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.