in the backyard of my parents' house.  The weather was beautiful and the trees were at the peak of their fall-colors.  My mother baked fresh molasses cookies and prepared warm, spiced cider for the guests.  It was partially an expression of thanks on our part, for all the neighbors putting up with the times that we have used my parents' garage as a practice space.  I am quite certain that the whole neighborhood is able to hear it when we do practice there.  Although we apologized for the noise and waking people up out of their Saturday afternoon naps, everyone was kind and said they didn't mind at all.  In fact, since we have moved into our new practice space, we haven't really been practicing in the garage any more and some of the neighbors actually complained that we HAVEN'T been practicing.  They actually miss hearing the drums.

Here are a few pictures from the performance.  We played an arrangement of a song called "Raigun" written by Yamada san of Hono Taiko, an excerpt on shime taiko from "Yatai Bayashi" (a song often performed by Kodo), a short piece with our daughter, which we learned at Earth Celebration this past summer and Kaga Mushi Okuri.

The Taiko Have Arrived!

It feels so good to play Odaiko again.  It has been 6 weeks since I last played on the big drum, but today, for the first time in a long time, I got to get out the big sticks again and work up a bit of a sweat playing on Odaiko.

Yes, our drums have finally arrived. Friday, just after noon, they were delivered to our warehouse space and Friday night, we went back over and worked from 9:30 to Midnight to get them unpacked.  Here are a few pictures to share with you.

I ran over straight after work to supervise the unloading.  Two big wooden crates...

It took quite a bit longer than expected, but I finally got the top off of the first crate...

I think that must be our Odaiko in that box...

Now the front comes off...

Oh, that was the Odaiko on the bottom...

Now the rest of the top...

And here is that Odaiko...

There's one crate emptied...

Now on to the other crate...

This one was particularly difficult to get open.  I think I hit my thumb with the hammer on numerous occasions.

Eventually we got it open, though, and emptied everything out.

 

Good job!  So where are the drums?

Here they are...

We didn't get the Odaiko up on the stand until Saturday morning, with the help of some good friends, T and A! (No, it doesn't mean what you're thinking.)

Everything looks nice and clean in the pictures, but behind the camera our numerous boxes, bubble wrap and two half-destroyed crates.  Still lots of work to do.  Hopefully we'll be out and playing these drums soon.

Our New Home

It's almost official.  Today I signed the lease for a 1400 sq ft warehouse/office space in Novi.  We will try it out for a storage/practice space and once we get set up everything set up, we will try offering some classes there.  It's a nice area, but needs a lot of acoustic work.  We had a bit of bad timing with it as well.  Right now it is all cement floor, cinder block walls and high ceiling.  (It echoes quite a lot)  Apparently, two tenants before us, they had sound-proofed the whole place, but the tenant who came after them took it all down.  Oh well.  Anyhow, here is a view from the outside.

On another exciting note, our taiko cleared customs in California yesterday and are on their way here.  I was told it would take 10 to 20 days.  I'm hoping it's closer to 10!

First performance and a New Studio..

I intend to make this short and sweet, but I just wanted to give an update for those who are following us and/or waiting for us to get up and running.

1. Last Friday I was able to do a short performance in Southfield as an introduction to children from different countries/ethnic groups entering the stage for a cultural extravaganza.  Special thanks to Wakako Maeda for setting up the gig.  I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to do it because the drums I had available were rather limited (You'll see, they are a bit small for me), but I decided to go ahead and do it.  It's been awhile since I've had a chance to perform taiko for people.  Here are a few clips from the piece I played.  It was a modified and shortened version of "Raigun", a piece written by Mizue Yamada of Hono Taiko, which we learned in the group, JIGEN.

2. A New Studio on the way...

The other big news is that we are finalizing the details on a possible studio space.  It needs some modifications before it will be ready for rehearsing and/or classes, but it seems to be in a good location, a good size and a reasonable price.  Here are a few pictures:

This would be the storage and rehearsal area. (Not my car, by the way).  The area is about 19 x 45 feet.

There is an office space included, which we may use for an office, or possibly a waiting area.

And you can't forget a bathroom.

The practice area is all concrete, though, so echoing is a big problem.  We'll have to deaden the sound somehow.