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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 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…

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. 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 [...]

TAO review: Berklee Performance Center, Thursday, March 18, 7:30pm Taiko performances can give audiences the impression that taiko and martial arts are closely-related disciplines, if not fully intertwined as one art. The group TAO seeks to obliterate any distinction between the two while putting on a dynamite concert. Since I have no background whatsoever in [...]

We finished warming up and stretching. Then they played the simple piece that they would, in the three hours, teach us to play. I was a bit skeptical, but hey, aim high.