By Morgan Moss

Taiko, meaning drum in Japanese, is a form of Japanese drumming that came to be about two thousand years ago and is commonly played during festivals and usually passed down orally. The taiko drum is played using two bachi, meaning drumsticks. The drums range in size, with some being as big as a car, and it produces the loudest unamplified sound of any instrument in the world. There are festivals in DC, like the Sakura Matsuri festival, that have taiko drumming performances by people who play the taiko drums.

Playing the taiko drum was a very fun, but also very, very, tiring experience. There is a certain position that the drummer must be in to play properly. The feet must be spread shoulder length apart, with the right slightly behind the left, and the knees must be bent. Holding this position the entire time was definitely not easy. Especially on my legs. To hold the bachi, the hands must be an inch from the bottom and should be held loosely with the hands forming a fist with the thumb on the outside. It is very important to remember to not stick your thumb out so you don’t crush your thumb between your bachi while drumming like I did. To strike the drum, the extended (but not locked) arm lifts in a straight line with relaxed shoulders, and strikes quickly in a straight line.

I thought it sounded easy, but I quickly learned that it’s more simple and not easy. (That’s something the Taiko drumming instructor, Mark, said almost the entire session. That’s also how I learned the very big difference between simple and easy.) Doing that same drumming motion over and over again really fast left my arms sore for an entire weekend. My arms still hurt a little as I’m writing this. It’s Monday. I took that class Friday.

In addition to learning how to play the drums, we did some mini-games as well. One of them had us split into three groups of four and one group of three. Each person had to strike the drum 4 times on the beat, being played by Abena, at the same time as everyone else in their group, and groups had to do that immediately after the group before them played, also on beat. At first it was very simple. Then Mark added another rule. If he struck his kane two times, which is a small Japanese bell-like instrument played with a small mallet that is used for background sounds, the order of the groups playing would reverse. It was still pretty simple when he rang it twice once. Then he would ring it twice like six times in a row. And then I would lose track of the order. I had to focus my ears so hard during that.

Another one had us repeating the rhythm that he spoke out loud, or repeating the rhythm he played on a drum. Repeating the rhythm he said out loud was harder than repeating the rhythm he played on a drum, because replicating exactly what he said word for word with the same rhythm was pretty difficult for me, but both were fun. Using this method, he taught us a song. My favorite part was when we had to do a quick shout and raise our bachi in the air in between drumming.

Overall, the experience was very fun. If you want to try Taiko drumming yourself, you can visit markhrooney.com to see if there are any taiko classes available.