All over it!

I’ve been all about it recently, I have blisters the size of peanuts and my arms ache from the swinging but I’m loving it! Even the mistakes are fun, I’m still making the same ones, the simple beat from the first song we all learnt is still giving me some jip, but, I’ve made progress with the second song and learnt a new beat (Don, toka, Kon, kato).

Last week I went outside to practice at school, it was an office day and I was bored of making lesson plans. I started practicing and had been hitting a smashed up wooden barrel for about 20 minutes when a lad rounded the corner and started playing alongside me. I didn’t recognise him, but that wasn’t suprising as it was the last day of school for many of the teachers and a lot of old students had come back to say their goodbyes. He was really good and played a beat really fast that crossed hands and used two drums.

He complimented my playing and I told him that I was part of the Saito Matsuri drumming team, we played for about 10 minutes more and then 5 of my students came around the corner. I had seen this lot playing before and Ryuji, the graduate student, told the rest that I played taiko.

After that we spent about two hours trading beats and playing together. The students asked me to play with them in October at the culture festival, I agreed. I also agreed to practice with them every day during the spring break and every Mon,Wed and Thursday during the term.

I have a performance on Sunday with the Saito team, I think that I will just be playing the one song whilst Pat and Amanda play two songs. It’s all good.

See more progress on: Learn Taiko Drums