Open Source: It's the future

Ok, I'm not going to start preaching about the whole concept of open source here, but I just want to say that I am beginning to admire its concept. In the good old days of Kazaa and Napster, and I'm talking about the good old days, when you could download, say, the entire $9,000 Adobe Font Folio for free while exponentially doubling your music library in a single night, you could find anything and everything you wanted. But then it got ugly and people started getting their nasty viruses all over the place, and then, yeah, the music industry got their lawyers all mixed up in it, and then it was just all gone. We could blog for hours about this. The point is, is that sharing as we know it is over and done with, and now there is a new kind of sharing, and that's called open source. For a taiko-related story about the greatness of open source, go here and read about what ON Ensemble are doing.

What I just wanted to say, was that open source is coming up with some fabulous innovations. And today, the fabulous innovation du jour is Audacity. Audacity is a free audio editing software program. The reason why I think it's just the greatest thing ever to happen ever, is that I was using, ahem, let's just say, a borrowed version of an unnamed audio editing software program. This borrowed version of the software has bugs and inconsistencies and didn't come with all the add-ons which would make it useful to me. But Audacity has everything an amateur like me needs to get going with turning my minidisc recordings into works of art. It has online help, tutorials and documentation, and the ability to run on almost any operating system--that's right mac and pc and linux! And did I mention? It's FREE! If you have any interest in this sort of geeky thing, then get Audacity.

Now I just need to figure out how to use it.

I did it! I did it!

I tied my own shime--and it sounds great!



Of course last Saturday was the day the digi-cam decided to go MIA. I actually wanted to take pics so I could get a look at the before shots in case I got stuck and needed to figure out what it looked like before I made a mess of things. Oh well.

First off I need to say that I wouldn't have even dreamed of buying my own shime, much less tying/tightening it if it weren't for Kris Bergstrom's excellent TIASOU method instructions. They used to be online at tiasou.org, but have mysteriously vanished off the face of the internet. I personally wouldn't have attempted this just by the written directions alone. Not that they're bad directions, but I'm one of those people who needs to see and do (under strict adult supervision) before I venture off and try to do things on my own--well something as seemingly complicated as tying my own shime anyway. So I took his workshop at the Taiko Conference, and with that experience under my belt I decided to just dive in and do one of the scariest things I could do to the drum: take all the rope off and put it back together again.

Before I started, I did something geeky, which was to make recordings of both sides of the drum so I could have an audible "snapshot" of my progress. I figured if the drum sounded higher than when I started, then I would count it as a success. I'm not sure how tight Asano tied the shime when they sold it to me, but I assumed it wasn't really super tight.

Anyhow. The TIASOU method suggests specific lacing directions and my drum was laced in the opposite direction, and since I wanted to follow the TIASOU's suggestions, the first thing I had to do was completely take all the rope off. It was both scary and liberating to have the drum in 3 pieces on the living room floor. I got to see the beautiful inside of the drum and Asano's markings on the drum heads. That's not something you get to see every day. Plus it smells fabulous in there. Ahh, wood.

"Stage 1" of the tightening process begins with getting the rope on the drum, removing the slack, and making sure the heads are centered on the body of the drum. Easy enough if you just follow the diagrams. Plus my drum heads are perfectly suited to the size of my drum body, eliminating most of the worry of off-centering the heads--that's what 400 years of craftsmanship will get you! Tightening the rope with my hands alone was one thing, but when I had to apply the agebatchi, that was something else. An Agebatchi is similar to an ax-handle, and it looks like what your Odaiko bachi would look like if you stuck the tip of it on the train tracks. Flat. You take the flat side and use it to pry up the rope to create the tension that pulls the heads together to make that beautiful shime sound.

Now, I know that Kris' philosophy with the TIASOU method is to create a painless, efficient and even aesthetically pleasing process of shime tightening, but if you saw me on the living room floor Saturday you would say that I looked the complete opposite of that. I know I was making mistakes, and I even started over a couple times--sometimes because I thought I was doing something wrong, or could do it better, or both. I even lost all of the precious tension I created because of a sloppy temporary knot, and I felt like those kids you see who get ice cream cones and lick the ice cream part off and start crying when they realize they're holding the cone but the ice cream is in a puddle at their feet. Live and learn. After several attempts, I finally figured out how to handle the agebatchi better and how to hold the tension effectively, but you should have seen the sweat pouring off of me. I don't even sweat that much when I run! I think part of it was just being a little nervous. I also got some serious rug burn on my knees and actually wore two holes in my knees--nothing a little Neosporin and a band-aid can't fix.

"Stage 2" tightening was way funner than Stage 1. In Stage 2, you bind the zig zag laces of the drum in pairs, and for this part you get to actually stand on top of the drum while pulling the rope. Kris put a lot of emphasis on how to do the pull safely and effectively, and I tried to follow his instructions as close as I could. Stage 2 is when your shime really gets tight, and I think I did a pretty decent job. After binding all the pairs together and tying off the rope, I did my geeky testing again, and it sounded way different than before. Now my baby has nice high pitch--higher than what the shimes at the dojo sound like right now.

So you're supposed to tighten the shime only for when you play it, and release the tension when you're done. Most people don't do that. But Kris was talking about how the heads can only sound good for a certain amount of time before they wear out, and he even loses sleep if he has to tighten the heads the night before a gig he wouldn't otherwise have time to tighten the shime for beforehand. I don't know if I would necessarily have the time to tighten the shime between the time I get home from work and have to go to class. But I think I would like to get to that point. He says it can be done in 20 minutes. I took 4 hours. But that included restarting and thinking and do-overs and whipping the ends of the rope (I tied twine around the ends of the rope so the rope doesn't unravel). Maybe I could tighten on Thursdays and play on Fridays and Mondays and release after class on Mondays? I should try that.

Anyhow. This whole shime-tightening thing was a good experience, and I would recommend it to anyone who plays a shime. I feel more connected to mine after this! Now I just need to whip those other shime into shape . . .

Songs in 6

You know, when I was looking for this image, I could have sworn it was called "I Saw the Figure 9 in Gold." And then I was going to be clever and flip the image upside-down. Du-oh! I spent about half an hour searching my bookshelves and the internet just trying to remember the name of this freakin' painting, and more time trying to find a picture of it, so it's going to stay in this post. You'll just have to pretend it's a 6, because that would have been so artistic and deep and meaningful. I guess my memory is going. Did I mention I celebrated my 30th birthday a few days ago? Yeah. Old.

Now, what was I going to blog about?

So we've been working on a song in 6. What does that mean? Well, it means that it's in 6 time. And what does that mean? There are six quarter beats in a bar. What's a bar? How do you know there are only 6 beats? How do you know they're quarter beats if there are 6 of them? Wouldn't that make them 1/6 beats?Are you seeing what I'm getting at? I have no musical background, and here we are working on a song in 6. I could live in blissful ignorance, playing my way through this song in 6, never knowing that I was playing a song in 6, if only if it weren't for the solo section. Once you start trying to put a solo on a 6 time backbeat, then you definetely know something is wrong when your regular little riffs and ratamacues or whatever just aren't working anymore. People who are more musically inclined than me kept saying that they were trying to figure out where the 1 was, and of course I had no idea what they were talking about. It starts to make sense that you need to know where the beginning of the 6 beat bar begins when you're waving your arms around like you're finished with a line in your solo only to discover that there is something profoundly wrong with everyone else still grooving in the backbeat. It's very peculiar and hard to describe. I guess you can say everyone is counting out loud from 1-6 but you are only counting to 4 and starting all over. Things don't match up.

I asked my teacher if she could tell me what song there is out there in 6 so I could try to listen to it and maybe get a feel for what 6 time sounds like. She said African music is in 6. And I was thinking, Ok, that narrows it down a bit. But then she said she'd bring me in something I could listen to, and true to her word, she did. It's a cd of djembe music and she let me know which songs were in 6. Wow. Djembe music is fast. Djembe players are like superstar shime players--on speed. But it was good to hear and know a song that was in 6. Only problem was, was that the notes are played so fast, I couldn't really hear what was going on. So what I did was that I played the songs at half speed (it's a little trick Windows Media player is capable of. I hate that player, but I think it redeemed itself with that innovation). Djembe songs at half speed are COOL! You have to tweak the sound settings to try to fix the distortion you get from playing a song at half speed, but it's so worth it. I guess in that kind of music you have someone playing a base beat on a deeper sounding drum and it's amazing to hear the complexity of what they are playing--rhythms and patterns at different pitches all going on at the same time. I was blown away. It could totally be translated into taiko music. You should try it. Now I just need to hear something that will inspire another fabulous taiko solo--a solo in 6--and I'll be all set. For now, I'm all ears.

I need to learn how to tie my own laces

Seriously. I have great plans to unlace and retighten my shime this weekend. I took the TIASOU class from Kris Berstrom, I've got his fabulous handouts, and I'm semi-confident.

Actually, I'm terrified. We're talking about my baby here. But if I never try, then I'll never be able to get good at it. And if I never mess up, then I'll never know how to undo the mess I made. So I guess you can say that we should hope for mistakes! But really. I'd also like to be able to tighten the dojo's shimes because I was looking at them last night and they seemed a little floppy. One of them looks like they used that cheap rope they give you at home depot to tie down lumber to your car--that white rope that is actually kind of stretchy. It wouldn't even hold enough tension to keep my shime stand opened at a specific width, so you can imagine what the shime sounds like. So there's that larger goal to kind of keep in mind when I'm doing this. But also what makes me feel a little better is that Janet said she knew how to tie them, so if something really really horrible happens, I have someone who I can shamefully beg and plead to bail me out if I clamshell the heads. I really hope it doesn't come down to that.

So that's the plan, stan. Wish me luck.

How to make a shime stand for under $50

This past weekend I made a stand for the shime. It was WAY easier to make than I thought it would be. I found the instructions on how to make the stand on the internet. I find everything on the internet. These instructions were clear and unintimidating. They included a list of everything you need and even included a couple of diagrams. I completed this project in an afternoon, in between cleaning the house and watching Whale Rider on KQED. You could spend hours and hours sanding it if that's your thing. Or you can make plans to sand later, like I will, maybe, someday.

I went to Home Depot for the materials, and wound up spending a little under fifty bucks for it all. A shime stand for under fifty bucks is not bad. I already had a saw (for making bachi!) and a power drill, and those were all the tools I needed, unless you call sandpaper a tool, in which case you would need some of that too. I could have spent less money if I had: a) not bought 10 feet of extra wood, which I only got because I wouldn't put it past myself to accidentally cut some important piece in half--with a handsaw. Yep. It would take me 5 minutes to cut and another 10 to realize that du-oh!, I wasn't supposed to cut the main part in half! (not that I did. Not this time anyway) b) I had measured the bolts I bought so that I bought two 2" bolts instead of one 2" bolt and one 3" bolt. That was just dumb. I even had a tape measure on me and everything. c) Home Depot only sells drywall screws by the pound. I had to get a pound of screws when I only needed 16. If you make this stand and want 16 drywall screws, let me know and I'll send em to you for FREE!

Anyhow. Making the stand was all about cutting the wood accurately and screwing everything into its correct place. The instructions make it really easy for you. My only additional suggestion would be to drill a pilot hole ahead of time where you want the screws to go. I learned this by watching the New Yankee Workshop on PBS. That guy is a genius with wood, and he has all the carpentry tools ever created. I know nothing about wood working but I love to watch the show because he'll start off by showing you some old antique sideboard, and then he'll go step by step cutting and drilling and dovetailing away and half an hour later he'll have completely re-created the whole thing. Amazing. But anyway, for a pilot hole you just find a drill bit a little smaller than the diameter of your screw and drill down. That way when you're actually drilling the screw into the wood, the wood is less likely to split. In which case you're screwed. Ha! Ha! Ha! Get it? Screwed? Ha! Ha! Ha! No seriously. We have a shime stand at the dojo that's practically worthless because it's all split from people trying to repair the thing only to split the wood. Now a whole leg will have to be replaced and that's out of the realm of my carpentry skills. The New Yankee guy could fix it easy.

The stand turned out beautiful, don't you think? Or as beautiful as a person who only has a saw and a drill gun could make. Maybe I'll stain it, or maybe just paint it black. But that requires me to get dirty and spill stuff that doesn't come out of the carpet. Did I mention that I built this shime on the living room floor? So easy. You should try it yourself.



The only problem I'm having with it right now is that I need to do a little tweaking to get it just right. As it is now, I have to open the stand wide in order to get the shime to sit at the right height. But this means that it's barely sitting on the stand and it seems a little more precarious than I would like. I may have to move the cross bars or cut off part of the legs. It's kind of complicated because when you change one thing, something else changes. The rope on the bottom controls how wide the top opens, but also the height. Do you see how this could get complicated? If I adjusted the rope so that the top opened only just wide enough so the drum fits good, will cutting off the legs change something else? I dunno. And then there's angles to deal with too. I'd like the legs to stand flat on the ground. Right now they're kind of poking down at an angle. Ack. That's more thinking than I want to do. Less thinking, more playing. That's what I say.

It's a girl. Definitely a girl.

So the one thing I didn't blog about in my last post was the adoption of my new baby girl. Here she is:


She's a little shy, like me.



And here she is coming out of her shell a bit.


Look at that big beautiful smile!

I adopted her from the Asano Taiko Orphanage. I just had to pay the adoption fees and she was all mine. But boy o boy was it a hard decision. First I went in to the taiko marketplace and looked around at the other vendors. Miyamoto. Remo. Miyoshi. Great drums, really, but none of them were my baby. At the Asano booth I just stood there and stared at the drums. The lady must have thought I was crazy. They were all beautiful. They had really small ones and medium ones and bigger ones. As soon as I saw them I knew: one of those is my baby.

I went away and then I came back. And stared. The lady was really nice. She let me go behind the table and actually touch them and play them a little. And then I asked if they took credit cards and she said "no." Can you believe that? They don't take credit? And can you believe how stupid I felt when I realized that I hadn't even thought of bringing my checkbook to the conference. What was I thinking? Or rather, what was I not thinking?? I swear I would have kicked myself it that didn't require coordination and acrobatics. I was all set to buy a medium drum and everything. I had to walk around all day thinking about all the people who were going to adopt my baby. But I guess it worked out in the end because the next day I brought my checkbook, and even though all the medium drums were gone, there were still some beautiful larger ones available. With the larger shime, you can tighten harder and they can produce a higher tone.

After settling all the paperwork, ie filling out the check, writing in some numbers, signing 2 weeks of salary away just as fast as it got direct deposited, the baby was mine. A genuine Asano original. 400 years of fine craftsmanship. Direct from Japan--smelling of Japan. My car smelled great the whole drive back. They should make "New Drum" air fresheners.


Check out the finish on this. Such a pretty shade of red. And those knots. I can tie those knots now! I haven't tried tightening this shime though. It came this way. That will be the subject of another blog.

I still need to name her. I haven't figured out a good one yet. Maybe when we actually get to play without the stupid muffles her true personality will come out. But for now, I couldn't be happier!

Taiko Conference!!

What a week!! I don't even know where to begin! Hope everyone made it home safe and sound from Los Angeles to all the points around the country (and the world) from whence we came. My dad developed a plan to get from LA to the SF Bay Area seamlessly. You leave at 4 in the morning and drive out of LA before the traffic starts up, and you get to the Bay Area just as the morning traffic is abating, and before the inland area gets a chance to really heat up. It was only 6:45 and my car thermometer was reading 80 degrees already. Driving back is one of the few times when I actually get to see the sun rise. There's this really beautiful place just after you get through the Grapevine and over the mountains and come into the flatflatflat interior. It's a broad plain bordered by mountains that is always beautiful no matter what season it is. In the spring it's a sea of green grass. Right now at the height of summer it's a golden yellow. By the time I got there, the sun had just peaked over the distant mountains, casting raisin-like shadows over the twisting face of the foothills. Lovely.

But that's not taiko at all! So on Monday (the 11th,--I've lost all sense of time right now), I started out the Summer Taiko Institute with a workshop by Shoji Kameda of the On Ensemble. Yeah, Shoji, sitting right there. He taught us to really listen to time. He is such a geek--the kind of geek that I can only aspire to be. He had his shiny silverMac Powerbook and his microphones and amplifiers and they were all hooked up to taiko. Then he recorded one of us playing and we sat there and analyzed how close the beats were to the metronome. I loved it!

Then for the afternoon session it was an Odaiko workshop with Tiffany Sensei of Sacramento Taiko. Man, can she play the odaiko. She showed us very basic techniques that I was so sorely lacking in. Just holding the bachi correctly and effectively is so important. She is funny and goofy in a similar way that I'm goofy. She'll just start jumping around playfully as she is explaining something. I really like that idea of playfulness. I think we sometimes take ourselves way too seriously when it comes to taiko.

Then the next day I had workshops with Michelle Fujii and Ann Ishimaru and Teresa Enrico of Portland Taiko. I so want to BE Michelle. She's graceful yet powerful. It's like she floats in mid air, yet she can still play the drums. Her background is in Japanese folk dance and she's doing some really innovative things with incorporating movement and dance with taiko. I have several pairs of left feet that I use when I'm trying to do movement or anything dancelike, but Michelle introduced some movements that I'd like to try out--maybe in a solo or something. Ann and Teresa showed us how we can all play together as a group without necessarily using verbal cues. They called the class "Taiko Telepathy" and I was pretty amazed at how well we all played together--beginners and old timers alike. They are excellent workshop leaders, and maybe I can try to incorporate some of the excercises and drills they used with us into some workshops with the beginners.

And on Wednesday I took the afternoon workshop with Tosha Sensei. He was a performing member of Oedo Sukeroku, the group that developed the slant stand style of playing taiko. I actually thought that the stands that we play that style on were called Sukeroku stands, but I found out that they're really called naname stands, although at E'ville we usually call them slant stands. I wonder if I can get people to call them naname? Anyhow, Tosha Sensei is really nice, but he has a slightly gruff Japanese-guy style that I know intimidated some people. I was intimidated too but I could just tell that he was a nice guy deep down. And funny too. Everything he taught us was exactly opposite of how we play at Emeryville so it was kind of awkward playing what he wanted me to do, but I think I got the idea. It's always good to learn things from different people.

On Friday, it was time for the Taiko Conference, where I met up with a few of my Emeryville Taiko classmates:



Then it was time to get down to business. The conference was set up so we took 2 workshops each on Friday and Saturday with time for concerts and shopping at the taiko marketplace. On Friday I took a workshop on shime tightening and a workshop on Hawaii Obon Taiko, both of which were really great. Now I have the courage to tighten my own shime (more on that later) and I'm going to teach the Obon rhythms to Emeryville. On Friday night they had a free taiko concert in the plaza that featured 10 groups! It was great to see so many different groups playing.



We were constantly surrounded by drums. Can you imagine spending a whole week just immersed in drums? It was like being in heaven!

On Saturday I started off with Elaine Fong's TaKeTiNa workshop, which incorporates movement, voice and rhythm--all at the same time! And then it was off to a discussion session. It was really hard to decide which session to sit in on since they all sounded good. I decided on a session on composition since I think that's what I would like to do in the future. Janet was one of the panelists, and I thought it would be interesting to see where she was coming from on that front. Later, it was off to a percussion workshop with Rachel Ebora of Portland Taiko. She was so hilarious! But she also really inspired me to try to incorporate more percussion into E'ville's reperatoire (spelling, I know).

After that I rushed back to the plaza to meet up with my family, since the plan was to meet up with them and have dinner before the big Taiko Jam concert. We went to nearby Olvera Street for dinner at La Luz del Dia, a restaurant my parents have been eating at since before they were even married. My mom says it hasn't changed a bit, except for a larger eating area. We even all of us took a picture atop and around the famous Olvera Street Burro. There's a long story about that burro--you'll have to look it up yourself sometime.

Then it was Taiko Jam! There were 4 groups and they were all amazing, but the kids of Zenshin Taiko totally stole the show. They have more genki in their tiniest tips of their little fingers than any one in that theater. They even stole the thunder of the infamous Taiko Project, which consists of all the major stars in the taiko world today. But everyone was impressed, including me and my family.

The next morning, it was time for the early morning taiko jam.

That's me and Keith jamming it up on the plaza. I don't know what the neighbors thought about all those taiko drummers making all that noise so early on a Sunday morning. But it was fun!

After the jam, it was time for a closing session and your last chance to buy good stuff from the taiko marketplace.

I know this blog entry was rushed, but if I don't get it all down now, I may never get this entry done. Taiko Conference was fun and totally worth it. Next conference is in 2007 in Seattle!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho,

it's off to Taiko Conference I go!

Tomorrow while everyone is at work, dreading the fact that it's not even Friday yet, I'll be driving down California's favorite highway, a.k.a "The 5," blasting my music, collecting on my windshield a cross-section of the heartland's finest insect specimens, and trying to squeeze every last bit of freon out of my barely-working air conditioner. One of my guilty pleasures of making the drive to LA is a stop at the McDonald's in that stinky section of the 5, you know, where the cows are. I don't know why I always stop there--I guess at that point I'm starving. Anyhow, I always order a Happy Meal (for the toy--I know, I'm just a big kid inside) and top off the gas tank at the Shell station.

If you are going to the conference, I will see you there!

Okinawa

It's almost been a year since I was in Okinawa, so I figured now was as good a time as any to get that film developed. I love these shots of my sandal-tanned feet. Thank goodness they don't look all striped like that anymore. Our feet are actually underwater, in the ocean. I'm telling you, I can't wait to go back. When I was there there was a typhoon and although it didn't rain, the wind was blowing sand into places you didn't even know you had.

Let me know . . .

If you've reached my blog, then you've reached the end of the internet, and that's got to be new and exciting. If I reached the end of the universe, I might be tempted to leave a little interstellar graffiti. So, if you have anything at all to say about me or my blog, please feel free to COMMENT. Even if you're shy like me, you can comment anonymously. I'm begging you. I'm blogging out into a void. I would totally appreciate any input and I may even respond.

Until then, thank you for visiting!!

-Kathryn

O Shime

I SOOOOOOO want a shime. I'd be such a good mom to it and I'd take really good care of it. I'm even going to a shime-parenting class called TIASOU Method. It's one of the workshops I got into for the taiko conference. It's taught by Kris Bergstrom from On Ensemble, who are, by the way, fast becoming one of my favorite taiko groups (I don't know if anyone can surpass San Jose Taiko as my all-time favorite group. Not yet anyway). But as I was saying, I'm taking the TIASOU class because I've been wanting to get a shime for some time, but I absolutely forbade myself from having my own shime until I knew how to take care of it, which really means, until I knew how to lace and tighten one myself. Shime have a high-pitched sound that rises above the boominess of josuke (the barrel-sized drums), and the shime gets that high pitch from the skins being pulled tight over the body of the drum. Now, I know there are drums that can be tensioned using a bolt system, but personally, I think the bolts are ugly and they make the drum really heavy. There is nothing more beautiful than the rope wrapped around the drum, and it just seems strange that the earthiness of leather and wood should be forced together using something so unfairly strong as metal bolts. I think since I'm the one making the drum speak, then I should be the one to put that tension on the drum, using my own sweat and my own muscles. I think there is a relationship between player and drum whether you're aware of it or not. The TIASOU Method class is going to show us how one person, using more brains than brawn, can tighten a shime on their own. Once I know how to tie my own drum, then I can get my own, and I plan on doing that at the Taiko Conference. There will be a ton of vendors there and I've got a shime burning a hole in my pocket.

DEBUT!!

On Sunday, our performing group debuted for the first time at the Marin Arts Festival. We played that 4-drum song I'd been working so hard on, Madoka. I think it went well. It was fast and genki and I don't think anyone dropped any bachi. The best part was that we got to play on real drums, not those foam and carpet-covered practice drums we've been playing everything on lately. The stage was tiny, and we were all squished together--all five of us, and all 20 of the drums we use to play the song. But it was great.

One of my classmates who was watching us play said that I didn't look as genki as I did the day before at rehearsal. This perplexes me since I was kiai-ing and smiling and doing my on-stage best at bringing all of my energy into the performance. It's possible that I was nervous and that energy didn't show through. It's more likely that at rehearsal I messed up more, and when I mess up, I usually smile. But I have to say, I wasn't that nervous. I was more excited to be playing and making our debut. I think people think that since I'm so shy and quiet, that I have stage fright or stage shyness. I think the exact opposite is true. On stage, I'm the complete polar opposite of the mild-mannered Kathryn that everyone is used to. I scream. I jump. I make tons of noise. After the performance Janet said something like, "You just need another year of being on stage." Well, I totally trust her and I always appreciate what she has to say and I take her advice and everything, but I've been on stage for 4 years! I'm not nervous! I love to perform. But there must be something that isn't coming through. There's a video of us that I'm going to get a hold of and I'm gonna watch it to see what people are talking about. I guess until then, I'll have to work on projecting. Oh, and making my solo longer!

I forgot the BEST part!

In my excitement over Ted and the paddle boats, I forgot to show you one of the most interesting parts of my day! As we pedaled along on the paddle boats, we noticed a log floating in the water. Atop this log were several little turtles and one mean sea gull. The turtles were enjoying the fine day, what with all the sunshine and the calm waters and all. But then this gull, this mean and cranky seagull, comes along and procedes to push each and every turtle off the log into the water. It was methodical and maniacal. Turtle, plop. Turtle, plop. Turtle, plop.

But there was one turtle who wasn't having it at all. The gull pushed and prodded. Pulled and poked. No way. That turtle wasn't going anywhere. We watched in horror as the gull grabbed one of the turtle's legs and visciously (alligator-like if you ask me) shook the poor thing and tried to pull it off the log. But that turtle didn't budge. Heck, some of his turtle friends were using him as a distraction to get back onto the log, but the gull just pushed them back into the water again.

I have to say we really admired that turtle. We were rooting him on (or her--I really think it was a her) . Go turtle! Stick in there!

I don't know what happened in the end because we were chased away by another group of rowdy paddle-boaters.

A Stinkin' Day Off

On Tuesday, me and KB took the day off from work and decided to go to the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It's housed in a beautiful glass building atop a little hill. A few years ago, the building had been shut down because of extensive damage to the windows. I assumed it was earthquake damage, but surprisingly, it was caused by storms. Today the building is as spectacular as ever:


So what was all the stink about, you might ask? (Hee hee hee. Just had to throw that in there.) The reason why we went was to see "Ted," a.k.a. Amorphophallus titanum, a.k.a. Titan Arum, a.k.a. Corpse Flower. Ted is a gigantic, stinky flower that only blooms every few years, but when it does, everyone makes a big stink about it. (oh come on, I'm funny!) Actually, when it blooms, it emits a horrible smell like a rotting corpse that attracts flies, beetles and other insects that are into that kind of thing. And it's gigantic--did I mention that already? You could lose small pets or babies in that thing.

We arrived the morning after it was at its worst stinkiness. They put him in his own gazeebo inside a very hot and humid section of the conservatory. Not only was it muggy and damp, but it stank too! But actually the smell wasn't as bad as I thought it would be--but still. Ted was a little shy at first:


But when you get a little closer, you can't help but be impressed:


It kind of reminds me of that thing from The Little Shop of Horrors. I think Ted is beautiful in his own stinky way, but I don't think I'm going to try growing that thing in my house.

The Conservatory is just one attraction in Golden Gate Park. We drove around a bit until we found Stow Lake. We had a nice little lunch of hot dogs and Icee's, and I insisted on renting a paddle boat:


Are they called "paddle" boats or "pedal" boats? KB insists they're pedal boats--which makes sense because you have to pedal the boats to paddle them along.

A perfect day!

Perfectionist????!!??

Last night Janet was in class and we were working on Cranes solos. She gave us 20 minutes to noodle, but I haven't spent any time on Cranes solos because I never get to solo and well, I've been working on performing group stuff so much that I've kind of neglected Cranes. Anyhow, she went from person to person, helping them on their solos, and when she came to me, I didn't have anything. Nothing really. It's so hard for me to come up with something from nothing in 20 minutes. I was frustrated and I knew we would be going around doing our solos for the whole class. Frustrating! Impossible! She even pulled a drum up and played basic to force me to try to play something, but nothing came.

When we did go around and do solos individually, she asked if I wanted to skip having to do something in front of the whole class, and I said yes. Spared the torture! Hallelujah! Then she said I wasn't ready because I was a perfectionist.

Hold up.

A Perfectionist?

Me?

A perfectionist???!!

I think the reason why it stings so much, is because it's true. I am a perfectionist. She just was the one to point it out. Sigh. But it's true. I mean, just look at this blog. I have trouble sleeping because I can't play a song right. I spend my free time forcing my hands to play those ridiculous rudiments. I spent 12 hours coming up with a solo to play with any base beat of my choice for the P-group audition, and most of those 12 hours were spent crossing out the patterns I had just written down. And it was only 8 bars long! That's like not even 30 seconds!

Is it that I'm not satisfied until I can do something perfectly? Or I won't accept anything less of myself than perfection? What is wrong with me? I know I can play solos. Last weekend at the Sushi Summit, I had to play an odaiko (big, giant drum) solo, and I did fantastically! Susan thought so. Even I thought the solo was really good, and I'm a tough critic of myself. But I didn't set it, I didn't practice it, I didn't even think about playing a solo until I was actually playing it. And it was good! At work I can noodle and doodle and play really neat patterns and riffs or whatnot on my desk all day long. No problem. Sometimes I even surprise myself because of what I play on my desk.

So what is wrong with me?? Why do I have to be so hard on myself? How do I let go of that perfectionist side of me? I know I can play, and I know I'm a halfway decent player, but I hold back. How can I break through that? I mean, it's not even with just my solos, or just the cranes solo, but with everything. There are only moments of abandonment when my superpowers shine through, but I don't quite know how to tap into that. I know it's there, but where? But how? I feel like crying.

Just Humor Me

Humor me for a minute while I be superficial and materialistic. If this were a perfect world, I would have these things. Then I would be happy. Oh, and maybe my own sound-proof space--because then my neighbors would be happy too. Until then, I'll continue to dream.

Sushi Summit/ Kiai Power!

On Saturday a small group of us went to the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco to play a gig at the Sushi Summit. It was a day of sushi competition, sushi preparation, sushi tasting, sushi paraphanalia and sushi accoutremonts. There was sushi to the left, sushi to the right, sushi upstairs, sushi downstairs and beer and sake all over the place. Our job was to play two short sets of taiko between sushi deomonstrations by Sushi Summit sushi chefs--try saying that fast. It was an impressive place to play a gig--we had a nice little stage and when we came on, the sound of our fabulous playing pulled everyone away from their sushi and they watched us instead! Believe me, it's really hard for taiko to compete against food for attention. During the second set, there was a guy sitting in the front row and he had been sucking on a lollipop, but when we started playing, his mouth hung open and he was just sitting there holding the lollipop up next to his face--the whole time. It was funny.

But I also wanted to write about a lesson that Janet taught us in class just two days before this Sushi Summit shindig. As we were working on Cranes solos, she was telling us that we need to kiai more for the other players (kiais are shouts of encouragement--not necessarily words, but just good strong yelps that let the soloist know that their fellow players are rooting them on. It really makes a difference because it gives you extra energy). This wasn't the first time that we've heard this, but I think her explanation really hit home for us, or for me anyway. She was saying that all you need for yourself is enough energy to breathe and play basic, and the rest of your energy should be directed toward the soloist. So then she had us kiai-ing our hearts out to the other players. We went around the room doing kiai solos for the soloists and group kiai. Janet even demonstrated her kiai power, and I have to admit, I was a little afraid after that. Janet is a little tiny woman but if anyone were to mug her in a dark alley, everyone would hear it. She said it was her "stage kiai." I don't think I've ever heard anyone kiai louder than she did (Susan's word was "foghorn" which is actually a more accurate adjective and it makes me snicker, but no, that's wrong of me. Bad Kathryn, bad!...snicker). When I first started playing taiko, we learned a song called "Renshu" which means "practice" in Japanese. It's the song you learn when you are just starting to learn taiko, and part of the song has a "hup!" built in. I was so embarrased and shy to make such a loud noise that I thought, ok, I'll just fake the hup and I won't ever have to hup in taiko--I'll just pretend like I'm hupping. Yeah right. First off, you can't get away with not kiaing. And second, a good kiai makes you and the other players feel good. I mean, why even play taiko if you're not going to put any energy into it? And why would you put all those long nights and the occasional long weekend in to play taiko at all unless it makes you feel good? Kiai then! And that's what we did for the performance on Saturday. I kiai-ed more than I ever have, and louder than I ever have, and I think it added a different sort of dimension and energy to the performance. Some guy came up to me afterward and said he really enjoyed watching us because it seemed like we were really enjoying ourselves! And it's so true. I think I've unleashed my kiai-power, so watch out!

Sleepless

The night before last I got home from taiko after working on a really tough and complicated piece. It's a really nice arrangement of a song by the blind African duo Amadou et Mariam. John is a guest composer for the group, and he hears things in the song that I don't, but I guess that's because he's got a pair of really well trained musician's ears. I'm learning--slowly--but I'm learning. Anyhow, everyone in the group was struggling to try to fit all the different pieces of the song together. It was a challenge. You start to play something and it goes ok, but then you have to switch parts and your hands don't play what you want them to, or your head won't remember what you just got through going over for the tenth time just a minute ago. And the parts don't start in logical, easy places--they start in the middle of a bar, and I barely understand what a bar is and it's in a weird time signature, and I barely even understand what a signature is. But that's kind of the fun part of taiko--the struggle. Every song that I play is really hard at first. I don't know if it's because I'm just inexperienced, or if they're giving us really hard songs to play, or what. Even Janet and Susan were struggling come to think of it, so I feel a little better.

So when I got home that night, my mind was still struggling. Class ran late and my body went straight to bed, but my head didn't. It was up all night long and it kept waking me up. I would be dreaming about playing pieces of the song and I would mess up in my dreams and I would actually wake up. It was pretty horrible. I woke up several times and was frustrated because the I couldn't get the song right and I couldn't sleep. And the thing is, this isn't the first time this has happened. Janet-songs do that to me too at first. I guess I just like to figure stuff out. Hopefully I'll get the song down and sleep better!

Bachi

Today I made three pairs of bachi. Bachi are the sticks you use to hit taiko drums, and they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. The vast majority of bachi are the simple dowels you see above. I needed a pair that were light enough to hit a shime with (shime have more delicate heads, so it's best to use a lighter pair of bachi on them to avoid premature wearing) as well as a josuke, which are the barrel-sized drums that you saw in my previous posts. We're learning another dual-drum song which also includes a lot of bachi flipping. I have a pair of bachi that are fine for hitting both the shime and josuke, but they're tapered, and are hard to flip around because of their uneven weight. There are bachi out there that you can buy that are very light-weight, and are perfect to hit the more responsive shime with, but they're way harder to flip and don't produce the kind of boom I want to get out of a josuke. So today I went to MacBeath Hardwood, our local lumber company (excellent customer service by the way--I think 3 or 4 guys asked if I needed help!), and picked out a few dowels that I thought were both light and heavy enough for the song. They're skinnier than the bachi I normally use, but I was excited to bring them home.

I like my bachi kind of long because I like the kind of fulcrum action you can get out of them. I feel like I can play faster and more economically with slightly longer bachi. I have a pair of bachi that we call "Miyama-style" that are 16 3/4" long, so I decided to make my bachi the same length. Cutting the bachi is one thing, but getting the ends of the bachi to have that nice smooth edge to them is another. You want a smooth tip to protect the head of the drum. I used a dremel that my dad gave to me years ago to help the process along. I've found that homemade bachi have strange angled ends on them--probably because people try to angle a file or something to get the edge tapered out, but they never look even. All of my homemade bachi are like that. But today I figured out how to use the dremel just right to get that professional look. Instead of bringing the dremel or file in to force an angle of the edge of the bachi, just let the dremel follow the grain of the bachi so that it goes from the side to the top of the bachi. It takes a little longer but it's so worth it when it's even and smooth. After that I sanded everything down with some 220 grit. It's best not to sand your bachi too smoothly because you might end up dropping them, or worse, flinging them at teachers/classmates!

Take a look at the tips! Not bad, eh?

Children's Day!

When I was a kid, on May 5th, my dad used to put up the carp kites on a pole on the roof of our house. I thought that was so cool to see them flying up there, swimming wildly through the sky. On the other hand, back then it was actually called "Boy's Day," so the carp were flying for my brothers. Carp are symbols of strength, perseverance and long life, which are traits that you want in boys--I guess. I mean, it's ok to have weak, short-lived, wishy washy girls--they don't need no stinkin' kites. I think on Girl's Day you actually put out dolls or something boring like that. I never liked dolls. But I LOVE the carp kites, or Koinobori as they're also called. They're beautiful things. There are just some things that are really beautiful in spite of themselves. I think the symbolic power of our flying koinobori rubbed off on me, because I've always been one stubborn girl. I have koinobori of my own, but they're tiny--not meant to really fly. But they will fly today. I'm going to hang them out my window at work.

(I need to put a disclaimer here--I'm not bitter. Growing up, you just know that there are things that you do for boys and things you do for girls. They're called traditions and you should savor every one of them because it's so easy to lose touch with them. As a kid, you don't have this sense of inequality or discontent. You just look up in the sky and see the carp flying beautifully and say to yourself, hey, it must be Boy's Day, and then you enjoy the view. I'm really glad my dad put up the kites because it's something I look fondly back on and treasure. If I have kids I'll do the same--but I'm putting up kites for girls because they need to be strong and perserverant to make it in this world.)

Let's just enjoy some fine examples of koinobori: