Taiko Meets Pop

If you're in New York, you have the chance to catch a real treat. Kaoru Watanabe, Shoji Kameda, and Testuro Naito will collaborate with the Mongolian singer, Nominjin, in a performance this Thursday at Drom.

Drom, 85 Avenue A (between 5th and 6th),
Thursday, October 15
7pm-9pm
$10 in advance, $15 at the door
please call for information/tickets: 212-777-1157

In addition, Kaoru, Shoji, and Tetsuro are on tour with Khoomei Taiko Ensemble, a cross cultural group that includes Mongolian throat singing and horse head fiddle, koto, fue, and taiko. Check out the tour schedule at the bottom of this page to catch the show!

Khoomei-Taiko Ensemble 2009 Tour:

Thurs, Oct 8th – Japan Information & Cultural Center, Washington, DC
Fri, Oct 9th – John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC
Fri, Oct 16th – Symphony Space, New York, NY
Sat, Oct 17th – Charles B. Wang Center Theatre, Stony Brook, NY
Sun, Oct 18th – Taiko Workshop with Tetsuro Naito, Japan Society, NY
Tues, Oct 20th – Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, Brooklyn, NY
Thurs, Oct 22nd – Japanese Music performance/converstaion, Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle, WA
Fri, Oct 23rd – Performing Arts Center of Wenatchee, Wenatchee, WA
Sun, Oct 25th – Town Hall Seattle, Seattle, WA

Taiko Drill Part 53, Trying Improvisation

Hi there! I'm excited to be leaving shortly to catch the Khoomei Taiko Ensemble performance this evening! Check out the website to see if it's coming near you. Those of you lucky enough to be in Seattle will even have the opportunity to take workshops from these talented performers. (email me if you need info!)

If the show's not coming to your area, you can watch today's performance live at 6PM Eastern through the Kennedy Center's website.

Let's get back into improvisation!

Focus: Counting, Improvisation
Watch For:
1. Even when you are comfortable enough to not have to count, do it anyway--it's good practice!

Okay, so last week we learned 4 basic patterns and practiced by looping them together. Today let's use those same patterns in a more relaxed way to begin experimenting with improvisation.

We're going to layer on top of the paradiddle pattern taught here, but you can really use anything. The reason I chose the paradiddle pattern is because after the first line it gets tough to determine where the beginning of the line is and if you don't count, you won't know when to stop. Counting while improvising is a great skill to have.

If you've never improvised you can start in this simple way:

1. Play 4 of the basic patterns.
2. Repeat.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 a total of 5 times.

If you would like to focus more on counting:

1. Play 5 sets of 8, totalling 40 beats.

In this video, you'll see the first option, followed by the second option. Of course, yours will sound completely different!




Want to see Tanaka Sensei do a little improv? Stick it out through the video in my last post and you'll see it at the end!

Want an MP3 of the paradiddle pattern? Click on my profile to access my email address and I'll email it to you in a jiffy! Gambarimasu!

Extension:

You may have noticed that when I improvised the second time, there were some patterns included that we didn't use last week. Try letting new patterns come out--that's what improvising's all about!