Earth Celebration Part 2 - Shiroyama Concert (and updates)

I've made it to the weekend!  It has been a long time since I had a proper weekend. My daughter and I arrived back in Michigan about 10 days ago and we hit the ground running.  She started first grade on Tuesday and I began teaching high school German again on Tuesday.  Neither of us had as much time as we would have liked to prepare, but we made it through the first week and now there are a couple days to relax and recuperate.

Although I am pretty busy adjusting to my new job, my "taiko life" is somewhat in limbo at the moment.  This past Monday, my wife (who is still in Japan until October) packed up all of our taiko drums (27, altogether) emptied out our savings account and shipped them back to Michigan.  They will not arrive until the second half of October.  So, other than a the few practice drums I had before I left for Japan back in 2007, I don't have much to practice on.  Still, I am practicing on them whenever I can (at least a little bit everyday) and I'm working on arranging the song, "Raigun" (雷郡), written by Hono Taiko's Yamada san, for solo performance, just in case...  Someone did suggest that I play at an upcoming Japanese festival in a few weeks, but I hadn't thought through what I could possibly play on my own, so I didn't commit to it yet.  Anyhow, I'll keep practicing, just in case I have a chance to play for something.  Otherwise, I'm just trying to stay in shape by running, weight training and watching what I eat so that I would be too surprised when our Odaiko arrives next month.

I am also looking for a practice space and storage area for our drums.  I have a good lead for a place that I need to go and look at.

Well, as I promised, I would write more about Earth Celebration.  I guess I need to do that, before I forget everything. 

This time I thought I would write about the concert.  Of course, you cannot take photos or videos during the concert, so I don't have many pictures to share, except for one I took before the concert began.  That is my daughter, of course, with the stage in the background.  During the three days of Earth Celebration, there is a concert on each evening.  The concerts are held outdoors, rain or shine, in Shiroyama Park.  Shiroyama park is at the top of a sort of plateau near Ogi harbor.  Note the white cliffs in the picture below.  The park is on the top. You don't need to scale the cliffs to get up there, but the pathway leading up to the top is quite steep and almost everyone is huffing and puffing by the time they reach the top. 

Seating is on the lawn and it is first come, first served.  We were able to get in line fairly early, so we had pretty decent seats.

Every year Kodo invites different guests to perform with them during these Shiroyama Concerts.  This year they had invited a Dutch band named Blof.  We did not see them, though, because they were only performing on the first and last nights of the festival.  We were seeing the concert on the second night, which was only Kodo performing.  (By the way, here is a video on YouTube of Blof and Kodo playing together in Holland: Blof and Kodo)

Actually, I don't know if we could have handled two concerts.  Having woken up at around 3:30 that morning, driven for several hours and having been a boat for another two and a half hours, we were pretty tired out.  In fact, my daughter was asleep by the second song.  I, at least made it to the second half.  Unfortunately, my fatigue hit me right when Fujimoto san was starting his Odaiko solo.  I was really looking forward to seeing it, too.  About a week beforehand, I had been given some advice on playing the Odaiko.  One of the senior members of one of the groups we played with told me, "When you are playing longer notes, your form is really good, but when you play faster notes, like eighth notes and sixteenth notes, you sort of look like a baby having a temper tantrum."  Although I was amused by his colorful description of how I looked, I don't want to look like that when I play Odaiko, so I was looking forward to watching one of the Odaiko greats (Fujimoto san) perform so I could examine his form and try to imitate it more.  As I said, though, I was just starting to get tired at that point, and although I did not drift into total unconsciousness, I was really only about half awake from that point until the end of the concert.  Oh well, I have seen Kodo several times, and I do have a couple videos of their performance, so I guess I can always watch that if I need to.

I might have been tired, but the concert was not at all boring.  It was one of the more intimate Kodo concerts that I have attended.  After the second or third song, one of the Kodo members made some comments welcoming us and thanking us for coming out to the show, even though it was a week night (a Monday).  He also said, "Tonight's show is not a performance.  This is a FESTIVAL!" Of course, he said it in Japanese, and the word he used is "Matsuri".  I think that most people who have been exposed to even a little bit of Japanese culture know this word and, at least for me, "matsuri" carries much different connotations than "performance".  A performance has two sides, the performers and the audience. When he said, "Tonight is a Matsuri!" I think we all immediately felt as if we were celebrating together and although it was only the members of Kodo playing the drums on the stage, in our minds, we were up there with them.  It was interesting how that one little comment could completely change the atmosphere. 

There many new songs.  I think I only recognized two or three Kodo standards, and the rest I had never heard before and I was inspired with many ideas for new songs and playing styles that I want to try out on my own.  Someday, I would like to go to the concert held on the last evening of Earth Celebration. 

I know I have at least one more entry in me for Earth Celebration.  Next time I write, I will try to share some comments I heard from Fujimoto san on his experiences during the KASA Mix tour and about North American Taiko.  Until then...

Comments

[hiromi]

洋美です
お母様にブログを教えていただきました
元気そうに太鼓がスタートしてわくわくしています

私も金沢で一生懸命あなたの衣装をかんがえますね