So it begins..

It all started with the movie from the 80's "Black Rain" with the famous taiko drumming musical score by the famous Hans Zimmer. This was followed by scenes in the smash movie hit "Die Hard" at the Nakatomi Plaza.

Addicting, dramatic, admiration, mesmerising, spellbounding are a few adjectives to describe Taiko. I've also seen it spelled as "Daiko". Wikipedia has listed it under "Taiko". I'd say from a linguistic standpoint it sounds more like "Daiko" but I've seen it more often listed as "Taiko".

I had completely forgotten about this dramatic style of music until I went to the Descanso Garden last Saturday for their Japanese Festival. It was our 6th wedding anniversary and my wife suggested that why not make it into a family anniversary. We have two children, a boy and girl..3 and 1 year old respectively.

She said we should go take the kids and check out the festival. To this date the last 3 wedding anniversaries have been a "family" anniversary since the birth of our son..lol. I checked into it on the internet and it looked like Kishin Daiko were going to give a demonstration at the garden.

Anyway, we got to the garden and got a great seat as the announcer desribed Taiko and it's origination, which many of us couldn't hear because of their much less than adequate PA system. It didn't matter, anyhow, once the drumming began. It was awesome to say the least and too short. The Kishin Daiko troupe were amazing and very clean. Not a beat was missed and they were very uniform in sound with their thunderous beats resonating throughout the park. The program was 30 minutes long but left me gasping for more.

After the program was over they allowed the audience to come up on stage and try out their taiko drums. I decided to take the plunge and try it out. I was amazed at how tight the sound was and how well the sound resonated from the barrel. I knew I was getting hooked and wanted to really get involved and learn the basics and possibly even perform.

So thus my journey begins into providing you, as well as me, a report of where I am and what direction I'm going or will be going to become a taiko drummer.