The big news is that we’ve completely revamped our Music page!  You can now listen to any track from any one of our albums and we’ve updated the music page with pretty much every live recording we have.  The live mp3s are even free to download!  In fact please download them because our sever isn’t really set up for streaming and this whole thing is a bit of an experiment.  More website updates coming!

Seeing the Grammy performances live was quite thrilling.  One thing you appreciate being there is just how complicated the logistics of the whole thing is. The entire stage gets changed over in a matter of minutes with each configuration more complicated than the last.  It’s complete sensory overload and quite awe inspiring.  A personal highlight was the Dave Mathews Band performance and a performance during the pre-telecast portion by the Montreal trip-rock band Beast.  Now the next task will be get On Ensemble to the Grammys!

After my wife and I closed on our first home this summer it was finally time to break it out.  First I opened the Marantz, cleaned the potentiometers and replaced the four lamps that had burned out.  I also used some stainless steel cleaner to clean the faceplate and got it looking all shiny and new.  There were some deeper problem that so I took it to Audio Specialist in Glendale who specializes in repairing vintage audio equipment.  Then I refoamed the four woofers after watching a couple of youtube videos and talking with the guys at the local speaker repair shop who were extremely helpful.

I then plugged it in…  turned it on… and my life changed.  The system sounded so good I couldn’t believe it.  I can’t believe my fortune in having been given such a great set up.  The best part of having an actual house is being able to listen to music at a proper level.  My wife disagrees but I firmly believe that some kinds of music demand to listened to at a certain level.  Kelvin will agree with me on this point.  Have you every tried to listen to the beginning of “Bombtrack” at a level appropriate for background music for polite conversation?  It completelly sucks! And that’s one of the best openings of a rock album of all time IM(not so)HO.  So it’s in the middle of the night I’ve got the latest Silversun Pickup’s album blasting and life is good.

For the next 10 days, I will average more than two hours of concentrated, taiko practice per day.

My shamisen teacher was in town last week (videos coming soon!) for 10 days of non-stop nagauta, the music of Kabuki. While I made huge strides in my shamisen playing, I’ve neglected my daily taiko practice. See the pitiful amount of purple (personal practice) toward the end of the graph below? How sad! Working toward my goal of 10,000 hours of practice, I’m trying to average at least an hour a day. So I’ve got a bit of catching up to do.

Due to the way I calculate my practice time, two hours is actually more like four hours at the drums. And because I have appointments over the next week, I’ll have to aim for more than four hours most days to keep my average up. I’m stating this publicly with the hopes it’ll help me stay on track.

If you see me between now and Feb 2, tell me to stop chatting/skateboarding/whatever and to get drumming. If anyone else wants to practice, let me know! Strength in numbers!

JATV visited my class and did a short segment on the whole program. More after the break…

The grandfather of one of the students, Mr Kanai, donated funds to enable the school to dedicate an entire week to Japanese arts.  All 300 students spent all week taking classes in sushi, dance, kendo, taiko, and 13 other topics.  Amazing, no?!  Every student… a whole week dedicated to Japanese arts!

I had 1st grade, 5th grade, 7th and 8th grades, and high school classes, and all the students were motivated, creative, and interested.  Each group put on a performance for the school at the end of the week and I was very proud of the kids.  The 1st graders did an impressive “math on drums” presentation.  We had a bon-festival-inspired dance with moves that the students created.  We even had student-created rap with taiko!  Great job everyone!

One of the students wrote the following article (rough draft, he tells me) for the school paper.  Thanks, Sam!

Taiko Drum class

Golden week was the good idea to let students study about other country. Taiko was one of the classes in Golden week. Taiko in Japanese means drum and it has been in Japan for about 800 years. Taiko drums are very expensive because the body of the drum made from the old tree and the surface of the drum made from horse skin. Taiko drums always go with the bachi. Bachi in Japanese means drum stick made from wood. There are many kinds of taiko drum that appear in nowadays. Pilgrim School has invited a taiko master from “On Ensemble” and his name is Kristofer Bergstrom. Kris began his taiko career in Stanford Taiko as leader and composer. Later on, he spent 3 years in Japan where he studied and performed taiko. He is an active teacher, who made his class become more exited. His teaching skills and the way he play the drum are just amazing. Before the Golden Week started, a lot of people said that Taiko drum is just a normal class that they weren’t interesting a lot. On Monday, January 4, Kris-sensei gave the whole school a great performance with his amazing taiko skills. The whole church was shaking because of the strong sound that the taiko drum made. Every single heart of Pilgrim School student was beating together with the drum and the excitement was increasing rapidly. After the performance, there were a lot of comments about the taiko drum. “Taiko drumming was not as easy as it seems and it involved very intricate movement,” Manuel Perez’ 10 says.

Pilgrim School students were so excited that they couldn’t wait until the first class. The first class was fun and excited. Kris-sensei set up the drum just like on the stage. The taiko class took place in Mr. Turro’s music room. In the first day, Kris-sensei was talking about the history of taiko and how he started his career as a taiko drummer. After that, he started to teach Pilgrim students how to play taiko. The class was crowded, so Kris-sensei separated the class into three groups and the each group took turn to play the drum. First, he showed everyone the basic stand of taiko and how to play the Oroshi. Oroshi is the basic draft for starter. The taiko player started slowly hitting with a long break; continue with shorter break and stop. On the second day of Golden Week, taiko class reviewed the Oroshi and Kris-sensei taught Pilgrim students how to play the Jiuchi and combine the Oroshi with the Jiuchi. On the third day of the Golden Week, the taiko class continued practicing the combination of the Oroshi and the Jiuchi. On the fourth day, Kris-sensei taught the taiko class the Kimazi. The Kimazi means straight simple meter. The Kimazi basically is hitting with the same temple and then come up with an Ukare. The Ukare means compound meter, which is hitting the drum with difference temple such as from loud to quiet and from quiet to loud. Later on, Kris-sensei taught the students how to combine all of the rhythms above as one song. The song started with the Oroshi and then the Jiuchi. Next to the Jiuchi is the Kizami and the Ukare. The Kizami and the Urake were the combination used to change the drummer. When group A finished the Kizami and Urake, group B will switch with group A and continue the song with the Oroshi and finish with the Jiuchi. After that, Kris-sensei gave the class an idea about the dance. The teamwork between teacher and students were working perfectly. The dance had 8 moves total and they were all the student idea accepts for the first one. On the last day of the Golden Week, Kris-sensei and the taiko class reviewed the whole song and the dance for the performance in the afternoon. The performance was awesome and everyone loved it. The first taiko class started with their own song, which was amazing. In the end, the second taiko class finished with the combination song and the dance and they were also really incredible. After everything done, all the taiko students gave everyone a good-bye with Japanese traditional way. After the performance, all the students were sad because the Golden Week is over and they all want another Golden Week next year.

Over the holidays I went home to Mt. Shasta and visited my parents.  During my stay, we went over to Mark Miyoshi’s to see the new, huge odaiko he’s building.  If you’ve never met Mark, he’s one of the most gracious, great, spiritual people that I know.  He builds taiko from scratch all by himself.  In Japan, you have workers who do each step of building a taiko.  One person who carves the inside out, one person who cures the skin, one person who puts the skin on, etc.  Mark does it all to amazing perfection.  He and his wife, Luisa, have chickens, a bee colony (of which I am enjoying the awesome honey from), make herbal tinctures, among other things.  Mark has been like an uncle to Shoji and myself.  The odaiko he’s building is the biggest he’s built and is part of a bunch of taiko he is building for display at The World’s First Global Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ opening in April, 2010.  Congratulations Mark!  This is a huge honor and it’s a huge honor to have Mark as part of my life.