Goodbye DC, welcome to NY
Just wanted to give one more shout out to Nen Daiko for their generous hospitality in Washington, DC. After the Nen Daiko workshop Kaoru, Tetsuro and I headed to NY in our two rent a cars. I ended up not being able to make it and stopped at a hotel along the way but Kaoru and Tetsuro pushed on and arrived in NY at 3am. We were supposed to return the cars by noon and I get a call from Kaoru at 11am and in the the eight hours that the car was parked in NY it was broken into! Can you believe that? Eight hours… The passenger side window was smashed and the thieves had tried to steal the GPS unit. The problem was that it was a rent a car GPS that was hardwired into the car so they were unable to unattach the unit. Even if they did somehow manage to wrestle the unit free the joke would’ve been on them. It was like the first GPS unit ever created and it was unusually hard to follow. It could very well have been my general incompetence but even with the unit I got myself lost a good half a dozen times. For a touring musician DC is a nightmare. Between all those crazy roundabouts and split level roads that go under the roundabouts, I think I’ve been lost in DC more that any other city in the nation.
After getting the car returned and filling out the police report Kaoru and I headed to his taiko studio where I met some of his students and taught a workshop on basic stance and form. I watched Kaoru teach Miyake the first class and his taiko students looked great! Miyake is one of those songs that was popularized by KODO and most taiko groups play the KODOized version (often without realizing it) which gets turned into a super power taiko piece. The procession that happens at the beginning and the song that happens at the beginning and middle of the piece is often dropped in favor of all out power solos. Kaoru has actually been to Miyake island and has learned the original version and teaches his students both versions with all of the subtle differences between the two. I personally favor the original version as I find it much more nuanced and musical than a lot of the power versions.
So if you are interested in Miyake or Hachijo or other folk pieces that have been adapted to wadaiko I encourage you seek out the original versions. There is much to discover and going deeper to the source of the piece will only inform and improve whatever version you end up performing.