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Congratulations to Jeanne, Russel, and Mario for a great Shasta Yama! Maz and I arrived a week early to help, but everyone is so organized, all the prep had pretty much been done. We had time to go jump off a bridge.

This year’s Shasta Yama festival featured Shasta Taiko, Stanford Taiko, and Portland Taiko, and over 1000 people attended. The weather was delightful… the mountain was beautiful… and the music was great. Thank you to everyone!

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The beautiful and talented Kim Nakashima came to our performance at JCI Carnival and took some great photos. Thank you, Kim!

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Every wacky slant-drum idea we’ve had in the last 2 years crammed into 13 minutes. Thank you to the LA Knees crew for their help in putting this piece together. Looking forward to more exploration!

Click the image below for the score. Original SVG file can be found below.

Original SVG file

I’ve cobbled together some of the things I’ve been practicing for the last few months into a rough solo piece. The composition has provided lots of inspiration thus far but I feel this practice arc coming to a close. I’m hoping some constructive criticism would give me a few more hours of motivated practice. Any suggestions of things I should try differently?

Watch the video with click-able timestamps here.

Untitled naname solo
Work in progress.

(00:06) ryoutan section
(01:56) movement section
(01:59) M1-4
(02:14) Tribeca
(02:30) Super Klock Don
(02:33) Backstroke
(02:43) Scissors
(02:48) Helio
(02:49) Wipers
(02:55) Cronkite
(03:10) ka section
(03:16) Kark (working name)
(03:33) Joan of Arc (working name)
(03:38) Joan of Ard (working name)
(03:43) Donzoko

Composed as a demonstration for 2011 “Bon Taiko Bonanza” Taiko Conference workshop. Performed by Kristofer Bergstrom, May 11, 2011. Composition and recording released under the Free Art License 1.3.

Tomorrow I will pass the half-way point toward my long-term goal of 10,000 hours of practice! This milestone is coming at a great time… April and May have been some of my best practice months ever (knock on wood). Here are a few thoughts on recent practice successes and on the 5000 hours thus far.

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