Taiko Drumming

Participant observation, generally thought of as the mainstay of ethnographic research, is often at the heart of much debate about the nature of participation, raising epistemological and ontological questions concerning the intent and position of the researcher in relation to knowledge and to those studied. In this chapter, I argue that participatory processes of research offer a valuable contribution to the ethnographer’s charge of cultural interpretation, particularly when understanding tacit and implicit forms of knowledge in an educational setting. I examine my own participation in a Japanese American taiko drumming ensemble and the ways in which my first-hand, subjective experience caused me to challenge conventional wisdom about the concept of embodiment in educational practice. Using examples from my ethnographic study of taiko drumming, I examine the implications that participatory practices have for understanding, challenging, and reshaping key educational concepts such as learning.

This is the intro for a special issue that I edited for American Behavioral Scientist (Volume 48 / Issue 11). It featured contributed articles by Scott Appelrouth, Willian F. Danaher, Joseph A. Kotarba, Paul Lopes, Jan Marontate, Vaughn Schmutz, Erin Trapp, and Jean Van Delinder.

New Zealand has a number of active taiko (drumming) groups, each of which has distinct links to Japan. This article introduces taiko in New Zealand in connection with the notions of authenticity and identity construction in transcultural context (i.e., connecting with two or more cultures – e.g., Kostogriz and Tsolidis 2008; Pratt 1992), for both Japanese and non-Japanese. The taiko settings under study are transcultural in that they are in New Zealand on the one hand yet inseparable from taiko’s real or imagined homeland of Japan on the other. The research focuses on the creative settings of musical performance and explores the various ensemble taiko groups that are especially active in New Zealand. While investigating the ways identity is constructed for players, questions are asked about the local setting and the context of migration, and how these factors might influence the construction of transcultural identity in New Zealand. A range of social and cultural influences offer a number of examples that show cultural flows, musical adoption, and identity construction for different reasons and in diverse case-study settings.

The second European Taiko Conference (ETC) took place from 9-12 February 2017. Like the inaugural ETC, it was instigated and managed by Kagemusha Taiko, a performing arts company based in the southwest of England. ETC2 took place at Hannah’s at Seale Hayne, an inclusive campus with extensive practice, performance and accommodation space that also houses Kagemusha Taiko’s purpose-built Taiko Centre.

This report summarises the evaluation model adopted by the author as well as the key findings. It makes recommendations for future iterations of the conference for consideration by the event organisers.

New Zealand has a number of active taiko (drumming) groups, each of which has distinct links to Japan. This paper introduces taiko in New Zealand in connection with the notions of authenticity and identity construction in transcultural context, for both Japanese and non-Japanese. The research focuses on the creative settings of musical performance, and explores the various ensemble taiko groups that are especially active in New Zealand. While investigating the ways identity is constructed for players, questions are asked about the local setting and the context of migration, and how these factors might influence the construction of a transcultural identity in New Zealand. A range of social and cultural influences offer a number of examples that show cultural flows, musical adoption, and identity construction for different reasons and in diverse case-study settings.

In this paper, I examine the improvisational practices of a Japanese American taiko drumming ensemble. Based on a larger ethnographic study, I draw on extensive examples and quotes, highlighting pedagogical strategies as well as the qualities of experience that occur with collaborative learning, practice and innovation. Using sociocultural theories of learning, specifically Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of historical dialogism, I analyze the ways in which soloing as a sociocultural practice indexes larger social and cultural issues such as identity, agency, and change.

Le taiko a ceci de commun avec le jazz qu'il se sculpte autour de ses silences. Mais plus encore que le jazz peut être, il magnifie les points de suspension par une mise en scène qu'on croirait liturgique. Lent crescendo avant l'explosion des sons, éclairages à la surface lunaire des peaux, dévoilement progressif de corps en lutte, gestes hiératiques du soliste conduisant au fusionnement des mouvements de l'ensemble, vibrations qui résonnent au coeur : le taiko emporte et puis nous laisse, éberlués mais un peu plus heureux, au pied d'un vide assourdissant. Quoiqu'il signifie littéralement « gros » (tai, aussi prononcé dai) « tambour » (ko), le terme japonais désigne les percussions de façon générique, et plus précisément les tambours, catégorie universelle. Dans un contexte mondialisé, il pointe plus spécifiquement les percussions japonaises dans leur diversité de tailles et de formes : membrane étirée sur un cadre (uchiwa-daiko « tambour éventail »), instrument dont les deux surfaces sont tendues par un complexe système de cordes permettant d'en régler la tonalité (shime-daiko « tambour à cordes »), tonneau ventru dont on frappe à la fois les peaux et le corps, faisant alterner sons profonds et sons secs (nagadô-daiko « tambour à long corps »)... Il en est également venu à s'appliquer à un art de la scène récent – un demi siècle – qui réunit cette palette d'instruments vernaculaires aux usages autrefois distincts pour offrir un spectacle à la puissance sonore inégalée. Comme le jazz, le taiko s'est construit à la croisée de différentes traditions musicales : racines rurales et populaires, arts classiques, « grande » musique occidentale et spectacles de bastringue. L'Occidental se délectera d'un exotisme qui puise dans le fonds très riche des fêtes calendaires et des rituels villageois japonais ; le nippophile sera sensible aux liens avec les arts raffinés de la scène, nô, et kabuki surtout, dont les maîtres formèrent au rythme les premiers solistes de taiko ; l'esthète se ravira des techniques de corps élaborées dans la longue histoire du théâtre japonais et revisitées par les gourous de la danse contemporaine (buyô). On n'oubliera pas pourtant que le taiko de scène a profité aussi de la présence de grands musiciens formés à la musique occidentale qui lui créèrent son premier répertoire. Le travail commun à Boston du percussionniste Hayashi Eitetsu et du compositeur Ishii Maki, sous l'égide du chef d'orchestre Ozawa Seiji, a ainsi été décisif dans la constitution d'un art et l'évolution des techniques de percussion japonaises (Ishii, Monochrome for Japanese Taiko Drums and Chinese Gong, 1976, avec le Boston Symphony Orchestra). Comme le jazz, enfin, le succès du taiko mondial a profité d'un élan revendicatif à la fois culturel et communautaire, sinon nationaliste, qui allia, contre toute attente, le désir d'un Japon vaincu, mais renaissant de ses cendres, de se faire reconnaître et d'exalter sa culture, et les mouvements aux États-Unis des Asiatiques américains, toutes origines confondues, qui ne supportaient plus d'être considérés comme une minorité passive et insipide. Asian pride... Porté à la fois au Japon par des communautés utopiques prônant un retour à la tradition et à l'apprentissage par le corps, et en Amérique du Nord par une minorité criant pour ses droits, le taiko a longtemps été un enfant des quêtes de l'après-guerre. Le lien avec le jazz n'est en réalité pas fortuit. Les débuts du taiko de scène coïncident avec les tentatives musicales d'Oguchi Daihachi (1924-2008), percussionniste formé au jazz, justement. Missionné pour déchiffrer d'anciennes partitions retrouvées dans le hangar d'une entreprise locale fabriquant du misô, il y découvre un instrument qu'il ne connaissait pas et essaie d'en explorer les possibilités. On lui doit l'installation de tambours japonais de

The title of this paper is taken from a standard media description of Toronto-based Japanese taiko drumming ensemble Nagata Shachu, in which the group promises to take the audience on "a musical journey beyond all borders."  The author, who has been a performing member of the group since 2002, examines through her own experience in the group and through an interview with artistic director Kiyoshi Nagata, the motivation behind the use of this phrase, and how the musical and cultural crossings of borders are manifested in and shapes the group's repertoire, practices, image, and marketing strategies within the Toronto world music scene.

This paper analyzes the Taiko no Tatsujin (Bandai Namco 2001/ 2018) franchise and the musical literacy it conveys. While previous accounts of game musical literacy have focused on the competence necessary to interpret references across media (van Elferen 2016), this paper expands on the concept, and includes the discussion of live performances and oral traditions.The musical compositions included in Taiko no Tatsujin pertain to the Japanese phenomenon of media convergence known as media mix (Steinberg 2012), as they have been previously popularized by anime and geemu ongaku (or game music) (Yamakami and Barbosa 2015). However, the musical participation initiated extends its references to the practice of Japanese taiko drumming, a largely oral, non-notated musical form, which cannot be reduced to a musical repertoire. The resulting, emerging ludo mix, a form of media mix centered around digital games (Blom 2019; Bjarnason 2019; Picard and Pelletier-Gagnon 2015; Steinberg 2015), prese...

This article maps neo-traditional drumming in the Amami islands. Over the past two to three decades, a number of ensemble drum groups have emerged throughout the Amami islands. These drum groups cover three main styles of drumming: eisā, wadaiko and shimadaiko. With influences from Okinawa, mainland Japan and Amami respectively, and acknowledging that cultural flows are sometimes more complex, such styles of performance have captured the Amamian imagination and have been adopted by many community and school groups alike. This article maps the breadth of such drumming by classifying the performance styles across the Amami islands, while also exploring ideas pertaining to how and why these new styles of performance have gained in popularity in the Amami context.

"Tatsu Aoki
The Miyumi Project Live in Poland
(Southport/Asian Improv Records S-SSD 0125, 2008)

Francis Wong Trio
Early Abstractions
(Estrada Poznanska MIC02, 2009)

Bradley Parker-Sparrow
The New World
(Asian Improv Records AIR0076, 2009)

Jeff Chan
Horns of Plenty
(Asian Improv Records AIR0077, 2009)

Jeff Parker, Francis Wong, Elliot Humberto Kavee, Tatsu Aoki
3 Big Guys + 1
(Asian Improv Records AIR0078, 2009)

Some (especially improvised?) music seems to listen to you. Whether sitting like a child at quiet play, or lurking behind two or more glowing eyes in its own shadow self, or lurching suddenly onto four or more stalking legs to check out your intents in the bright light of day...it breathes more regularly, rapidly, relentlessly--until you realize you are the air it’s gasping for and gulping down. Then it takes a dreamy turn, making all such threads of thought and threat go right, somehow...
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This report presents data collected in May 2016 as part of the Taiko Community Alliance (TCA) Taiko Census initiative. It analyses responses provided by taiko players resident in the United States of America and Canada. Its purpose is two-fold: to present a snapshot of taiko as it is practiced in the USA and Canada; and to interrogate similarities and differences in the two countries. It is hoped that players in the USA, Canada and beyond will use the findings contained within this report to develop taiko – an art form that is clearly central to the lives of many census respondents.