Equipment 2

Drum bags
So you’ve made or purchased your nagado daiko—now you need to protect it. The best solution would be to contact Toni Yagami in Denver, Colorado. She’s been making taiko bags for many years and they are rugged, practical, and beautifully-made. Designed by a taiko player and highly recommended!

Recently the folks at MN Taiko have been offering taiko bags as well. The bag looks fine although I prefer two handles for ease of carrying. If you don’t mind one handle, you can also check out large bass drum bags from websites like Musician’s Friend or Music 123. I use a bass drum bag by Protection Racket for my smaller chu daiko, and its works great. Again, it only has one handle, but it’s not a huge inconvenience. This brand is offered in-store by this Northridge dealer and online by Midwest Percussion.

Bachi
You’ll need to carefully consider the weight, length, thickness, and kind of wood when purchasing or making bachi. Many drummers use oak for the nagado daiko, magnolia (hou) for shime, and cypress (hinoki) for odaiko. You could also consider birch and maple bachi. If possible, visit the drum shops of Asano and Miyamoto, where you can spend an afternoon weighing and matching the different bachi. If you don’t have plans to visit Japan, you could order online on their websites or try these local bachi makers: Maddox, MNTaiko, or Tatsumaki.

Of course, you could always visit your local hardware store or lumber yard and purchase your own dowels, cut, and sand them down. This is an easy project and recommended for beginning groups. Most bachi for group drumming on nagado daiko are approximately 7/8″ X 16″ and short shime daiko bachi are 5/8″ X 14″. The folks at Tatsumaki Taiko have a nice summary of the different sizes, kinds of wood, and common applications within kumi daiko.

Stands
Carefully consider the repertoire you’d like to play and watch videos of other taiko groups. With just a few different stands, you can play a wide range of styles. Of course, the more stands you have, the more “stuff” you’ll be carrying around. Visit the Asano website and examine the different stands they offer. I’d suggest a butokudojyo stand for odaiko or Sukeroku style playing and naname stands (Sukeroku, slant, angle, diagonal, oritatami dai) for Sukeroku, Matsuri, and other styles. The shikaku stand (beta, flat, down, hira dai, Osuwa style) is also very useful and is perhaps the first kind of stand you should aquire.

Before I continue, I need to briefly mention the issue of the naname stand. In the late 1990s, Seido Kobayashi of Oedo Sukeroku Daiko addressed the North American taiko community regarding the use of the Sukeroku slant stand. The details of this controversy are well described by David Leong. Without going into too much detail, things have quieted down in recent years and drummers can now feel completely safe using naname stands. But please do not perform their repertoire without permission. Keep in mind that the known authorized performers of Oedo Sukeroku Daiko repertoire outside of Japan includes Seiichi Tanaka (San Francisco), TIffany Tamaribuchi (Sacramento), Kenny Endo (Hawaii), and Takemasa Ishikura (Florida).

Returning to the Asano website, notice their shikaku stand which with minor alterations, can be used for Miyake and Chichibu styles. The group TAIKOPROJECT uses this stand and additionally places it on a wheeled platform for use as a modified naname stand. There are numerous drum-makers who offer stands: Kato, Maddox, and MN. Some groups design and build their own stands, and this is certainly a valid option for groups with limited budgets. Before beginning construction, consider the necessary strength of the stand versus weight and please consider whether you will need to “break down” the stand in order to transport it.

Finally, remember that a sturdy, double-braced snare stand will work fine for your shime daiko. For example, you could consider the Pearl 900 Series Snare Stand or others.

PS I guess I should remind everyone to please be careful in the woodworking shop. With any luck, someone in your group will have experience with power tools.

Equipment 1

Making or acquiring appropriate instruments is the biggest hurdle for many taiko drummers. If you happen to live in Japan or the US West Coast, there are many different possibilities. This post is meant for those of us who live elsewhere. Money, of course, is an important factor and I will try to present ideal (expensive) and acceptable (less expensive) options along the way.

In general, a beginning taiko group would need several nagado daiko, one shime daiko, one kane (atarigane or chanchiki) and two shimoku, and drum stands. This would be the absolute minimum, but depending on your ingenuity with stands, you could perform quite a few different styles. With a larger budget, you could expand this setup to include an odaiko, okedo, additional nadago and shime daiko, a cannon (tetsu-zutsu, tetsu-tsutsu, tettou, or tekkan), chappa, and other accessories.

Making your own nagado daiko
If you have the time and the resources, this is the best way to establish a meaningful relationship with your instrument. But as you guessed, this is not an easy process. In short, you would need to acquire wine barrels, cowhide, and tacks. You can find detailed instructions and helpful links at the taiko.com website. As far as I can tell, this page has not been updated in recent years, so don’t be surprised if some of the links and phone numbers are no longer in service. If you have woodworking skills and access to a shop, this would be a great project. Otherwise, there are a growing number of purchasing options for beginning taiko groups.

Purchasing nadago daiko
If money is not an issue, go ahead and purchase a nagado daiko from Asano Taiko or Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten. These drums are excruciatingly beautiful. However, most beginning groups do not have a large enough budget to afford these drums. There are numerous drum-makers listed on the taiko.com website. I haven’t had an opportunity to try out all of these drums, but I will highlight a few drum-makers.

Mark Miyoshi makes beautiful wine-barrel taiko and he is generally regarded as the premiere drum-maker in the US. Jesse and Carla Maddox are based in Colorado and established their business in more recent years. I haven’t tried out these drums yet, but I will say they have a very nice website and the drums look impressive. Mr. Kato (father of Yuta and Julia Kato) has been refining his drum-making techniques for many years and is now offering inexpensive and solidly-made taiko.

I’m not necessarily an advocate for Remo, but this major percussion company came out with a line of taiko instruments several years back. I’m not sure if these are widely available, but you can inquire through their website.

Shime Daiko
I would not recommend making your own shime daiko (unless, of course, you have prior experience). Since these drums are smaller, you might consider spending the money on an Asano or Miyamoto shime daiko. The shipping is not prohibitive and you could even bring it back on an airplane. If this is beyond your means, please consider a Miyoshi shime. While I haven’t tried out these drums, you could also consider a Maddox shime or Ryuu61 shime (sold through ebay).

Metallophones
It usually helps to have a metallic instrument in the ensemble for time-keeping. Many established taiko groups have a cannon (tetsu-zutsu, tetsu-tsutsu, tettou, or tekkan). This is not the easiest instrument to find, but Mochizuki Taiko sells them. If you’d like to pursue a less expensive option, you could scour the internet (try “universal muffler” on ebay), your local garage, or dump for a nice-sounding muffler. Then you would need to construct some kind of stand. When playing the cannon, you could use metal bachi (this is a bit too piercing for my taste) or narrow hardwood bachi. While the cannon has three different sized cylinders, many groups utilize only the center cylinder. In other words, you could look around for a simple metallic cylinder and this would basically do the job.

Alternately, you could substitute the kane for the cannon. This would require two shimoku and a flat stand at waist height. You would play the kane with the bowl side facing down. Soh Daiko uses this technique in the piece “Yuudachi” by Sanford Ikeda. I haven’t yet found a good place in the US to purchase a kane. Your best bet is a visit to the Miyamoto store in Tokyo, where they have a wide variety of sizes.

As for the shimoku (the mallet with a deer antler head), you could purchase them at the Miyamoto store or online at Taiko Jinsei. My brother and his group TAIKOPROJECT have been making their own shimoku. Apparently they purchase the deer antler through ebay and then cut it down and drill a hole for the shaft. I’ll be checking these out later in the summer.

In the next post, I’ll write about stands, drum bags, and bachi.