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.