Looking

Today we watched a video of our performance in SF. I think we looked pretty good, but of course when you're watching a video of yourself, all you can do is obsess and be critical of how you look. I think I shimmy around too much. I need to hold my kata down more. Also, no matter how into my solo I get, I should never lift my leg up off the ground, especially if I am wearing white tabi against a black background. Shudder.

Also tonight we were working on other kata issues, and Janet was trying to describe a kata thing to someone, and I was thinking, Hey this is the kata speech she gave me one time that I still don't get. So I was watching and paying attention and making mental notes, but the person wasn't immediately getting it, and all of a sudden I look up and Janet was making the strangest face at me. It was just a millisecond, kind of funny, but in that moment a little jarring, because I heard her say--heard her without her saying anything: You need to help me try to explain this right now don't just stand there I totally need your input can you try to word this differently I need your help right now stop staring and say something anything quick OMG! So I had to say something! Even though I didn't completely get it. But I think I said something semi-intelligent, even though it included the word "boing!" but I think in the end it was helpful. But this is good training. Having to describe things differently. Learning ways of teaching on the seat of your pants, on the fly, in the moment, in ways that you may not see it but maybe makes sense from other perspectives.

A couple of years ago my goal was to learn anything anyone could teach me, but now I think another goal should be to learn how teach anything anyone throws at me.

Chekere

I wish I wasn't so lazy and that I could practice chekere at home without being annoying. Because then one day I could play like these people, minus the singing:

Moment of Silence

A moment of silence in honor of Oguchi Sensei.
























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The World on Fire

The above is the little visual they used on my weather page to describe tomorrow's forecast. Usually they show pictures of the sun or rainclouds. But yep, that's a pic of wildfire, or "patchy smoke" as it's called in meteorological lingo. This whole week the air has smelled like smoke, and there's a strange morning-after campfire odor that lingers when I walk into the office every day. California is on fire, and the noontime shadows are vague and indistinct and tinged with a yellow-orange halo, and the sunsets are glamorous with their fuchsia orbs of light and color , and the distant hills are lightened by a haze that we would normally associate with fog, but it's not.

At least I don't live in Chile near the Chaiten volcano where the view looks more like this:

Busy

In the past couple of weeks I seemed to have unexpectedly and completely booked myself solid. I'm learning new chekere skills, learning a new version of a song to present to drum camp, composing my own song, working on two versions of my taiko class (plus teaching them), coming up with thoughts on where I'd like Maze Daiko to go, trying to keep up with the 30 Days to Better shime regimen (I am still a few days behind and lamenting the fact that I can't keep up), working towards re-heading our practice drums at RCW, oh and did I mention, working toward the August 2nd version of Ghosts and Girls? Plus I have to find time to do the physical training for my upcoming trip to Sado. And then I have my job. And find time to clean the house and eat and sleep (in that order???).

But I am finding that the best way to keep sane with all these goals is finding ways of making it happen while at the same time finding time to relax and not feel too stressed about it. That way when I do allot time to something then I am not stressed out about achieving a particular goal. It's all about the journey, not the destination. I wish I had time to go into all of that, but heh, it's late, and the cliche will have to do. Be process oriented, not goal oriented. There.

I am busy, but it's all good. I like it. I get so much more done with the pressure, and I like getting stuff done (does that make me goal oriented??).

But phew. It's midnight. I just finished dinner. Before that, 4 hours of taiko. I think sleep is next on the agenda. I'd like practice chekere but I know that the I am the only one in a 3-block radius of me who wouldn't find it annoying at this late hour. Plus I'd like to eventually make sleep a priority in my life. Ha.

Summer

Happy summer solstice. I love summer. It's my favorite season. I love the extremes of it: the extreme heat, the plants drying out and turning to seed and sending lesser versions of themselves out into the world in floating billowy parachutes, or many-fingered sails, or hard pods, or dried, indistinguishable fruits, or thorns that grab onto your socks and insist upon your ankles their removal. I love the sound of withered grass in the breeze. I love the idea of a blanket under a rustling oak tree in the warm tangerine slant of a 7pm sun. I love the persistent, mechanical sounds of hard-shelled insects. Warm stones. Cracked dirt. Trampled eucalyptus. A quiet tide, low or high, it doesn't matter. I love summer.

Enjoy the heat wave. I am. I think summer is smiling down on us, knowingly. The red line of my thermometer has risen past the gauge that only goes as high as 90 degrees, and still the mercury has climbed into an upper register that we mere mortals can't appreciate. Hopefully Mercury will return from its journey into higher places and will sit at our feet and tell us great stories. Maybe it will tell us what the earth looked like from afar. How it shimmered. How the stars burned themselves in the atmosphere. How the lights of cities glistened; water cupped in the hand.

I Thought I Had it Hard

Tonight as I was driving home from my taiko class I saw a man in the dark crossing the street, heavily burdened by all the things he was carrying. As I got closer, I realized that he was carrying an entire drum set--several drums and stands. Wow! You have to give him major props. It's hard enough carrying my shime and stand and bachi bag to my car--but this guy was obviously walking home from a gig! Imagine having to wheel home a josuke!

So tonight were my first Intro/Intermediate classes. That's two and a half hours of teaching nonstop--no break. Plus I get to RCW early for my own personal practice time, so all in all I'm there from a little after 5pm until after 9pm. It's good but it will be a lot of work, I know. Intro class is small yet manageable and I hope I don't have too much attrition. I might have to tweak with start times to draw more people, we'll see. But if they all stay we can work on slant stands!

Wow

I watch a lot of taiko videos on the internet and it's rare where I see one and finish the whole clip and watch it again, and again. Tonight I found this video:


I really love this version of Matsuri and then the seamless transition into a version of Yodan(?). They're doing some fancy stuff there, and lots of stuff that only looks fancy, but coupled with the energy and projection of the players, it makes for a really fun performance to watch. They've got the arm movements that I've been lamenting over for the past 5 years and you can tell they've really worked on their solos and kata and moves and gelling together as a group. I wish Maze had a song with that kind of youthful energy (but yo, Maze has its own great energy!). I think audiences really react to that style of taiko where you hit loud and hard and shake the dust out of the rafters. And although I'm a little more understated in the kind of energy I project, when I was watching this video I was like, Yeah! This is awesome!

I've never heard of this group before. They're called "Sukeroku Daiko" which, I think is completely different from the infamous Oedu Sukeroku Taiko group who are the innovators and original creators of the slant stand style of playing taiko. If you've ever played taiko on a slant stand, or naname, or Sukeroku stand, it's because of that group. But I don't think this group is that. If anyone has heard of Sukeroku Daiko or knows any of its history, drop me a note. Sukeroku Daiko's website can be found here.

I'm gearing up for new and exciting things. I have a new Introduction to Taiko series starting up next week, as well as the brand new Intermediate Taiko class which is where I hope we can start to develop more as a group, since we won't have to start over every 10 weeks and can concentrate on learning new and exciting songs. My new outlook on practice is starting to have an effect on me. Read Kris Berstrom's wonderful essay, Thoughts on Practice and I'm sure you'd be inspired to practice too, or at least it might give you a fresh perspective from which to reflect on your own thoughts on practice. And now that we've got all those Ghosts and Girls performances under our belts, Maze can look towards the future and start working towards new goals. Not that Ghosts and Girls is just a memory. We have another performance at Rhythmix Cultural Works on August 2nd, although I don't think we have a link for that yet. And KASA/Mix! I'm going to Japan in September! That's only a couple of months away! I'm getting excited. I gotta work out more.

Musical Discovery

I live a few blocks away from the UC Berkeley campus, and yesterday as I was roaming up Telegraph Avenue and wandering the paths of the Cal campus, my friend and I found ourselves under the shadow of the great Campanile. At 307 feet tall, this great monolith of stone and bell is impressive. It's visible from miles away, and it's been tolling the hours since 1914. As an alum of Mills College I have to interject here that we have our own Campanile, erected by Julia Morgan in 1904 (a full 10-years before Cal's), and was the first reinforced concrete structure west of the Mississippi (did I spell that right?). Our dear Campanile tolls every quarter hour and its quaint song is permanently embedded in my very being, since I have to hear the thing 4 times an hour, all day long. We have four bells, named Faith, Hope, Peace and Joy.

Anyhow. Yesterday we were under Cal's Campanile a little before 3 in the afternoon, and I heard strange faint music coming from the tower. It was more than just the usual Big Ben chimes, but many notes, almost a kind of noodling of sound. When 3pm came we heard the regular sort of tolling of the hour (which scared the crap out of me--that thing is loud!), but a minute later I was startled by a chorus of wonderful music. I couldn't believe my ears, but there was a full range of notes being played. It was amazing. Why hadn't I ever heard this before? This went on for a few minutes, and then stopped. Then a minute later, the Campanile busted out yet another song, and another. My friend, who had seen a segment on a local news channel said that there was an actual person up there in the tower, playing the bells! And they kept playing song after song! That is amazing!

Apparently, the playing of bells has its own name, called Carillon, and a player of bells is called a Carillonist. There are people who actually study this! And guilds and institutes and congresses!

Now, as a taiko player, I've had my fair share of disgruntled neighbors make themselves known to us when we practice. But how the heck do you practice the tolling of bells without completely driving your neighbors crazy? And making taiko drums is quite a task, but can you imagine those die-hard carillonists trying to cast their own sets of bells on the living room floor or in a corner of borrowed space? Boy, I thought we had it hard! But those Cal Carillonists are really great, and I am glad there are people who devote time in their lives to study something so archaic. There's a part of me that likes the severe formality of bells. I could imagine myself below those bells a hundred years ago striding to my lecture wearing a black gown carrying an armload of books and papers and wearing spectacles and disturbing a small flock of pigeons.

Carillon. Go check it out!

Sleep

Last night I got 2 night's worth of sleep! I lose a morning but gain my personality back!

George, Andy and Kris, oh My!

So my new friend Andy was looking at my entry about good old George, and Andy told me that this great guy Kris was offering an even more interesting practice regimen than George, so I went over to Kris' site and like OMG, Kris is way more interesting and accessible than George and I immediately signed up for Kris' 30 Days to Better Shime and I just hope George doesn't find out that Andy told me about Kris.

But seriously, hop on over to Kris Bergstrom's site for what promises to be a really great 30 Day shime practice regimen. He's also got a really great article on his thoughts on practice. I already missed the first week but I'll do my best to try to jump in and keep up. Thanks for the tip Andy!

Shiny

Have I ever told you how much I like shiny things? Shiny and silver really does it for me. Those who know me know that I'm a sucker for anything green. If you're trying to sell me something, make it green and I'll consider it. Try to sell me the Golden Gate Bridge and no deal. But the Vincent Thomas Bridge? Even though it's smaller and less spectacular than its big sister to the north, the Vincent Thomas is green, people. Get me a pen, I'm writing out a check for that baby.

Oh, but make it silver and shiny and I am sold. I've been wanting a Mac forever. Ask my Dad. He's been telling me to get a Mac since college. I grew up with the good old Apple IIc. And though we've come leaps and bounds since the IIc, I'm still enthralled with the idea of a Mac. I won't even consider the plain old black or white mac books. It's gotten worse since I've been reading up on Garage Band and those pesky ipod commercials aren't helping either. But really, I am in serious need of an upgrade. This is no lie: my current laptop has a 2-gig harddrive. I've got a smokin' 56k modem on that baby and even if I were patient enough with downloading off of i tunes I don't have enough storage left to even fill up my shuffle.

There was a point in my life where I was like, I'll just go with PC's because it's easier to go with the flow. Less hassle. But really. All the cool people use Macs. They just work. Yes, I'm quoting. But I was talking to someone and she was like, yeah it really does just work.

I want a Mac. Sigh.

My Friend George

This is my new friend, George. I like his boots but I think that kerchief is a little over the top. He's kind of dull and monotonous and he has no sense of humor but if you stick with him you'll get some killer skills in your box of tools. Spent an hour yesterday with my shime and metronome in the space just doing drills by myself. It was so nice. I'd like to do more work on small drums, but I guess before I can do that gotta practice on the fundamentals. I never learned how to do a proper roll, much less a 7 or 9 stroke roll. I don't know if rolls and bounces are in the general taiko vocabulary. I'd like to learn those next but me and George are still working on single-beat sticking drills and he insists I learn those before moving on. Guess I better listen to him.

PINE, R.I.P.

Saying goodbye to the PINE email service tonight. For you youngsters out there, PINE was how you accessed email way back in the day, when email was still a novelty and the internet was new and scary and downright small. This bit of nostalgia is coming from someone who used to loathe technology and who still favors post (as in the post office--you know, the company who takes your messages written on paper and folded neatly in envelopes and affixed with those quaint squares of paper called postage stamps, and actually hand-carries those envelopes to their destinations anywhere in the world) as her favorite form of communication. PINE is (was) quick and, although considered archaic, a wonderful program. You have to use strange commands to access folders and send and compose messages, but it's fast and to the point. Viewing images and web links and attachments and those dumb e-vite invitations are out of the realm of good old PINE, but who cares. PINE is an old friend. My first user name was thrynnie. Sigh.

I just wrote my last email message (to myself) using PINE. RIP old friend.

Sigh

I so don't feel like going to work today.

G&G

Ghosts and Girls was another great show. We sold out and during the day people would wander by asking about tickets, but we sadly had to turn people away. I think our transitions went fairly well. During the first song Janet flung a bachi in my direction. She did that when we played in SF, and I'm never sure whether to stop playing to pick it up or not. Carolyn always picks them up for her, but whatdoya do? I guess I was inspired by her mid-performance bachi flinging because I did the same during Kanki no Wa. I am so glad it was after my solo, and a kind audience member handed me the bachi back during the song. I would have been ok without it, but I was very relieved nonetheless. That was the first time I've ever lost a bachi during a performance, yo. Just for the record.

Mark and Brenda were fabulous. I got to sit out in the audience area a little during rehearsals to observe and I think they put on a great show. Sometimes I wonder what Maze looks like but sometimes I see little bits of video and can't stand to look at myself. Not that I'm horrible, but it's like hearing a recording of your voice. I sound like that? Or rather, that's what I look like when I play???

Today I have taiko hangover. I couldn't fall asleep until 1:30am and I woke up at 9 this morning, my mind doing all kinds of thinking even though I still wanted to sleep. Rolled out of bed and went out for some really great Burmese food and then went back to sleep later for a few hours. My head is kind of foggy-- that happens after big performances. I don't know if I'm physically tired or emotionally tired or both.

We do it all again on August 2nd in case you missed out.