For me, 2011 was a year of change. The biggest and most obvious being my transformation from taiko obsessed landscape designer to taiko obsessed landscape designer who is also a mother.

Thinking back, each month of my pregnancy is intertwined with taiko.

My first ultrasound. My baby was nothing but a blurry blob with a heartbeat.

In January, I found out I was pregnant right before On Ensemble arrived for a visit.

I had a terrific time hosting Shoji and Kelvin, and taking a private lesson and workshop led by Kris, but I have to admit I was a little distracted.

Don (OMG) Kon (I’m) Don (pregnant!) kara ka ka

With the other instructors and the organizers at the first ever East Coast Taiko Conference.(L-R: Me, Tanya, PJ Hirabayashi, Stuart Paton, Miles Endo,Jon Wang, Daniel Porter, Alan Okada, Merle Okada, Mark H Rooney) photo by Matthew Tom-Wolverton

By February, I’d started to feel different.

Constant thirst and frequent headaches were the worst symptoms of all the changes taking place internally.  But that didn’t stop me from traveling with Tanya to represent Odaiko New England by presenting two workshops at the first ever East Coast Taiko Conference.  I felt a little out of place with the other instructors, but rather than trying to teach taiko, Tanya and I focused on our areas of expertise–core strength and flexibility, and having fun with taiko.  So we taught workshops on body awareness and taiko games.

In March, at my second ultrasound, I saw my baby move for the first time.
Rather than spending the whole month stunned by this development, I joined Gertrude for a day trip to New York to take our first sanshin lesson from Junko Fisher.  Gertrude and I share an interest in Okinawan music and culture, so it was wonderful to meet and learn from Junko.

March also presented an opportunity to see Kodo perform at Symphony hall, and briefly greet them backstage.  It was a lot of fun to see Kodo members I’d met a couple of years earlier while they were still apprentices, playing with such power and grace under the spotlights.

Playing Kashmir at Anime Boston (4 months pregnant)

By April, my headaches were a lot less frequent, which was lucky since ONE was facing the usual spring onslaught of performances.  At a high school in New Hampshire, I swear I heard one of the rowdy boys shouting “I love you, Beth”.  Really?  Did I hear that right?  Well, I know he wasn’t serious, but I also know he doesn’t know he’s shouting at a pregnant lady possibly twice his age.

5 Months

May brought a performance at the Arnold Arboretum on Mother’s Day.

I already felt enormous, but I don’t think anyone in the audience figured out that I was a future mother.

6 Months: Artists for Japan fundraiser, Playing Chichibu Yatai Bayashi with Shane

In early June, Odaiko New England participated in the Artists for Japan fundraiser with our fellow Boston area taiko groups, Rutsubo and the Genki Spark.

By July, I felt truly enormous.  Although taiko had kept me going for so much of my pregnancy, I was starting to loose steam.

7 Months

My final pre-motherhood performance was at the Blackships festival in Newport Rhode Island.  It was a blast, but it wasn’t easy: Saturday afternoon included 3 short performances in the shopping area, and Saturday evening we played Hiryuu Sandan Gaieshi at the gala.  (After we played, one of the guests of honor, the governor of Shizuoka Prefecture, actually took a moment to compliment our performance!)  The next day, the rest of the group arrived for the big hour-long show on a sunny baseball field.  I applied sunscreen liberally, drank lots of water, and played in every song.

In August, heat, exhaustion, travel plans, and my work were all adding up, so I found it difficult to make it to the dojo.  But I did make it to one of the Edobayashi workshops taught by Isaku Kageyama.  Edobayashi is a style that challenges me where I am weakest as a taiko player, so I’m glad I had the chance to take the workshop.

On September 1, Mark H. Rooney stopped by to teach a katsugi okedo workshop for ONE members.  That was a blast, though playing a drum slung over my shoulder while nearly full term was a little awkward.  (I admit I was a little worried about whacking myself in the stomach).  After the workshop, my taiko family presented me with a box full of wonderful taiko themed baby clothes.

10 days later, I was a mom.

Stage actors always fascinated me. As a shy person I admired and envied them: in front of a live audience they took on a new personality and pretended to be someone else: brave, silly, nasty, pathetic, noble, or tragic. How did they get the courage to do that?

Then I became a performing taiko drummer. In Odaiko New England (ONE) we have a large repertoire, and therefore need to project many characters and emotions: joy, ferocity, laid-back cool, rock-god intensity. If you are shy, you know that none of these comes naturally to a shy person, especially one with stage fright. Slowly and painfully, I taught myself to pretend: to act joyous, ferocious, cool, intense. Gradually I discovered that “acting” joyous on stage brought out silly, happy childish parts of me I never knew existed. “Acting” joyous freed me to be openly joyous. In the same way, acting ferocious frees the predator in me. I glare at the audience: they are the herd, my natural prey, and when I leave the drum I am going to leap off the stage and hunt them down like a tigress. Some roles are harder than others. The rock-god persona of one of my favorite ONE songs, Kashmir (inspired by the Led Zeppelin piece), is perhaps the most difficult. As a middle-aged woman with bad knees, it is hard to visualize myself as a rock goddess. So I call on my long-suppressed inner rock heroine: eternally young, arrogant, and wicked. And out she comes – glamorous, challenging, triumphant. Am I entirely convincing? Probably not, but my role in the troupe is not to be a star. My job is to support my ensemble, to help us transmit together as a group the message we are rock gods to the audience, and make them leap to their feet screaming at the end of Kashmir. Which, happily, they often do.

There is more to taiko performing, of course: transitions, backstage traffic jams, onstage surprises, offstage distractions, outdoor weather crises, transportation and equipment mixups, missed cues, flying bachi, free-running dogs – all of the haps and mishaps that create the stories we tell over beer and pizza. We are a troupe of performers, with a shared history and a shared identity: we are Odaiko New England.

But I’m still not really an actor…am I?

We want to send a big thank you to all the people who have supported ONE through donations, volunteering, attending concerts and workshops, buying merchandise and all the other ways I’m forgetting to mention right now. It takes a lot of resources to keep an organization like ONE running. Last year we asked for donations specifically for equipment maintenance and purchases, and recently we have begun purchasing drums with those donations. So far we have purchased a three foot diameter hira-daiko and three san-chogake shime which you can see in the following picture. Your support made this possible and we want you to know how much we appreciate it. Thank You!

Odaiko New England’s Artistic Director Juni Kobayashi performed the first movement of her ambitious new composition “Ganesh Awakens” at Taiko Ten at the 2011 North American Taiko Conference.  Juni’s piece was the only solo piece performed at Taiko Ten and it received an overwhelmingly positive reception. If you were not able to make it to the conference this year then here is a video of the performance.

Whether perceived or real, pretty much every taiko group has an equipment shortage. (Who doesn’t want more dums?)  Taiko are expensive. Maybe you need more chus, odaiko, or shime. Groups tend to supplement their stock of drums by building practice drums out of PVC, cardboard, tires, tape, trash cans, etc…  However, playing drums with heads made out of packing tape isn’t exactly the performance paradigm that we all strive for, so if you are short on a particular type of drum you need to think about making some of your own.  Taiko building skills, however, aren’t exactly something everybody is born with. You are luck if you have a few people in your group that are up to the task. Those few try to include other people in the process, which is great, but watching someone build a drum or hammering in a few tacks is different from actually doing it from start to finish. Also, by extension, teaching someone how to build a drum presents its own set of challenges. The experience of building a drum from start to finish is in some ways a right of passage that I think everybody should experience. Once you have done it yourself you have not only a greater understanding and connection with your drums but a greater understand of all the work those people in your group who make the drums (and stands!) go through to provide you with that equipment.

Mark H Rooney started a building project at ONE a while back to have all the members build themselves okedo. Currently we have about 15 people attempting to make over 20 okedo (some of us are making two). The interesting part about this is that everybody, regardless of drum-building skill or experience, is attempting to do the same thing independently. Initial progress was slow, finding all the materials required at a reasonable price was challenging. Eventually we identified a source for barrels that could be converted into appropriate bodies. (Making stave bodies is too advanced for someone with no woodworking experience.) Rings were more difficult and took quite a bit of searching before finding someone who could make enough of the right size for a reasonable price. Skins were easy, we buy those all the time. The total materials cost per drum is about $150 depending on the size (we are making a few different sizes). Now comes the hard part, actually building the drums.

Mark H was the first to finish an okedo, being an experienced builder with 60+ drums under his belt (yes, he has a very large belt). This was his first okedo though, and he was kind enough to make a lot of the mistakes for us. Let me tell you, that advice and foreknowledge is invaluable and we appreciate is immensely! I recently finished mine as well (at least my first, I still have to tackle the second). Mark and I compared notes and even though we used the same set of resources (primarily Brian’s excellent guide to Making an Okedo-Daiko) we ended up with two very different drums built with some pretty divergent methods. We compared notes and shared our experience with the group and anybody else who would listen. Based on what we learned from each other we are each going to go about building our second drums differently. Many of the other members have made progress on or finished their bodies at this point and are moving on to sewing their heads. Many of these people who cut, shaped, sanded, and painted those barrels into bodies don’t even own a saw and have no woodworking experience at all, yet they are getting it done and doing  a great job. So far all the bodies are very unique, each one is a snowflake that reflects the builders personality. Since we are only providing each other advice and leaving each individual to do ALL the work on their own we are seeing a lot of interesting and unique ideas develop. I’m excited to see how they will all turn out!

On Saturday, May 14, 2011 Odaiko New England hosted our annual Spring Thunder Festival at Concord-Carlisle High School in Concord, MA. The Spring Thunder Festival is a Showcase/Recital that performs two primary functions: it allows students who have been learning songs a chance to perform in public and it brings together local groups to meet each other and experience each others performances. In the photo below ONE members perform Mahora, a song composed by K. Fujii and inspired by the powerful and everlasting flow of the Hidaka river, Ryujin-mura, Japan.

Photo courtesy of Grace Liang Tysk

While this is a regular event for us, there were many aspects to this year’s show that were different from previous years. Most notably, this show was produced by our new Artistic Director, Juni Kobayashi. Our previous Artistic Director, Mark H Rooney, has relocated to Washington D.C. and was not able to join us. We missed having him, but we feel Mark was in a way present at this event embodied in the new three foot diameter hira daiko that he just completed for the group. Below you can see ONE members surrounding the new drum Mark made for us; we are all trying to get a hit in simultaneously.

Photo courtesy of Grace Liang Tysk

Odaiko New England’s classes have grown a lot over the last few years and it was very apparent at this show. In addition to Odaiko New England Members, there were performances by the ONE Recreational Taiko Class, the ONE Styles Class, and the Concord-Carlisle Adult & Community Education (CCACE) Taiko Class. The Recreational and CCACE classes include students who have been playing for as little as a few months whereas the Styles class consists of more experienced students who have been playing for at least a year.

In the photo below the ONE Styles class is playing the piece they worked on this semester over the last 16 weeks, Yatai Bayashi. This is a very challenging piece and learning it in 16 weeks is a huge accomplishment.

Photo courtesy of Grace Liang Tysk

In the photo below the Concord-Carlisle Adult & Community Education (CCACE) Taiko Class is playing Hiryuu Sandan Gaeshi. Hiryuu is a piece created from traditional Osuwa rhythms by Daihachi Oguchi. The song calls upon the dragon gods to come to earth three times to bless mankind with peace, prosperity, and good fortune.

Photo courtesy of Grace Liang Tysk

In the photo below the ONE Recreational Taiko Class is also playing Hiryuu San-dan Gaeshi. It may have been the second performance of the piece that night, but the Rec Class delivered an energetic reprise.

Photo courtesy of Grace Liang Tysk

Before the last song of the night we had a round of Audience Participation (AP). The AP, as always, was a big hit (pun intended).  We had in excess of 30 drums at the show, which made for quite the cacophony at times…everybody was pretty eager to get a chance to make some noise.  The performance ended with all the groups together playing Kokyo, which is a piece Mark H Rooney learned from Sensei Sasa of Wakahaya Taiko in Shimodate, Ibaraki Prefecture. After the show there was  a potluck reception where the audience and performers got a chance to mingle. There was plenty of good food and good conversation to go around. As with previous years, the Showcase was a lot of fun and a big success!

It went down sort of like this. During a spare moment at the dojo, Cat said something like, “Before the summer’s over, I really want to swim at Walden Pond.” Diane sighed, “Oh! That sounds good. I want to go, too.” At that point, Beth made it happen.  Last Friday, nine of us and three kayaks (thanks to Tanya and Kate) had a delightful afternoon swimming laps across the famous pond, paddling around, taking in the serene scenery and enjoying each others’ company. It was a sweet, summer afternoon.

Wet Taiko Players in the Woods

Spring is the busy season for Odaiko New England.  It’s the time of year when everyone wants to have taiko at their outdoor festivals.  It’s also my personal busy season.  I’m a landscape designer, and run my own business.  I know I’m not the only taiko player to have a difficult time balancing work, life, and taiko, so I imagine my spring will sound familiar to a lot of folks out there.

It all started in April, right after we got our new ONE jackets and other gear:

Sheilarae, Kristen, Jasmine, and I sported our new jackets and hats while loading equipment for the first of many spring gigs.

April 17: Stone Church Arts

The week I finished my taxes, I completed spring cleanups for 2 clients, planted 5 apple trees, interviewed 2 new crew members, organized my tools, and attended taiko practice as usual.  The week’s activities culminated in a 2 hour concert in Bellows Falls, VT on Saturday.  This was an excellent show, based on reVision, our 15th anniversary concert from last spring.  Since it was a full length concert, we needed transition pieces to distract the audience while setting up drums for the next piece.  That meant I got to break out my sanshin and play Island Stroll with Diane again.  I am happy every chance we get to perform it.  The first time was terrifying, but now I think we are both getting a lot more confident.

Kristen and Karen playing Shin-en.

May 1: Rhode Island Cherry Blossom Festival

The last week in April included many hours of weeding, mulching and pruning, during the day, with visits to the dojo in the evening.  I needed the practice since, on May 1, we had the privilege of performing at Rhode Island’s first Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival).

Unfortunately, the same early spring and warm weather that brought me a lot more April business than usual, also encouraged the cherry blossoms to open well ahead of schedule.  That meant that the blossoms were long gone by the time we were there to celebrate them.  It was also surprisingly hot weather for early May.  No matter!  We still had a good time with both performances that morning.

A noisy waterfall in the background in Pawtucket, RI wasn't loud enough to drown out the sound of our drums.

May 1: Wesleyan University Student Recital

For some of us, performing twice in one morning, just isn’t enough taiko.  So, after we finished our performance at the Cherry Blossom Festival, Kristen, Tanya, and I hopped into Tanya’s car and drove to Middletown, CT.  There we had a delicious and leisurely meal before meeting up with Karen and watching the Wesleyan University student taiko recital.

The Wesleyan students displayed tremendous energy, and some pretty awesome solo skills.

Mark looks on as the Wesleyan Students perform Matsuri.

Fortunately, there was time for ice cream with Mark before our drive home.  On our way, Tanya and I learned that a massive water pipe had burst not far from my home, affecting the drinking water supply for the entire area–much of the Boston area was under a boil water order.  (Lucky Tanya lives far enough West that she didn’t have to worry about it.)

May 2: Walk for Hunger

The very next day, we had an opportunity to bring taiko to the masses.  Project Bread’s Walk for Hunger is an enormous fundraiser, involving over 40,000 people who walk to raise money for emergency food programs.  Our job was to play at the finish line, as a way of thanking the walkers for their efforts.  We also served as entertainment for the volunteers stationed at the finish line to hand out water.

This type of gig has a very different feel from a stage performance.  For one thing, we were playing to create a festive atmosphere, to an audience that wasn’t likely to give us their full attention, except briefly as they pass by.  That meant that we didn’t play our standard arrangements of a wide variety of songs.  Instead we played fewer songs with more looping.  We played in the sun for over two hours, so I was especially appreciative when we were given ice cream bars.  Did I eat 3?

May 8: Spring Thunder Festival

Twice a year, we put together a taiko showcase in order to give our students an opportunity to strut their stuff, while giving members a chance to try out something new.  The spring showcase (or Spring Thunder Festival), was a smashing success.  Watching the students perform with joy can be quite inspirational for a jaded old player like myself.   (Yeah, okay…  4 years of taiko hasn’t actually jaded me, but the students are still an inspiration.)

The community members had the chance to learn the Hachijo-Yatai Bayashi Medley in just a few weeks.  That was both challenging, and a blast!  I love playing the Yatai part against Hachijo.

May 15: Asian Heritage Festival, House of the Samurai

A week later my parents were planning to come for a visit.  But wait!  I’d volunteered to perform at the House of the Samurai Asian Heritage Festival in Londonderry, NH that weekend!  What to do?

Easy Solution: Mom and Dad were driving from VT anyway, so they just stopped in Londonderry to see me play, and then gave me a ride home.

I particularly enjoyed this gig.  The House of the Samurai is a Karate dojo which also has programs in Yoga and Chi Gong.  The space was beautiful, Ken and Mandy (the owners of the dojo) were tremendously nice, and after our performance we had the chance to relax and enjoy the other activities they’d arranged for the day.  It was my parents’ first chance to see a our festival set–which it turns out my Mom likes a lot more than the formal concerts.

Cat, Joy, Jasmine, Ken and Mandy Akiyama, Juni, Diane, and myself after the show.

May 22: YMCA Movie Night

Thanks to Karen, we had a quick chance to build a connection with our neighbors at the North Suburban YMCA in Woburn by performing a few songs before they screened “Up”.

June 12: Waltham Riverfest

Last year, I had my first chance to lead a gig.  It was an exciting opportunity to get practice in leadership, logistics, and public speaking.  But the memory will always be darkened by the fact that I spent the rest of my time that weekend arranging a trip to Texas for my cousin’s funeral.

I couldn’t help thinking about the good and the bad from last year, but with my family in the audience, and rain clouds overhead, the second Waltham Riverfest was a completely different story.  Last year’s performance had been perfect weather.  This year, the looming rain began to fall just as the previous act wrapped up.  Fortunately, we had a plastic sheet to protect the drums, and the organizers had a canopy that we could set up under.

We couldn’t have played without the canopy, but it was very small-about 10 feet by 10 feet.  Somehow, we managed to squeeze the odaiko and 3 chudaiko under it.   Fortunately I’d brought Smokey, my Remo shime.  Since she’s made of synthetic materials, it was okay to play her in the rain, so we didn’t have to fit 5 drums into the tiny space!

The audience was larger than last year, despite the significantly worse weather.  There wasn’t enough space for naname, and I was concerned that the rain would get harder, so we had to shorten the set, but still managed to play a Reimei remix, Kashmir, and Shin-en before a wet audience.  We even managed to pull off some audience participation.

Meanwhile, another crew of Odaiko New Englanders were getting rained on while participating in the Boston Pride parade and festival.  But that’s someone else’s story.

June 13: Dragon Boat Festival

The next day, we put in our annual appearance at the Boston Dragon Boat Festival.  This has been one of my favorite festivals since the first time I played it in 2007.

This year our set included Mahora, a marathon song, which I remember playing at Dragon Boats two years earlier.

June 26: Taiko in the Woods

As June, and the busy season, drew to a close, a few of us attended a private camping party, in which we had the chance to play for the other attendees.  I love playing with the forest as a backdrop.

Cat captured me mid-twirl as I played Matsuri.

Always a Little Behind

Keeping up with posting to the blog can be tough with a performance schedule like this, on top of practices and the miscellaneous work that we do for the group–not to mention our day jobs.  Even though there are many ONE members who could be blogging, we don’t always find the time.  I don’t know how my favorite Taiko bloggers (like All Things Taiko, On Ensemble, and Raion Taiko) keep up!  I don’t even have time to read all their awesome posts, let alone write for and manage the ONE blog!  Maybe I’ll learn.  Maybe next year I’ll keep up…  For now, I’m going to cheat a little bit, and post this with a date of July 1 for the sake of our archives, even though I’m actually writing this much later.

Spiking the stage

On April 17, Odaiko New England’s (almost) full contingent – Ensemble and Community – trekked to Bellows Falls, VT to perform at the Opera House as part of the Stone Church Arts Series.

Kristen and Shigeru playing Senryū

I have had great vacations in Vermont, but was unfamiliar with Bellows Falls.  So, prior to the show, I did a little research.  According to their website, the mission of the Stone Church Arts Series is stated as “bringing the world to Bellows Falls.”  Further research noted that the Opera House had recently been renovated.   Taken alongside the scenic pictures of the waterfall, covered bridges, and fall foliage, Bellows Falls seemed be a special place – commitment to arts in a beautiful setting.

Driving into Bellows Falls, the scenic part was easily confirmed with the waterfall and river.  The downtown had all the qualities of a small New England town with its five and dime store, galleries and small shops.  In one of the windows, I spied artwork from a local school.  All were easy confirmation of the importance of art in the community.

As we walked down the street to find lunch, we saw our posters in practically every storefront.   Clearly, there was a lot of community support for Stone Church Arts.

We had lunch in a great little coffee shop with homemade breads, desserts, and sandwiches.  In the back of the shop, there were a few tables, some cushy chairs, and more art on the walls.  Two people were playing backgammon, and a women was reading to her child.  There were some shelves with books.   I found one of my favorite cookbooks – The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Birnbaum – which was a likely source for the beautiful desserts.  Midway through lunch, a man walked in, took one look at us and said “You must be the taiko drummers – I just bought my tickets!”

Our audience that evening was fantastic.  It was a fun show to perform.  (I had my cleanest performance of Kashmir!)  After the show, I got a chance to chat with a few audience members.  They were very enthusiastic, asking many questions regarding our practice schedule and equipment, and thanking us for coming.  I thanked them for being such a lovely audience.

To Stone Arts Church Series, thank you for having us and introducing me to this special community.  I can’t wait to come back!

Putting our hands together before the show