Sigh

Frustrated and depressed today. For the past couple weeks I've been looking forward to going to taiko, and today we finally got to the new space and I was all happy and excited because we were working on slant stand kata, hitting big lefts and rights, paying attention to the little things like knees and knuckles and how to plant our feet. And I look up and there's this guy scowing at us through the fence, and at first I try to ignore him but I know he's trouble. When we stop for a minute, he starts yelling at us through the fence. He's all mad because we're violating his right to wake up and drink coffee and read a book in peace because our playing is so loud and invasive and, I quote, "random." Ugh, there were a million other things he said, but thinking about them makes me angry. Janet handled it much better, listening to the guy and trying to hold a civil conversation with him, whereas I would have pulled him through the chain link fence by the collar and shook him, because that's what I want to do to people who so blatantly push their entitlement around, going wah wah wah, you're violating my rights as a citizen! A citizen of Alameda!

Sigh. Do taiko players really have to banish themselves to remote islands in order to play their music? We muted the drums (remember that from before? We played a whole year on rubber and elastic covered drums, and then finished that off with the big November concert? We didn't even get to hear what we sounded like till, literally, the day before the concert.) and got through the rest of the rehearsal, but geez, it sucks.

The CHASM

I haven't yet told you about the best part of my new apartment. In one of the bedrooms is a strange cabinet-like opening. When we were first looking at the place, I was like, what's this?
I thought maybe it was just going to be a little opening big enough to fit books or maybe if we were lucky a tv, or something. But to my surprise, it's a chasm. I call it that because once I read a book called House of Leaves that was about this house that just opened up into incredibly vacuous chasms and I think the chasms eventually swallowed people up. Anyhow. You could literally fit a twin sized bed in there. It's an ideal storage place, and on the one hand it scares me to have such a vast storage area because I know we're just going to throw stuff in there that we're never going to use again and should really throw out.

Then I had this wonderful idea. Instead of turning it into a horrible mess of clutter, why not carve out my own little space in there? As the British would say, Brilliant! I've put some of my trusty milk-crates and a little rug and some holiday lights and brought up goodies like my practice pad and some bachi and metronome. When I settle in more, it's going to be my little solace from the world. It's a little messy right now, but just wait.
I think the chasm is actually a void over the apartment complex's laundry room, so I don't think the sound of me tapping on my practice pad is going to bother anyone. I was in there tonight, working on my counting drill, a little paranoid that someone was going to pound on the wall to complain, when all of a sudden I heard a very loud thud, and then the whole chasm shuttered violently, and for a split second I was thinking, oh, I've really pissed someone off now, but then I realized that instead we were having a little earthquake, and you've never seen me jump out of anything so quick. I'm a native Californian and I've lived my way through several earthquakes and all their after shocks, but I think I'm going to stay out here for a while. Wouldn't want the chasm to swallow me up, afterall.

Sushi Ya

I don't usually post links like this, but this was so hilarious I cried. Sushi-eating etiquette. Take notes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYlcgq-U5js

Time

Where in the world has the time gone? Since when did it start being December? I have had NO time in the past few weeks. The holidays snuck up on me and I'm not done with shopping yet. There are still a few boxes left on the floor of my new apartment that need unpacking. I need to learn the sequence of a new version of a song we're working on. I need to develop a logo for Maze Taiko. I need to schedule taiko classes for next year and figure out what we're going to teach. And for the love of gravity I still need to learn how to spin in place without falling over.

I miss being able to putter around. Maybe after all the holiday mayhem I'll be able to do that.

That's AUNTY Kiko to You

Got a call last Tuesday saying that it was time for me to come down to LA to be there for the birth of my first niece. I did what I could at work to make it happen, and I bought myself a plane ticket for the same day to fly down and catch a few winks of shut-eye before making my way to the hospital. Births are strange events. On the one hand you kind of have a window in knowing when it's gonna happen, but then again, we're dealing with nature here, so it's not like you can say that I need such and such day off and buy your ticket 14 days in advance and be there. Anyhow. It worked out.

Now, I've never seen a birth before. The only real birth that I've been semi-a-part-of was the birth of little bro. All I remember was that we went out trick-or-treating one night in 1979, and when we got home, Mom and Dad were gone and our Aunty was there. I remember waking up and my Aunty yelled at me for eating candy for breakfast, and then later my dad snuck me and my older brother to look at Mom through a side window at the hospital. Then we made a sign saying "Welcome home Alex!" and the rest was history. Oh, and before we could come near him, we had to wash our hands. And then the rest was history.

But this time it was different. My sister-in-law wanted me to be there--be there in the same room with her while the actual event was happening. Have you ever seen a birth before? I haven't. As I was trying to find where to park at the hospital I was thinking, I should have looked on the internet or something to see what happens during childbirth so that I could brace myself and be more prepared for the big event. Unfortunately with the whole moving thing and work-catastrophes and whatnot, I had neglected to do any research. I know from watching movies and tv, there is moaning, and yelling at the father, and blood and push! push! But here's what really happened:

Her labor was induced, meaning that the due date had come and gone and everyone was impatient and the doctors decided, eh, let's just give her a shot of the good stuff so the baby comes out. That was 7am. Then everyone got there and she was in a nice little hospital room. It was warm with nice little wooden shutters over the windows and a TV with VCR and a bureau and cabinets and private bathroom and a little sink and a sofa that folded out into a bed. It almost looked like a hotel room, almost. I counted how many of us were there and there were 9, and it wasn't that crowded. My dad was sitting on a chair reading Haruki Murakami and nodding off and we were sitting around talking and joking, and she was hooked up to a monitor that gauged the levels of her contractions and the baby's heartbeat and you could hear the heartbeats, and there was a machine that spit out the different readings on a long piece of paper like you see when they record earthquakes. My little brother suggested that we keep the paper and use it as a border to wallpaper the baby's room with. Unfortunately when we asked they said we couldn't keep the paper because it had to go into the records department for safekeeping (for lawsuits, I'm assuming). Everyone was very calm. Mom was in good spirits. She cringed a little when she had a contraction, but swore that she was not going to get an epidural because she didn't want her baby to be born on drugs and she had gotten through her first birth without them.

At one point, my nephew asked me to take him to the cafeteria. He had been there since before midnight, since that's when they wanted to start monitoring Mom in order to give her the baby-inducing shot. So I took him to get something to eat. I tried to tell him when he was eating that the baby was going to be very lucky to have a big brother, and I told him how I always felt safe to have my own big brother out there to protect me, and how it was harder for girls in this world. I don't think I actually ever had to play the big brother card, but still. Last weekend after we got stuff thrown at us when we were playing taiko I was telling my teacher how if my big brother were there he would have taken care of things.

Anyhow, we were only gone for maybe half an hour, but when we go back, the whole room had gone very quiet, and mom was lying on the bed, in obvious pain. She was asking when the anesthesiologist was coming, and had opted for the epidural. Good choice. In a little bit, the pain doc came in and inserted the good stuff right into her spine. There was a tube hooked up to a lock box that distributed the medication right where we needed it. My own mom had had a lock box except hers had morphine, so we knew exactly what the box was all about. In a little bit, mom's spirits were lifted again, and after a while the nurse came in to measure and before we knew it, there were 10 good centimeters of dilation, and in baby talk, that means it's time.

We kicked out all the boys, except for my big bro, the Dad, and then there were me, mom's friend, mom's mom, and the medical team. They didn't make us wear any outfits or gloves or masks, but I figured I needed to do something, so I reverted back to the only other birth experience I knew, so I went and washed my hands. If little bro turned out ok, then handwashing it was. Oh, and I ate cake (almost like candy) for breakfast, so it was all ok. And the room transformed. The bureau turned into baby station complete with oxygen, medical gadgets, and baby-receiving bed:Spotlights appeared out of the ceiling with the flick of a switch. And in the blink of an eye, a nurse had mom put her feet up on some stirrup contraptions and then pulled a lever which removed half of the bed so that what was left was half a bed and a place for the doc to come in and do his job. It was like magic. There was a special birthing garbage bag that fit right where it needed to be so that there was no mess, and there was a whole team there, at hand, ready for anything. I'm telling you, they made it look easy. There was no screaming involved. The nurse said you need to push like this, and mom pushed like that, and I tell no lie, in the 15 minutes between when the nurse said we were at 10 cm, we had a baby. I think she pushed for no more than 5 minutes. Maybe through 2 main contractions, and there was a head, and then there was more head, and in no time, the baby came out, and the moment the baby came out, the doctor thrust it, crying and completely healthy, right at mom. It was so fast, so unbelievable. Miraculous really. The dad was the calmest person in the room. He cut the cord, and Mom held the baby and rocked her in her arms, exclaiming, hello beautiful! Hello baby! You really need to see a baby born to understand.

Here's one of the first pics of the little family:
And now I'm an aunty! Aunty Kiko!Not that I wasn't an aunty before. But an aunty again. Oh and I'm so proud. Proud of my sister in law who should be an advocate for why-you-don't-have-to-fear-childbirth. Proud of my brother who was so calm and collected.

I got to hold the baby, eventually, eventually after I got over my fear of dropping her or breaking her, and she opened her eyes and looked right at me. She's got grey eyes! So beautiful! And she scowled up at me like me and my brother scowl, and then she yawned at me, and she looks exactly like her big brother and she is such a wonderous miracle. I'm pretty amazed. Wow. A baby!

Cheating

On Sunday I was accused of "cheating." We were working on this really great, yet simple drill that involves counting and nothing but doko's. I wasn't really cheating. Instead, I was reverting back to a style of playing that I first learned on the taiko, and have been playing for years. Everyone has their own style, and we learned a particular style from the Miyama region of Japan that involves holding the bachi with primarily the thumb and forefinger. I think it's a way of playing taiko fast. You create a certain fulcrum point on the bachi and you can whip it up and down pretty fast. Yeah, I was good at that. But now I'm learning a new style of holding the bachi (maybe it's San Jose style???) that involves holding the bachi with primarily the pinky and ring fingers. It's new and still awkward, but I can already see its advantages. I think I blogged about it a while ago. I was doing solo stuff and there was some fast rolling stuff I was trying to do, and Janet was like, try holding the bachi like this, and my little rolls were just shooting off my bachi. It was a relevation. And now we're starting to work more on technique (which I just love! I love spending time on anal little things that make you a better player in the long run. Before, all we did was try to learn new songs as fast as we could so we could perform them, and that really bothered me since I didn't think we could really become good taiko players without solid foundations. I was having this thought like six weeks into first starting taiko and with a performance looming in the immediate future. I remember driving home from a class and telling my friend, I wish we could just do drills forever. We would be such better players if we just knew how to hold our sticks right and feel the things in our bodies). And now, years later, I'm getting my dream. Janet thought it would be a good idea if we started incorporating more drills into rehearsal, and I was like, yay! I love drills!

So anyway, I was doing the doko drill, and Janet said, hey you're cheating! And I didn't know what she meant, and she said your thumb is coming up on top of the bachi, and in my head I was thinking, well that's perfectly normal. What is she talking about? But then she said I needed to curl my thumb under and not rely on it for fulcrum action (my words) and more for support. So all night I've been trying to do that. I've actually been working on the drill all day. Mostly it's been desk-taiko, which is easier to play than real bachi-taiko on practice pad/pillow/try not to annoy the neighbors-taiko. It's new, but it actually feels better, and if I can just try to gain some more control over the bachi, I think it'll be all right. We'll see. No one actually comments on my blog, but if there are any taiko players with input, or just commentary, let me know, if only to make me feel less alone in bloglandia.

Weirdos!

Yesterday we were at the new space and we were playing in one of the downstairs, windowless units because the other units were inaccesable. Anyhow, we were warming up with oroshi, kind of being really dramatic and loud, and some guy comes out in his underwear and yells at us to shut up. We didn't, of course. We're in an industrial area and they can't do much to make us shut up, but anyhow, we kind of ignored him and kept working on different things. Then later, he comes out and starts throwing stuff in our direction--we didn't get hit, and I don't think he intended to cause any harm, but the thing that I thought was funny was that he was yelling "Shut up, you--you--- . . . weirdos!" See, we're in the city of Alameda. I've lived in the Bay Area for close to 10 years now, and though I'd never really been to Alameda before I started coming to this new space, my idea of Alameda was that it is a place where you go live in little victorian houses with picket fences and raise your nuclear families. Very small town cozy charming kitty-cat puppy dog friendly neighbor green grass doilies ice cream and sunshine kind of place. All this in contrast to the great city across the way, Oakland. As the angry guy in his underwear was yelling at us, calling us weirdos, I was like, oh that's so lame. You poor guy. You need to go across the way and learn real explatives.

Anyhow. If things work out, we've got a show coming up in March. It's not a big deal--just a gig, but we'd like to use it as an excuse to get a good solid set together, and to work on new versions of things and polishing up other things. I think it's exciting. I like the hard work. I just wish it were possible to meet more. I know that everyone has their schedules, but Janet was wanting to meet twice a week, and I'm all for that, but I don't know if the others can do it. We'll see I guess. In the meantime, I've got a new version of an old song to learn, plus a couple of drills that I could spend hours and hours working on. Yippee!!

Moving--Last Time

Ok, this will be the last post about moving. I have nothing else going on in my life right now except moving. I am so tired of moving. Moving sucks. I swear that I am never moving again. No way. Or if I do, I will hire people to do it for me. I mean look, I got all the junk out of my old place, and now my new place looks just like my old place did right before I moved. Things are a mess. I can't find anything. I feel so unsettled. What I'd really like to do is sit down with my metronome and work on drills, but where is my metronome, and where would I sit??

Anyhow. Time for a public service announcement: Do you ever walk into the kitchen only to find your housemate doing this?:
That's DANGEROUS people. Is she diving into the oven? Is she worshipping it? Whatever she is doing, it is very clear that she is about to tip the oven over. We can prevent this. You need to do your P.A.R.T.!! That is, you need to do your part to Protect Against Range Tipping. Apparantly this is a serious problem. Apparantly oven divers/worshippers are getting injured by flying pots of boiled peas. And it must be happening internationally since the user guide has it written in 3 languages. Unfortunately, the word part doesn't quite translate with the same immediacy as it does in English. In any case, please please be safe in your kitchens. Protect Against Range Tipping!

Moving Stage II

Oh don't you just love moving? Don't you love discovering all those delicate muscles in your back that you didn't know you had till you strain one? Or those leg muscles so vital to lifting? Or counting every stair that you've climbed up and down for years as you make your way treacherously down them while carrying 80 pounds of books in your arms (your babies)?

Sigh. Our lease officially begins today, and we took a couple carloads of stuff over there. My apartment still looks full even after hauling a bunch of my vital accumulation of treasures over there. But I'm telling you, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I've discovered that my faithful Jeep is great at hauling and had more square footage of cargo than I thought it had. He's strong, powerful and faithful, my Jeep.

But the truth is, I'm not sure how I'm going to get 2 futons, 2 bookshelves, and a trio of cd shelves down the stairs, into some waiting vehicle and up another flight of stairs. It's not the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm trying to think of it as an adventure, like eating scallops at a buffet.

I've already refused many kind and generous offers for help. It's pride. It's my Japanese side. It's complete foolhardy and goes against every concept of common sense out there. A friend of mine offered hours of help and a pickup truck, but I said no. Truth is, it's not that I don't want the help, it's just that I don't know how I could possibly pay it back. But the part that doesn't make sense is, is that I've helped countless people move. I used to drive a minivan. And it was a completely hollowed out minivan (my dad, who bought it used, was convinced it was used in drug trafficking, or was it the Jeep?), so it was basically a two-seater with a bunch of empty space in the back. I wouldn't give a second thought to helping someone move. But accept the help? No way. No. Moving is a hellish, unredemptive experience. You put yourself through hard labor with no benefit except the gratefulness of the movee. I would not put anyone I loved and held dear through that. I don't care if they even wanted to do it. No. Japanese. Pride. For shame, you know?

So tomorrow is the big moving day. That's when I really break out in sweat and haul boxes. That's when I create a jigsaw puzzle out of a futon bed and the bed of the Jeep. Oh, give me the strength.

Just In

Just in from Internetlandia--a pic from the school show we did back in September:

I think it looks dangerous. And I could have sworn we were standing like 25 feet apart from each other when we were throwing those chekere around.

Oh, and I'm almost done with the chekere I've been making. I'm unhappy with the netting. It's not as responsive as Jenny's chekere. Don't know if it's the beads I'm using, or how I tied them, or if it's just a matter of getting the bottom ring on right. More fussing with that when I'm done moving.

Moving

While most of you were eating turkey (ok, I ate turkey too) I was packing up 8 1/2 years of STUFF, getting ready to move out of this teeny tiny apartment. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I'm upgrading to a 2 bedroom place. Now I don't think of myself as having that much stuff, but hey, after 8 1/2 years, things seep out into the corners and into the nooks and crannies, and they just accumulate. It's like stuff expands and does cellular division and multiplies like a virus. And I've got a full carload of stuff to be taken to the Salvation Army. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to decide if you should keep something or throw it out if you know you have to carry it down one flight of stairs and up another only to find a new place for it. Those shirts from the 90's you absolutely loved and think you'll wear again? Uh-uh. Really, people. Paislyey was a bad idea in the 60's, and it was a bad idea when it came back in 1993, and it's a bad idea now and in the foreseeable future. Anyhow. It's not as bad as I thought, it's just that seeing it all on my living room floor makes me a little tired and not as excited as I should be. I'm thinking about hiring some young men with musclely forearms and names like Joe or Frank to do the moving. Or not. It's not that much stuff, really. That's what I keep telling myself. Here's what I'm dealing with:

Oh and the books. As a lit major I've kept tons of books and unfortunately, underlined in the vast majority of them. I had this great system of underlining pretty passages in blue ink, and paper-worthy passages in red. This makes for un-re-sellable books and a great library. And when I say library, I mean multiple bookshelves worth of books. Classics, many of them. And I gotta part with them or move them, and as a lit major, you'd have to understand I'd rather move them than part with them. This means multiple trips. Seeing as I'm only moving blocks away, I'm willing, no matter how begrudgingly, to take the 2 or 3 trips, to move them. The things you do for art, people.

And speaking of art, tomorrow at 10 I have taiko, which means that I have to dig through that pile of stuff!! and find my shime and bachi bag. And for shame, this week has been so busy with packing and work-related catastrophes that I didn't work on taiko stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to get through a mental version of Kai to Ryu over my Frosted Shredded Wheats + tortilla. But really, I have good excuses. One of my co-workers got hit by a car while crossing the street (she'll be ok) and another's husband had to have a bizarre infectious growth removed from his belly (he'll be ok too), leaving only me and the other girl to cover for the admission office during a particularly important deadline. Plus the database went down for 2 days and we spent a day recovering all the work we had done the previous friday. Good excuses, people.

Oh, and just for entertainment's sake, I'm enclosing a picture of the carrying case of cassettes I decided to toss. Remember cassettes? The data was stored on electro-magnetic tape and played back chronologically, rather than digitally. If you remember the rotary phone, then you probably remember cassettes. Or if you know what I mean when I say that back when you were in high school and had a crush on someone then you made them a mixed tape. Someone told me about a year ago that the last blank tape rolled off the assembally line, only to go the way of beta (as in video cassettes, remember?) and giant floppy disks (back when they were actually floppy) and dinosaurs, and other long-dead things, like cukoos and shoulder pads. Here is my last stash of cassettes. Classics, each and every one of them. Long ago purchased on cd, and now transferred to mp4 format, or else forgotten, like all those really bad mixed tapes:

Taiko Show and Interpretation

Last night Janet and I played hooky from our batacuda class and went to go see Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble's show in the City. We got there half an hour early, and were amazed to find out that the show was already sold out. We heard it had been sold out the night previous, and I'm guessing opening night too. What a wonderful problem to have! We put ourselves on the waitlist, and with a little luck and a little help from someone I had taken a class with and who is connected to Somei (I'm so sorry! I don't remember your name! I know you and see you all the time at taiko events and you seem so nice!) we got into the standing room only section, which was actually a seat on the steps. Janet stood half the time--she absolutely refused to take my seat, which had a half-way decent view in between bodies and railings. I thought I was Japanese, but she's way more insistent and Japanese than I am the and the way she can order me to take a seat and all, well it's hard to put a fight up against--but hey, I'm working with a handicap, since I'm only half Japanese. I'll have to work on that.

The concert was a beautiful interpretation of a folktale I'm completely ignorant of--something about a horse seeing the reflection of the moon in a pool of water at night. I dunno. I was looking at the pretty arm movements and listening to the rhythms and watching their faces. Afterward, Janet kept asking me what I liked best about the show, and I was having a hard time trying to find ways to put my thoughts into words. For me, music is so wonderful because it transcends language, and one of the reasons why I love music so much is because it can do what language can't. This is coming from a creative writing major. There are whole worlds of emotion that reside in the nuances of the ma of a rhythm and in that lilting place between minor falls and major lifts (quoting Leonard Cohen, there). When I was writing my thesis for my MFA, I always wanted to try to incorporate the idea of music into my writing, but always found myself really frustrated because you can't really get the feel of a don to sit there on the page. Or arm muscles and intense faces and beautiful kata.

I think that I will need to be better at that--be better at being able to express myself from a more critical standpoint. Just another thing to practice.

Anyhow--chekere is almost done. Just need to decide how to attach the bottom ring to the rest of the net. I'll post when I get there.

Chekere Making, Part IV

Now I'm on the next and final phase of chekere making: beading. I was kind of dreading this part. I had to wait a long time for the right kind of string to come along. You'd think thin black twine would be easy to find, but no. I had to order it off the internet (ugh!) and they shipped it via snail mail, and I suspect they used actual snails to transport the string. Anyhow. The instructions said you create a ring to go around the top of the net for the other strings to hang down from and that part was easy. But then you had to cut the vertical strings and that part was easy too, except I was halfway through cutting them when I realized I was cutting them all too short. Good thing I know to expect this of myself and had ordered extra string for this sort of idiocy. I was a little nervous to start beading because I wasn't sure what I was doing. I had instructions, sure, but still. Here is a shot of me just starting out on the beading and being, in general, very happy:
Maybe when I get halfway down the chekere I won't be as excited anymore. Tying these knots sure can give you carpal:
But it's turning out a prettier than I thought:
This is not the kind of project for the wishy washy, or the hurried, or the far-sighted, or people with unsteady hands. I look like a grandma in this next shot. Or at least the kind of grandma who wears football jersies and makes chekeres. More later when I finish the thing.

disk error: memory full

More batucada last night. This time I brought ear plugs, but still went home again with a pounding headache. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the fact that my brain is full and I'm trying to cram more info and beats in there than there's actually room for. I guess I'll have to forget some things like the word for that thing that hangs in the back of your throat and the whatchamacallit thing that does the thing. Hopefully I won't forget that street sweeping is every 3rd Tuesday and when rent is due. Anyhow played the tamborim again last night. I actually bought a repinique for the class, but the assistant teacher was saying that the repinique is the lead instrument, and it's fine to learn it, but the master teacher will give you a hard time if you decide to play it. I'm gonna leave it at home for now. I actually didn't just get it for this class only. I was inspired by On Ensemble (who came up here to give a show a few weeks ago) and they said they liked to try to learn new instruments and incorporate them into their sets and to just try playing them because what the heck--kumi daiko is constanly evolving and changing and growing and there is always room for experimentation. Plus I just wanted a drum to pound on and maybe for parades or whatnot. Maybe I should get a tamborim.

So last week we got to learn from the master teacher, but last night he was out of town so an advanced student was teaching. It was nice because he broke down some of the patterns and explained things like where the 1 is in a certain rhythm (and now I know what he was talking about! And also why knowing where the 1 is is so important!). It's also nice to learn from advanced students because they'll often have a little more sympathy for you and where you're at in the learning process because maybe they're still struggling at the things that a master teacher would think is so easy. I still think of myself of an intermediate student but sometimes Janet will be talking about her new space and how she's going to have taiko classes and says that I'm going to be one of the teachers and that just seems so weird to me. Guess I better get used to it because I hope to be standing in front of a bunch of cheerful, eager students--someday.

And taiko yesterday too. We reworked a song. I don't mind changing things. That was one of the things that used to annoy me--people would get really upset if anything changed, so I think we missed a lot of opportunities to improve things in favor of getting one thing down, right, forever. But anyhow, yesterday we took a song that I had beautiful notes for, and we reworked and did and redid and undid parts and cut them into pieces and sewed them back together new and improved, and shall I say, more interesting. And just cause I like to look at pictures, here's a pic of my beautiful notes post-rework mangling:

My mom used to get so frustrated with me because I had bad handwriting. She had handwriting like a school teacher, and my dad used to teach drafting so he has the neat handwriting of an architect. My elementary school teacher said that I tried to write too fast and that if I slowed down my cursive would be better. I say speed-writing skills are way more practical and applicable and anyhow, don't we like things fast?

Post Script

Isn't it funny how life can sometimes throw things at you like a bad joke? So I posted this entry, went to my weekly meeting, and came back to my desk only to find an email from our database guys saying that due to a "catastrophic hardware failure," all the work I did on Friday has just vanished. Poof! Like it never happened, like it doesn't exist. I'm gonna have to do it all over again! And what's worse, I have to figure out what it was that I actually did! I just hope that after a batucuda class my head doesn't explode and I wake up not knowing how to play a tsu-ku or what bachi are.

What the *&%$ Was I Thinking?

OK, blue fingernails are not as cool as I thought. Maybe they're cool at first, but then they burn fiery hot and swell up twice their size and then turn all sorts of colors and a week later what you get is what you see--a disgusting nub of inflamed pain. Did I tell you I had to duck behind that backdrop we had set up in order to keel over for a minute while Janet kept the show going? I put the bear in there to offset the swollen grotesqueness that even the photograph couldn't caputre. And now my pinky is just in the way all the time. I can't type. I have a hard time washing my hair. And tonight I was practicing Renshu and my finger was sticking out and of course I accidentally whacked it again. I've never had a stronger urge to amputate a part of myself as I did after I whacked it again. I was told I'm probably going to lose my fingernail, and I was like what? And then what? This is just gross.

Renshu Makes Perfect

Learned a new piece yesterday. Basically it's a version of Renshu, but we were playing around with different arrangements and phasing and it sounds pretty cool. Renshu was the first song I ever learned at Emeryville Taiko, and we played it over and over and over till we went blind. I didn't think I could be excited about Renshu again. We play this version on slants and the energy is completely different--not so tense and robotic. But I realize that even after playing taiko for 6+ years, I still have a hard time with my doro suku's. My "homework" for this week is to learn how to play it really fast, and by really fast, I mean like so fast you can't even see your bachi fast. Yeah, we like things fast.

As if that wasn't enough new information to cram into my head, I also went to a samba batucuda class later that afternoon. I'd taken a workshop at Drum Camp this past summer and had a lot of fun with it so I decided to attend this class. Right before we started drumming they were like ok, time to put your ear plugs in! and boy they weren't kidding. Unfortunately my ear plugs were in the chekere bag at home. Anyhow, I played a tamborim, which is a teeny tiny drum you hold in your hand. It kind of looks like a tamborine, but no bells, and you hit it with a kind of floppy, doubled-up stick. I liked the way the class was taught. The teacher would introduce a pattern to people playing one type of drum and get you on that groove, then he'd go to another set of players and teach them something else, and he just kept layering on the players and then after a while he'd come back around and change your pattern so it was always interesting. And I've said it before, and I'll say it again, stepping on those downbeats really helps you learn.

Oh and I just got these pics a few minutes ago. They're from that circus benefit we did a month ago. I tried to iron my tabi for this, and when I told my fellow players this, they laughed at me.

I got one word for you: HEEEEEYYY!:

Halloween!

Last night, Halloween, we had our gig in the City. We were stationed outside what was called a "Haunted Garden," and our job was to play taiko while people waited in line to get in. Our setup was kind of cool and had that thrown-together look that somehow always works for Halloween:

And this is what the set looks like when it is actually haunted by a posessed demon drummer:

And yes, her bachi are actually the leg bones of some poor hapless soul. See?:

I have to say that this was probably the most effort I've put into a Halloween costume. It involved sewing, obi-tying, and a first for me--grease paint. That stuff is fun to work with. And with some sort of Clinique miracle remover-in-a-bottle, not so hard to take off. I copied a face I found on the internet. Here is a better view of our pre-sweat makeup jobs:

We got a chance to walk through the haunted garden and it was pretty cool. Every once in a while when we were outside playing, we'd hear the sound of children screaming cutting through all the other noise, which of course, warmed my heart. Tons more pics and scariness than what I'm posting here:
And yes that's Santa Claus. He was funny because he gets the kids on his lap only to ask them to give him some candy with the threat that if they don't he won't come to their house during the holidays. Isn't that hilarious?

And just cause I'm posting pics, here are pics of what happens to your hands when you play like posessed demons:

Blood blisters! Ew! Gross! (Yet I couldn't resist taking a picture of it--and it's not even mine) And I whacked my pinky so hard it turned blue! Isnt' that kind of cool? If it didn't hurt so much I'd whack all my fingers for Halloween. Today it's a little more grey and painful and I can't type with my pinky so now it's not as cool as I thought. Oh well. I had fun!

Wigged Out

Um, what is it with me, taiko and wigs? Now, I know when you play taiko, there is often costume involved. Sometimes it involves masks. Sometimes it involves stale old happi coats and super tight momohiki. Sometimes it involves trying to figure out how the #$%* you tie your obi. But wigs? I haven't worn more wigs in the past 6 months than I've ever worn in my lifetime. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. But my latest gig is for halloween and involves, um, a wig. On halloween we're going to do a thing in the City and yesterday me and Janet met went through her stash of old kimono and fabrics. She's thinking ondeko. She showed me her get-up. It involved kimono and shiny gold fabric and, uh, a wig. We found some silver fabric (you know how much I LOVE to wear silver") and a kimono, and "we" decided that I needed a wig to make the outfit. So we headed over to the local costume/theater shop, and on display were a fantastic number of wigs. There was a white one that she had had her eye on, but it was gone by the time we got there. I picked out a silver/gray one that would have gone well with the kimono/fabric thing we had already chosen, but when I put it on, I looked more like Eddie Munster than anything. She liked the shape of the Neptune hair/beard get-up and in the end we chose that.

So last night I was gettin' crafty again (thank goodness I decided to take that semester of sewing class in high school to fulfill that graduation prerequisite, whatever it was), and managed to piece together the silver fabric to the kimono and came up with this. It looks a little better when I'm actually wearing the thing with the red obi and of course, the wig. We're thinking white and red demon/kabuki face paint.


Hopefully I'll get some blog-worthy pics when we actually do the gig. It actually sounds really fun--it's at a famous musician's house (shouldn't say who tho) and there's a good turn-out for the thing. I have a special place in my heart for scaring the &$*# out of children, so hopefully this will involve some of that. If not, it's a great opportunity to wear, uh, a wig.

Chekere Making, Part III

I received my new gourd dye in the mail the other day and I've just been dyeing to tell you...Get it? Dyeing? Gourd dye? Heh heh, ha, . . . um. Yes I'm a dork. So last night I put a bunch of newspaper down in the bathtub and climbed in and got to work with my new gourd dye. I also got a special gourd dye applicator thingie that worked out well. Here's the end result:

When it dried, it ended up looking a little less red. But then when you've got it under the light it looks red again. I think I like it, depending on the light. The dye works fabulously. Goes on nice and even and smooth and stains it rich and dark. Comes in 17 colors. Hardly got any on my hands thanks to the applicator thingie. Varnishing tonight and then, ack, the dreaded next step: beading. Haven't even got the beads yet--was thinking of going to look for those this weekend. I just hope I get ones that sound good because I don't want to get done with all the macrame work only to find out that the chekere goes fizz when I want it to go CLACK. Ah well, live and learn.

LA and stuff

Just got back from LA. Boy was I a busy girl down there. Left the house at 5 am on Thursday and drove the six hours to get there. At one point during the drive my Dad called and asked what time I'd be there and I said 11. And sure enough at 11 on the dot (Dad said it was 11:01, the stickler) I pulled up in the driveway where he was washing a car and I exclaimed what'd I say? I have good timing. I took vacation time for this trip, but it wasn't a vacation, believe me. I cleaned the house (I can clean that house for days because it's inhabited by two very sloppy guys--heck I could spend days just cleaning the floors), dug a 3'x3'x3' hole to plant an ailing tree in (digging holes is great for the muscles by the way. If you want to feel the burn for days afterward, go dig yourself a hole), weed-wacked the ailing lawn, pulled the weeds that a weed-wacker won't wack if a weed wacker could wack weeds, baked chocolate chip cookies, muffin tin cookies and a batch of cream puffs (also made the dough for another batch of cookies, chilled it for 3 hours, but when it was time to put them on the baking trays I realized that I had forgot to put the eggs in! Du-oh!!), made a slew of won tons, picked up a tray of sushi, went grocery shopping, and during all that I managed to find time to see friend Mary. We went out and had dinner and then because it's Mary, found our way to the ocean and chatted on the cold beach for hours and I didn't get home until 5 in the morning. I froze my butt off but it was so worth it since I only get to see her a few times a year. Then I had to wake up 2 hours later to get ready for my sister-in-law's baby shower. I'm gonna be an Aunty!! Did I already tell you that? And it's gonna be a girl! Busy busy all that day. I didn't get any pics worth posting. A lot of baby-shower-gift-opening pics, but those would bore you. This morning I woke up at 3:45 in the morning and drove back up here to Oakland. I don't know if I'm sleep deprived or not because I'm on my third cup of coffee right now.

What day is it anyway?

Chekere Making, Part II

So after waiting anxiously at my mailbox, my order for the gourd cleaning balls finally came in:

For the past two nights, I've been on the bathroom floor with my drill gun and the gourd cleaners. They're actually called "Easy Cleaner" balls, but I think the "easy" part is a misnomer. I think they should be called "More Civilized Than a Bent Coathanger But Not as Easy As You Would Think Cleaner Balls." The gook on the bottom of the gourd is tenacious, and it's really hard to see inside the gourd when you've got a drill gun (heavy!) stuck in it, and it's dark in there too, so I've been straining my neck and arms to point a flashlight and manouever these cleaner balls around. It feels a little like dentistry. Anyhow, I'm making headway and I can already hear a nice bass sound when I thump the bottom of the gourd.

I also bought a gourd dye, but when I tried it out, it looked exactly like the color of blood. Exactly. The color disturbs me, especially since I've already named the gourd "Alex's Head," since it kind of looks like my little brother's head--mostly round but flat in the back (sorry bro--that was my first impression of the gourd when I picked it out at the store, and first impressions stick, yo). I put in another order for a different color dye, and sigh, I'm waiting at the mailbox and despairing over the shipping costs. I love this whole shopping-on-the-internet thing, but if I were smart, I'd have gone into the shipping business since they're the real ones making a killing on it.

Anyhow. Spending another night on the bathroom floor again. Then tomorrow it's off to LA for a baby shower. Apparently I know how to make sushi and am in charge of that (it's a lie. I've enlisted one of my aunties to teach me how to make sushi, which is exciting. She also said we're gonna buy a couple trays of ready-made too. She's smart. I like her).

Menudito!!

I went to the grocery store by my work the other day, and to my absolute delight, I found menudito! I was so happy that I actually jumped up and down and screamed out loud MENUDO! The store by my house is too fru-fru and white bread to carry menudo. This stuff is comfort food. This stuff will pull me through the gloominess of a rainy day any old time. Whenever I go to LA and if it's a Sunday, my dad will take me out to get a piping hot bowl of this stuff. True, you need a refined palatte and a solid constitution to take on menudo, and while I think my older brother will eat it, I don't think I've ever seen little bro ever get close to the stuff. No, he makes desserts with teeny tiny blow torches* and throws words like amuse bouche around, but I don't think his bouche would find the likes of menudo amuse-ing at all. Yes, it's made out of tripe and hominy--food of the people--but hey, give me a fistful of tortillas and a glass of coke (gotta have the coke to help wash it down) and I'm a happy girl.

*(hey little bruddah, when are you gonna make something like that for me?)

Chekere Making, Part 1

So Friday night I was sitting at home, wondering what I was going to do with myself this weekend, and then I remembered! Hey, why don't I make a chekere? There are instructions on how to make them on the internet, and they don't seem that intimidating. The chekere I'm playing now was made by master artisan Jenny Fuss, who made all of Emeryville Taiko's drums plus a slew (sp?) of taiko stands and other taiko essentials--and not just for E'ville. I'd considered asking her if she had any chekere for sale, but I wanted to take this challenge on. I'm all for supporting artists, especially local ones, but she is my inspiration and chekere role-model, so maybe one day I too can have as much craftiness as she has in her little finger. It's gotta start somewhere, with something, right? Anyhow, there are basically just a few steps:

1. Get a gourd. Gourds can be found on the internet (I bought a couple online, but they weren't quite what I wanted as far as shape went--every gourd is different) and you can also find them in some stores. I went to the Caning Shop in Berkeley. They have a friendly staff, but I think they were a little low on inventory (the time of year, I think). You can get gourds two ways: dried, or uh, undried. Undried gourds require you to store them somewhere for several months while they dry out and accumulate mold and gook. All the gross stuff washes off, but eh, I'm impatient, so I opted for the already-dried gourd:



Look at the pretty markings on the skin. I think that's from the mold. But then, I wouldn't know first hand since I'm lazy.

Step 2. Cut the top off and clean out the insides. This is the step I'm on right now.



I got a gourd with a narrower neck since that is what I'm used to playing, but I can't fit my hand in there. On the internet everyone said that how they cleaned out the gourds is to use whatever you've got: bent coat hangers, spoons, grapfruit knives, old drumsticks, whatever. I got the mass of seeds and other gourd linings out, but there is a layer of other stuff in there--kind of like when you peel an orange, and there's the white membrane still stuck to the fruit. Anyhow, it's hard to scrape off. I tried coathangers and stuff, but it's too far in there, so I had to stop. My tools were blunt and uncivilized:



I showed this pic to a friend of mine and she said, ooh, that's a scary picture. And then I was like, yeah, that's probably what the gourd is thinking too! Luckily, there are people out there who are crazy about gourds and gourd crafting, and I went to a website that supplied all the paraphanalia of gourd-addiction. They've not only got gourds, but dyes and wood burning tools and cutting tools and scraping tools and just about everything you could want. Since I've got a power drill, I opted for the gourd-inside-cleaning-out tool. Basically it looks like an abrasive ball on a long drill bit. It oughta do the job, but I have to wait a couple days for it to come.

More updates on step 2 when I get the bit. And then on to step 3: dying, and then the dreaded step 4: beading. Step 5: Playing has already been well documented.

Circus Show!

Circus show today! And no, I don't mean our show was a circus act. We were surrounded by many many talented young performers (school-age, mostly) who put on wonderful, jaw-dropping acts. Stilt-walkers, acrobats, trapeze artists, lion dancers and more. And most of them weren't even in high school! I can't even do a pull up, but a pair of girls were doing work on a trapeze that would leave you in tears.

I have a lot to learn about stage-stuff. Terminology, mostly. The one thing that I do know about stage is that if you don't know what you're supposed to be doing or where you're going, then get the #@^! out of the way and ask the right person. Yesterday as we were doing tech stuff, the director guy asked me to move my drum downstage, and I was like, oh my god what is he asking me to do? I turned over to Janet and frantically whispered, which way is downstage? And she told me. This morning Bean was telling me that Janet told her that story, but if it was Bean, Janet probably would have let her suffer. I guess I'm pretty lucky. Not that it's an excuse to be lazy, because I need to learn that basic stage language, and because I'd really like to get good at this kind of stuff. Janet can walk into a tech like we did yesterday and know her way around even though none of us knew what they wanted exactly. Plus, it's in my blood. My Dad used to teach stagecraft, and my little brother pretty much ran the technical aspect of the theater program in high school. He'd be up in the catwalks and in the booth running things. I'm very impressed. I can do it. I have to say that one of the most important things that my Dad has taught us is to use our ingenuity. His thing is to take what you've got and just work it. I was always amazed when I'd be packing up my stuff to go home for the summer in college, and he'd be able to fit all my junk into the car. Or last summer when I was in downtown LA for the taiko conference I was trying to go home, but got all turned around and went off the map my Dad had laid out for me (it was great--he actually drove with me to LA and showed me which streets went where, then he took the bus home while I went to STI) and then I was like, OK, I'm off the map, but I've got loads of common sense, so I used that and I found the freeway--the right freeway--because there are like a million different freeways down there. And I was so proud of myself because I was like, ok, I've got nothing to go on but the common sense my parents have worked so hard on instilling me my whole life, and look where it got me! Back home to them! I'm off the subject now, but I really wanted to let you know how awesome my parents have been to me.

The show was great folks. It was a packed house in a really big auditorium. I don't think I've ever played anywhere as big as that before. We played Mokuyobi and I am very happy with my solo. Imagine that. Happy.

Taiko practice is postponed for the month of October, but that's gonna give me a chance to work on my own stuff. I need to start running again, and I have to work on those Okinawan clacker things (sanba, I think they're called) and maybe chekere, and maybe some art stuff, and now I'm a little inspired to try to work on my pull-ups. It's an exciting time. I'm loving this.

Ch-Ch-Changes . . .

. . . Time to face the strain. Time for me to fess-up, folks.

So I don't know if you can tell from reading this blog, but I haven't been involved with Emeryville Taiko for a while. I've actually been on a self-imposed, somewhat unintentional break. I needed it. I needed the time to look at how far I've come, and what I would like to work on for the future, and while I love E'ville, am so indebted to E'ville, I finally decided that in order to continue to grow as a taiko player (and as a person, really), that I needed to leave the group. I've actually thought this for a long time, but was finally asked to let the appropriate people know, and so I did--via email, which I know is wimpy and I will be the first one to fess up to my wimpiness, cause when it comes to people and talking to people, well, I suck at that, and can be way more coherent and intelligent and thoughtful if I can write it down, cause I'm a writer after all. Sounds lame, huh? It is. I felt lame. But a part of me also felt hugely relieved. I don't like secrets, and I've felt for a while that working on taiko with other people had to be kept a secret, though I don't know why, because no one said it had to be a secret. And by "no one" I mean Janet, and why do I feel that talking about working with her needs to be a secret? (But then again everything that I've been doing has been pretty much documented on this blog which I post on the internet for all the world to see, and my name is right there on the front page though no one knows I'm a blogger--cause it's a secret ;) )

Anyhow, I told E'ville, and thought I was free and clear, and then let Janet know, and though she was glad I had done it, she thought also that I needed to make a personal call, ie, on the telephone (which I hate doing. I hate talking on the phone--it's all about body language and eye-contact for me, because worlds of things are being said just by a flick of the eyes or a shift in weight--but I digress). And I was like, AWWwww!! But I already wrote the email! But another part of me was like: she's totally right. I need to do this to make things right. And she said so herself that it was better to deal with the immediate uncomfortableness rather than feel regretful about something, which I felt a twinge of after I had hit send on that email. And I debated and squirmed for a day or two, but finally made the call, and it was not as bad as I thought. Before I made the call, in my head I was thinking: this really is not the hardest thing you've ever done. You've dealt with way harder and more important things in your life. This is just going to be uncomfortable. And it was uncomfortable. And it did not even come close to being the hardest thing I've ever done.

So there. I did it. And now I don't feel regretful. Well, I will miss my taiko classmates and teacher and the comfort of being part of the large group that had been with me for 5+ years. Maybe I just feel a bit of sadness. But things are always changing. And you are always changing, and the thing that I'm learning about life is that you have to change with the world around you. And things sometimes are in your control, and other things aren't, and sometimes you have to give up the control you only thought you had, and that you have to grab a hold of your life sometimes, just grab it by the ears and pull no matter how hard it hurts and move on and change. And if things don't change for you, then just swallow whatever it is that's holding you back and find ways to make things change. What am I saying really?

Grab it. Grab your life . . . and pull.

Gettin' Crafty

So as we were packing the taiko and equipment up after the school show Janet said we ought to make a bag for the chekere she's been letting me borrow, since the bag it's in is more of a sack than anything. She wanted something with a reinforced bottom and a little more padding. And then of course as we were moving stuff into the cars, someone dropped the chekere (not me! I just heard the thump and was like--CRINGE, there goes the chekere). It didn't get hurt, but just punctuated the need to make a chekere bag even more.

I took a look at Janet's chekere bag, and then looked on the internet for a similar pattern which I modified a bit for size, and added a couple layers of batting, and also changed it so the reinforced bottom could be removed and the bag washed, if desired, ie, if I got so nervous that I vomited on it, or whatever. After most of an afternoon and part of the evening I wound up with this:


Check it out! It's a bag! And this is coming from someone who can barely hem pants. I took one sewing class in high school (to fulfill a requisite, believe me). I wasn't fond of the teacher, but at least I learned how to use a sewing machine.


The chekere fits nice and snug, like a swaddled baby.

If I do this again, I need to figure out how to attach some sort of strap or handle, and maybe add a decoration, and a pocket somewhere inside to stash earplugs. But hey, I'm happy.

Circus For Arts in the Schools

What are you doing next Sunday? If you can, try to make it out to this fundraiser to bring the arts to Alameda schools. Oh, we'll be playing too--5 minutes of pure, unbridled, taiko joy. We practiced really hard, promise. Oh come on, it's for the children!

Check it out: Circus for Arts in the Schools

Some Days

Some days, like today, I get sad. I miss mom. This is what I get for reading old emails. I used to have more sad days than I do now, but they still happen. Lately I've had a lot of exciting and happy things to blog about, but I'd much rather tell mom than blog about them. She'd be excited too. I used to spend so much time hiding in my room, so shy, not wanting to go out and do things or meet new people, and I know that she always wanted me to get out more, and now it's like: Mom! I'm doing all that! I'm talking and having conversations with people and I'm getting on stage and performing and stuff! And then I realize, like on days like today, how much I miss her.

Practice Makes Perfect

Last night for rehearsal we hauled taiko to the new space, which at this point is just that--a space with framework around it. Lots of construction and exposed beams and wires here and there and giant nails scattered on the ground and piles of bricks. But exciting too because you can see enough outlines to tell that things are coming together. Bean and Carolyn were there too and we worked on Mokuyobi for the October 1st gig. Janet said I need to hold back on how loud I play basic so that the soloists can come through. So true. I know I play loud sometimes. I thought I needed to play louder so the solist could hear the basic, especially when it starts to fall apart, but I know I need to work on finding the balance while playing with others. It was just a little comment, but one of those things that people say to you that really sticks--couldn't stop thinking about that all day. I was also trying to work on projecting the energy of my solo, but found some places where the patterns I'm playing take away from the energy, so I'm hoping to do some honing and polishing. That's not a bad problem to have, eh? Especially since just a week and a half ago I hated my solo altogether.

Oh, and I get to show C how to tie an obi. I was joking that it only takes a few hours to learn to tie it, but even making that joke makes me realize how anal I am. Either that or I have OCD. Or maybe it's because I'm a perfectionist. Oh whatever. I admit it, I'm a perfectionist. I practice. I obsess. I'm a freakazoid. That's my idea of fun anyway. You know you do it too.

I think one of those children at the school show coughed on me and gave me their cooties because I've been feeling cruddy all week. And I've been working overtime by coming in early and leaving late so that I can earn enough money to buy that beautiful, beautiful minidisc recorder, but this schedule is just draining me. I was a little relieved last night when I asked if we had rehearsal on thursday but turns out we don't, so maybe I can sit at home and watch premiere week and sip tea.

Can You Say School Show?

Did the school show today! It was fun. It was strange to be on stage with a cafeteria full of kids sitting in neat rows on the floor looking up at you. I remember once as a kid I too sat on the floor in the cafeteria as a group presented their stuff to us--can't remember what it was though, just remember as the grand finale they said they were going to be so loud and wild that the roof was going to fall in, but it didn't, and I was a little disappointed. They were loud though. But it's interesting to kind of see how you remember those things, and maybe one of those kids will remember our show and want to pursue taiko, or something in the arts anyway, and maybe stand up on a stage decades from now, looking down at the same wide-eyed kids they were. Why isn't there more arts in the schools?

All the preparation I did was worth it, and now I feel like I've got a solid school show under my belt, so if you've got a gig, we're available. Janet and Bean have done a million school shows, so I'm sure this was no big deal for them. During the show, Janet would say a word and ask the kids to repeat the word back. She'd play chappa, talk about it, and then say chappa, and then all the kids would say it back. It was a running theme. Listen and repeat. Our closing song was Mokuyobi, and it was really hilarious because Janet would just randomly kiai during the song, and all the kids would kiai back. I kiaied, they kiaied. Bean kiaied--you get the point. I was laughing so hard I could hardly play. Kids are funny. Why do we stop being kids if it's so fun?

Oh, and my Mokuyobi solo went fine. I like it and all, and I've got this new set of movements I really like, but there are places that could use more energy, and maybe I'll work on it some more before the October 1st show. We'll see. I love this deadline thing. Makes me so much more motivated and productive.

Happy weekend everybody.

Help me Obi One

I'm going to flaunt my ignorance here, only because I think it's kind of funny, and maybe you will too, or maybe you'll just groan and cover your eyes, which I did a lot of too. The other night I got my first lesson in obi tying, and I was practicing it again last night because I'm going to be wearing a new kind of costume for the school show, and will have to put it on and tie it myself--probably in a hurry. And I hate tying things in a hurry, and have only recently gotten the tie-the-hachimaki-in-a-hurry thing down (my secret: be sure to get a hair cut before a performance!) But I must have been at it for like an hour before I got it to look decent. And before it started to even look decent, it looked like this (sorry so blurry--it's hard to take a pic of yourself!):


I think it looks like some hideous clown bowtie! Awful! Wrinkly! Sloppy! You better watch out and make sure water doesn't squirt out of that thing. I had a friend looking for obi tying tips on the internet, and I was trying to watch videos of other people's obi, but I figured I just needed to practice. My neck was aching from peering down so much and I was starting to get sweaty, but after fussing with length and figuring out the knotting, I think I finally got something that looked ok. Some people can get the knot to be perfectly square, but I couldn't figure out how they'd do that. Any suggestions? I'll practice again tonight, and if I get the obi on and Janet doesn't laugh at me like she did the other night, I'll count it as a success.

Playing With the Big Kids

When you were a kid, did you ever get the chance to finally play with the bigger, older kids? You know, the ones with all their big-kid wisdom and experience, with their nicer toys and their secret language? And you have no idea how it happened, or why they decided to let you into their world and and let you actually participate in their big kid games, showing you all the cool spots, giving you pats on the back, sharing their in-jokes with you, defining words to you you never understood before? That's totally what happened tonight, and it was only a glimpse, but I felt so wide eyed and in awe. So Janet's old friend and fellow percussionist Bean is in town, and she is going to help out with the school show, which is actually a huge relief to me, and I was a little nervous meeting her because I am so shy, but all for no reason, because she is one of those really nice people you can't help but like, and she kept winking at me as she would jokingly give Janet a hard time, which was kind of funny because I've never seen anyone give her a hard time before.

And it is so obvious that I am a complete novice at this. But am so glad that I studied all the things that have been taught to me just over this past summer. Downbeat, check. Upbeat, check. Bell pattern. Solo preparation. Syncopation. Check. I even used the stepping thing to help me to keep steady time--all on my own, no one told me or showed me, and which is what you gotta do, you know, when you play with the big kids. They are going to play a song I've never performed or seen performed, and so had to learn right there on the fly--had to learn a bell pattern on the spot--and play it on an actual bell. Never did that before. High and low. And new chekere (I'm gonna spell it with a 'c' now) patterns on the upbeat for one part, downbeat for another. I know this, right? Yeah, I do. Cool. I would be playing stuff and I'd look up and Janet would be smiling, and she does that sometimes--usually when I'm all concentrating and stuff, I'll just look up and she's looking back smiling, and I'm not sure what that means. Am I doing it right? Do I look funny? Is she just in her own world smiling? What? What? And she knows me well, because she leaned in at one point and was like, are you recording this? because she knows that's how I learn. And I thought I was recording it, but turns out I plugged the mic into the headphone jack--darn, that was dumb. But didn't I write about this earlier? About how you can't always depend on the MD to record, and have to be able to learn things on your own? It's no big deal, I got it all up here.

I bought a happi coat in SF last weekend because we needed outfits, but when I brought it in, it turned out to look more like sushi-chef than taiko player (it's hard to find happi in September, people), so Janet is lending me a much more beautiful and complicated costume-y thing. I have to learn how to tie the obi so I got a lesson on that, but wound up tying what looked like a huge, ugly bowtie around my waist. Practice, practice.

Everything is so overwhelming, but at the same time exciting. As I was leaving, Janet said she wouldn't put me through all this, all these changes and new things to learn at the last minute (48 hours before!) if she didn't think that I thought it was fun and would be up to it. And indeed, she knows me well, because I do think it is so much fun. Hard, but fun. Up to it? Oh hell yeah.

But what am I doing blogging, when I should be practicing? Gotta go people. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Finito!

Just a quick post to say that last night I was putting the finishing touches on my solo, and at a certain point I realized: Hey, it's finished! I have a Mokuyobi solo I actually kinda like! Now, I know that solos will probably always be works in progress, but I think this is a version I can actually live with and enjoy playing. It's a good length, it's got lots of movement, I like the rhythms, and now all that I need to do is try to project the energy of it. I've got the school show on Friday, and then another two-show gig on October 1st. We'll see what happens, but I'm actually kind of hopeful. Excited, really!

It's all about the good advice and encouragement, people. Just a little bit goes a long way!

Stuff to Ponder

Had a good rehearsal tonight. School show stuff is coming together. I wrote that matsuri solo and actually played it, if imperfectly, tonight. All that shekere practice was worthwhile, and I finally got the sequence down, and it's not as hard as it seemed. I've spent many hours in my abandoned field, so I've been pretty confident with my rudimentary shekere skills. Have you ever seen a shekere solo? I mean, I've seen shekere played as narimono in a larger taiko context, but a solo? Tonight Janet did things to her shekere that I never even thought to imagine could be done to a shekere. She did things to her shekere that I would not (at this point) even dream of attempting. Not even in sleep. Not even as a wild fantasy. Wow. Afterwards, I asked: are your ears ringing? Because mine were, and I think that early onset hearing loss will be knocking at my door soon (if I hear it).

But tonight was a more philosophical night. Janet wanted to work on Mokuyobi solos, and I was just dreading that. And yesterday and today I was working all day on trying to compose a solo, and getting frustrated, and so I pulled back and started thinking about solo stuff. Like, what is a solo really? Is it movement? Is it the patterns? I listened to cds and watched a bunch of solos on dvds, and the thing that I wanted to know was what was going through Janet's mind when she is soloing, and I asked her that much, and she gave me a really thoughtful and thorough answer. And it gave me a lot to think about, and she actually gave me some pointers that were really useful. Actually, she did what I always thought she was really good at, which is to make you feel that whatever it is you're working on is important and meaningful and worth working on even more. Sometimes I'm so caught up in learning new stuff and stressing that I forget that she is really good at encouragement. I told her about how what I do is create loops of the basic, and then spend all day listening to the loop and trying to put a solo on top of it, and how frustrating it is to work on something for a year and still not be happy about what I'm doing. So I have my Mokuyobi solo, which I think sucks and is unoriginal, and she was like, what do you like least about your solo? And nothing much came to mind (well actually everything came to mind but it was too hard to point out one thing), and then she was like, what do you like best? And I found a part that I liked and we worked on that. And then she said, I'll just be your human metronome, and I won't listen to what you're playing, so I played my solo, and she lied because she really was listening, and had me work on projecting my energy in a certain way and also on this one little technique, and it totally rocked my world, and will no doubt influence my form, technique and playing forever. It was just about how I held my bachi, and it was so little and so simple, but really, people, just a little tweak can change everything.

So now it's like I'm a little more energized about creating the Mokuyobi solo, and she spent like what, 15 minutes with me giving me pointers and encouragement, and my mind is spinning, and it's like 1:00 am and my mind is still very much in the 'on' position.

Oh, and another thing. She was saying that I ought to learn more narimono, so she leant me some of her Okinawan--I don't know what they're called--they're kind of like castinets. When I was in Okinawa the street vendors were playing them on the sidewalk and I should have bought some, but never did.

She never really had any formal lessons, so she passed on what she knew about playing them to me, which is hold it like this and then run your fingers over them like that, and just keep messing around with them till you figure something out. I'll have to work on it. They have a nice crisp sound and it would be cool to be good at them. Anyone out there ever play these and have any advice to pass on?


And something really cool is that my little bro came into town because he is going to ride his bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles for a benefit for the Arthritis Foundation. He was saying that the other day he rode for 100 miles! Isn't that amazing? Oh, and he brought a bunch of really cool birthday presents, and one of them was a shaker, which I've had my eyes on for a while, plus koinbobori kites, and a cool cd, and special wires for my MD, and a moleskine notebook and best of all, a New England Patriots jersey that has the quarterback's name and number. Good luck to little bro and his trek down the California coast!!

Quick! Say it With Me: An-ti-ci-pa-tion!

Did you say it? I'm not even sure I did, and I was the one typing it out. Rather, I think the operative word is preparation. So tonight I was at rehearsal, and we're working on getting a school show together, and my problem was that I don't think I was adequately prepared. My fault entirely. I mean, I should have had a solo together, and was actually doing lightening fast solo-composition this morning, but I know myself, and I know that I need all that soaking-in time. Like I can write a solo (painfully) but need the time to let it seep into my bones so that when the time comes, I can just play it. It was amazing that I was doing lightening-fast solo-composition at all, but I just knew, I just knew, that we'd be working on it tonight, but was I prepared? No. Maybe it's the old English major in me that was trying to cram a solo in at the last minute, like writing those 12 page papers at 2 in the morning the day before it's due. I had a roomate once that would ask me to wake her up at 2 in the morning so she could start working on her paper. Now that's last minute if you ask me. She always got them done, though, and I thought that was amazing.

Ok, I'll be the first to admit it. I hate composing solos. It's so painful for me. It's hard. It's hard work. Oh, and did I mention, I wasn't just an English major, I was a creative writing major, so it wasn't just about spitting back facts and arguments from literature, it was about writing literature, or smut, or whatever you want to call it. Creativity. And do you know who my worst critic is against my own creativity? ME. So I'll have a sentence or a paragraph, and guess who's at my shoulder shooting down every word I write? ME. And guess who's at the end of each line of matsuri solo saying that sucks, or that's so unoriginal? ME. But there is something about the pressure of a deadline, or a Thursday night rehearsal that will send the critic running for cover and let me compose or create. Tonight I got home from rehearsal and I was like: I'm so stressed! I need so many solos and I have only so much time, and I need to get this done NOW! So what I did was hunker down and write a matsuri solo I like, and will probably keep in its present form, much like my Kanki no Wa solo I wrote for that concert a while ago. We're still working on Kanki, and I find myself going back to that original solo, but tweaking things here and there, but I like it, and hope that it emerges from stress and deadline a renewed animal. It's the same with this matsuri solo. I'll stress all over it, but it will become engrained within me, and I'll probably remember it forever.

But tonight we were working on Mokuyobi solos, and I totally had this prepared for drum camp, but when it came time to noodle with it, I could not, for the life of me, remember how the @#$% it started. Janet was like, it's good to try to work on changing a solo, but it's also good to keep the beginning the way it is, and I was like, but I can't remember how it begins! I couldn't! I really couldn't! I don't know if it was the pressure of having to actually perform the solo in front of a live person, or if the pressure stemmed from the fact that the live person was Janet, because even after a couple of years of actually working with her and being around her, I am still incredibly shy around her, I don't know why. I mean, when she solos, it's like magic, and when I solo it's like kerplut...don. Also a problem I'm having is that I've been working on coming up with a solo for this song for over a year, and when it comes time to even think about it, my mind just goes blank. What's up with that? Does that ever happen to you? I assume if you're still reading, then you must be a taiko player, or else have some sort of interest. Why do I always run into a brick wall with coming up with a solo for this one?

Anyhow. I have less than 24 hours to come up with solos for another song, and they're short and sweet metered solos, and I'll try to turn off the internal critic while I compose, because I really have no choice. Solo or DIEEE!!

Ok, and because I've had way too much time on my hands lately, or because I've been procrastinating too much on those solos, I've found the new toy that I absolutely must have. It's a minidisc recorder that uploads to your computer effortlessley. If you're a minidisc afficionado, then you know that to get your fabulous recordings onto your computer, you have to play back your recording in real time back to your computer's mic-input--remind you of cassette technology? A friend said, why make those great digital recordings if you have to re-record them back in analog? So why did I pay so much for the fancy mic and the juice box and consider buying the other expensive stuff if I'm just going to be utilizing analog technology?

Look at the pretty picture:


I must have it. Ugh. Keep me busy at work or I will be shopping for this thing endlessly on the internet. Boy o boy is it late for me to be up. Gotta go to bed now. Solos will be replaying through my dreams tonight. Night-night everybody.

Muscles

Every muscle in my legs ache. Plus most of the muscles in my lower arms. Yesterday I was having a hard time just squeezing toothpaste onto my brush--my hands were shaking from fatigue so much. Those Shidara folks sure know how to put on a great workshop, and I know they were going easy on us, but wow, it's hard to imagine how fit they must be to be doing this every day. I took the katsugi okedo workshop in the morning, and have decided that my next taiko purchase will probably be an okedo, if I can learn how to tighten and care for it. They sound cool and I was so blown away by the Shidara folks' playing. They showed us some basic kata and playing techniques, but I can see how you could spend years and years learning how to play that style. We play them just on down stands, and they have a really unique sound to them. Different from the boominess of regular josuke. In the afternoon, I took the Hana Matsuri workshop. We learned basic dance steps to the song, and it was a lot of fun, but the movements were kind of strenuous for those non-dancers (such as myself) out there. Hop forward, back, to the side--you just don't realize how hard that is until you do it for a couple of minutes. But it was a lot of fun--can't walk anymore, but fun.

Random

Feeling very random today again, so I'll just make a list.

1. Three day weekend, yo. I'm going to do the Shidara workshops at E'ville. I'll be sling drummin' and dancing away. I took the dance workshop on purpose because I suck at dancing and movement, so it will be good. I took a movement workshop once with Michelle Fujii and the only thing I really remember from it is that it looks good when your knees are bent so that your legs look like the hiragana letter for 'ku' (kind of looks like the less than or greater than sign, for all you mathematicians out there).

2. Go get yourself Trilok Gurtu & Frikyiwa Family's album Farakala. I can't stop listening to it. Really. I got it over a week ago, and it's been playing non-stop on my ipod. Track 9 is wonderful. And track 5 will make you cry. Actually listening to track 5 feels as good as it does after you've had a good cry. Beautiful. I can't believe you're still sitting here reading this when you could be looking for that album somewhere! Sorry, I lent mine out. Actually, I thrust it upon a friend of mine and said Listen to it! You've got to listen to this!

3. School show in mid-September. If anyone can download a couple of solos into my brain it would be much appreciated. Otherwise I'm working on desk-solos until then. Should be fun.

4. Benefit concert gig on October 1st. Again, looking for downloads. What's harder: playing for a room full of children who are there for the sole reason of seeing you play, or playing for adults who aren't necessarily there to hear you play, but with more pressure to perform better?

5. I thought I had a number 5, but I guess I don't. Have a good weekend everybody.