Taiko Yesterday and Today

Drumming has a long tradition in Japan. According to myth, drums were played in the heavens by Amaterasu, a great Shinto deity, which Japanese emperors claim their direct lineage. She personifies sun and light. In several festivals throughout Japan Taiko drums are played especially in her honor. The sound is meant to lure Amaterasu out of the darkness to restore balance between good and evil.

Originally the practice of Taiko was generally frowned upon in higher society, but held an important role in rural life. To both honor and appease the gods, people drummed for a better harvest or more plentiful fishing. These Taiko pieces were handed down from generation to generation over several centuries.

Eventually the Taiko sound was picked up for use in theater and religious ceremonies, but it wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that it took the form popularized in Japan and the West today: the modern style follows traditional techniques and rhythms, but elevates the emphasis of movement and performance aspects in order to evoke yamato damashi, which means the “spirit of ancient Japan”. Nevertheless, it is still the pounding rhythms, which can overtake the beat of your heart and reach deep primal emotions.

Today, in Japan, Taiko is played during the many religious festivals held in summer and autumn – each based on local traditions. Despite the apparent extroverted aspects of the performance, the drummers maintain a stoic attitude. It could be said that they hope to draw the attention of the gods to their city or village to ask for their consideration and benevolence.

But with such deep-seated roots to the Japanese soul and considering the importance placed on traditional sounds such as those produced through Shamisen, Shinobue and Taiko, can non-Japanese hope to access to its profound emotional expression?

The first person to broaden the scope of Taiko was jazz musician and founder of Osuwa Daiko, Daihachi Oguchi. He used a new configuration of drums: the basic rhythms were moved to the Shime-daiko, a small elevated drum, while the base accents were played on the deep and full sounding Nagado-daikos. It was a sound and a strong community feeling that found its resonance especially amongst young people, prompting an ever increasing number of ensembles. Today, every university is running a taiko group – the members are highly professional percussionists…

Daihachi Oguchi wrote many of the popular pieces that have since found worldwide distribution and thus carried the spirit of his pieces out into the world. Under the influence of this achievement of kumi daiko, playing in a larger ensemble with the distribution of rhythms on different sounding taikos, something new emerged – what we now call modern taiko. His influence on the spread of taiko, not only in Japanese communities, is incalculable – here is a reference to a page of the Hiryu Project, which was founded after his death and to which we have gladly contributed several times;-).

The achievement of kumi daiko, playing in a larger ensemble with the rhythms distributed across different sounding taikos, gave rise to something new – what we now call modern taiko. His influence on the spread of taiko, not only in Japanese communities, is incalculable – here is a reference to a page of the Hiryu Project, which was founded after his death and to which we have gladly contributed several times;-).

Many Japanese Taiko instructors – who are increasingly teaching abroad – consider drumming as a direct expression of this spirit. As such, it is the responsibility of each Taiko group to honor that spirit and never lose sight of this purpose.

A lot has happened since then;-) The first taiko groups were formed outside Japan, especially in places where large Japanese communities had been living for several generations (such as the USA). The oldest and best-known example is Seiichi Tanaka‘s San Francisco Taiko Dojo (SFTD): he was the first Taiko Sensei to admit women to his classes! The SFTD recently celebrated its 50th anniversary – i.e. it has hardly been more than 50 years since women were allowed to play taiko at all.