Music lesson

In my two years in Japan, I have found very little popular Japanese music that I enjoy (of course, I don't care much for American Pop either). I have seen a handful of super fun underground live shows, but for the most part life in the inaka (countryside) has sheltered me from a good music scene.

However, I have greatly enjoyed two kinds of traditional music, taiko drumming and shamisen. Ususally performed by large groups of drummers, taiko is stunning to watch-- it is tribal, aerobic, and wonderfully cadenced. Shamisen I don't know that much about, but I have acquired a taste for the music of Yoshida Kyodai, two brothers who play the tsugaru-jamisen style from northern Japan. I can't describe it much better than Wikipedia, it is "rapid and percussive" and strangely addictive.

Imagine my surprise and good-fortune then, when last week a a group of four young Japanese musicians came to my school, toting shamisens and taiko drums, to do a workshop with the students. I had the period free and the music teacher graciously invited me to participate as well. The group played several songs together, accompanying with a wooden flute and piano, and then the shamisen player did an incredible solo. After, he asked if anyone would like to try. When none of the students volunteered, my hand shot up quickly. Mind you, I have no musical talent. None. As a child, piano lessons were forced and hated, and later in the middle school band, I played my clarinet just as softly as possibly so you couldn't hear the missed notes. I have trouble clapping along to a beat. Shoot, I can barely spell rhythm (I looked it up). But back to my story.



I proceeded to the chair on stage where the shamisen player quickly told me to fix my posture and sit like a Japanese person. HAI! He then showed me how to hold the shamisen neck and the bachi (plectrum/large pick), which I also did wrong. After correcting the grips, he instructed me how to play the strings. They are not so much picked or strummed as they are whacked. I whacked once, producing a painful sound and an equally painful look on my sensei's face. I was afraid I had broken the instrument. But, he let me try again so I whacked one more time, but without much improvement. His Japanese was a bit too rapid for me to catch it all, but he said something like "Thats about all the time we have now..at least you made a sound..tsugaru-jamisen is extremely difficult...thanks very much...please sit down." Despite the sensei's harsh words, it was fun to give it a whirl and all of the students were talking about how cool I was for trying. Yoshi!



Later, I had a go on one of the smaller taiko drums. The taiko players were much more friendly and said I gripped the bachi (also drumstick) perfectly. Couldn't tell if they were serious or just trying to make me feel better after the shamisen debacle. Either way, whacking the drum was waaayyyyyyy easier than whacking the shamisen.