Drill: Fast & Furious 3

Looking for drills to help folks stay relaxed while playing at speed? Look no further than Kristin’s Fast and Furious series! Fast and Furious 3 (FF3) helps you practice fast hands and timing precision while moving between the kawa and fuchi. (Click these links for posts on FF1, FF2, and FF4.) Here’s FF3 written out in kuchishoka and western notation, and here's a video of our friends at Taiko SOBA demonstrating the drill. Thank you SOBA for the video assist! 

Challenge yourself in FF3 by increasing tempo while staying relaxed. The tempo shifts should happen in the final four “don ka” of each full repetition (see Taiko SOBA’s demo video for an example.) If you’re using this for solo practice, pay attention to your hands, arms, body - even your face! - while you speed up. As soon as you feel yourself tensing up, stop, shake it out, and start again at a tempo where you know you can stay relaxed. Pay attention (as always) to extension, stance, and other kata basics. Many players, especially newer players, speed up by bringing their arms closer into their body or cutting other kata corners. Fight that urge!

For everyone who’s back to in-person practice, add a straight teke teke jiuchi under FF3, as SOBA does in the video. The shime player drives the speed ups. (It’s a great way to practice gradual tempo changes.) The shime player can also be the one who watches people for tension and stops the group when they see it. 

Let us know if you try FF3, and happy teaching!

Fast and Furious Drill #4

The latest in Kristin’s Fast & Furious series is a fun one! Like all drills in this series, it builds the skill of staying relaxed while playing at speed. FF4 also helps you practice precision timing and finding the pocket. Thanks to our friends Vicky and Ian from Unit Souzou, Taiko SOBA, and Jun Daiko for helping us out with this video demonstration! 

In the video, Ian demonstrates the drill at 120 bpm and Vicky does it at 240 bpm, and they show how to loop the drill so you’re practicing both hands equally. They’re doing it on a shime, but it translates to other types of drums and practice surfaces. The drill is written out in kuchishoka and western notation here.

Challenge yourself in FF4 by gradually increasing tempo while staying relaxed. Pay attention to your hands, arms, body - even your face! - while you speed up. As soon as you feel yourself tensing up, stop, shake it out, and start again at a tempo where you know you can stay relaxed. There are several metronome apps that will speed up for you automatically. Erin Kelly from Pittsburgh Taiko introduced me to Sound Corset, which is the one I use. Raising the hand that’s playing the “additional” beats will also increase the challenge level.

When you get back to your group practices or your classes, add a straight teke teke jiuchi to FF4 and use that to drive the speed up. (That's a great time for your shime player to practice gradual tempo changes.) The shime player can also be the one who watches people for tension and stops the group when they see it. Let us know if you try this drill!

Content note on the final paragraph of this post: reference to ongoing anti-AAPI violence in the US.

 Finally, we want to recognize that the escalating racism and violence directed towards Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) is making difficult time even harder. As practitioners of an art form rooted in the Japanese-American and Asian-American experience, it is especially important for white members of the taiko community to pause and think about last month’s shootings in Atlanta and the latest wave of anti-AAPI hate crimes in the US. For AAPI folks, thinking about these things probably hasn't been optional lately; white peers, we can't let it be optional for us. We all have a role to play in sending a strong collective message that we will not accept racism, discrimination, hate, and violence in our city, state, and country. We urge everyone in the taiko community to stand up and support Asian American communities. Click here and scroll to the bottom of the linked page for resources to help you educate yourself on speaking up, talking to children, and fighting anti-Asian racism and white supremacy. 

Activity: Rolling Hills Drill

Online classes are not an ideal environment for working on kata or ensemble skills. They are, however, a good opportunity to work on musicianship fundamentals. The Rolling Hills Drill helps your students build the ability to keep tempo steady while varying their volume. It’s written out here in kuchishoka and western notation.  

To get the most out of this drill, do it with a metronome. You can use one of many free online metronomes and share your computer sound, or you can use an external metronome (a real one or an app) and set it near your microphone when you lead this drill. Seventy (70) bpm is a beginner-friendly starting tempo. Of course, go faster if you’re working with more advanced players!

You can repeat this drill as many times as you’d like. Rhythmically it’s quite simple, so students can focus on keeping their tempo steady. For more advanced students, challenge them to start the drill with their nondominant hand, and/or extend the crescendo and decrescendo evenly over the entire 8 beats. This is also a great drill for solo practice.

Let me know if you try the Rolling Hills drill and how it works for you. Happy teaching!

Shime Drill 1

This first drill in our shime series develops several skills that are foundational to good shime: tempo steadiness, speed, and producing a consistent sound no matter what sticking you’re using. Notation is here and video is here. (To keep the video short, I only demonstrate the right lead. The notation shows the drill in its full form, with left lead immediately following right.)

Try this drill at 90 bpm. If you can execute the drill with accurate timing and consistent sound at 90 bpm, increase to 92-95 bpm. If you’re successful there, keep gradually bumping the tempo up until you reach a speed where your timing starts to slip or your sound becomes uneven. That’s your fail speed. Once you find it, do this drill every day for 2 minutes: 1 minute at fail speed, and 1 minute at 2-5 bpm below fail speed. 

You will soon see huge improvements in your ability to produce consistent sound at faster tempo. As you start to succeed at your fail speed, increase the tempo until you find your new fail speed. It’s a perfect time to push ourselves to become the best individual players we can be, so we can contribute even more to our groups when we meet in person again. 

If you don’t have a metronome, there are free metronomes online and free apps available for both Android and iOS. You can also turn on your favorite streaming service - or radio! - and use the music as your metronome. Most streaming services have playlists that are at specific bpm. 

Happy practicing!

Fast & Furious Drill 2

Drill 2 in Kristin’s Fast & Furious series reinforces the skill of staying relaxed while playing at speed. It also helps you keep practice knowing where the 1 is without having to emphasize that beat. Like Fast & Furious 1, it’s good for group practice and the kind of individual practice that’s the only option for most of us right now.

Notation for the drill is here and the video is here. Approach this drill the same way you did F&F 1: pay attention to your hands, arms, body - and your face- as you gradually pick up your tempo. As soon as you feel yourself tensing up, stop, shake it out, and start again at a tempo where you know you can stay relaxed. In addition, pay attention to the first beat of every measure (hint: it’s always ka or kara) but don’t overemphasize it. This can be tricky for the phrases that start with ka instead of kara!

When you get back to your group practices or classes, add a straight teke teke jiuchi to this and use that to drive the speed up. At that time, the shime player can be the one who watches people for tension. Everyone should pay attention to their own sound and the overall sound of the group to make sure that first beat isn’t overemphasized.

Happy practicing!

Fast & Furious Drill 1

Continuing posts on how to practice taiko under quarantine/shelter-in-place, here’s the first drill in Kristin’s Fast and Furious series! It’s fantastic for individual practice, which is all that’s available to many of us right now. Notation here and video here. 

The point of this drill is to gradually speed up while staying relaxed. Pay attention to your hands, arms, body - even your face! - while you speed up. As soon as you feel yourself tensing up, stop, shake it out, and start again at a tempo where you know you can stay relaxed. The sticking alternates so that your opposite hand leads each time you repeat the drill, providing even practice with your dominant and non-dominant hands.

When you get back to your group practices or your classes, add a straight teke teke jiuchi to this and use that to drive the speed up. (That's a great time for the shime player to practice gradual tempo changes.) At that time, the shime player can be the one who watches for people tensing up and stops the group when they see it.

Happy practicing!

Basic Beats: Three drills for beginners

When players are first starting out, they need drills with simple patterns. The video on the right features three drills I created to help students practice basic beats (don, doko, ka, kara, tsu, and tsuku). These drills work for both kids and adults.

It’s important to get people vocalizing from the get-go, to prepare them for kiai later on. I also like to get people playing both right and left hand lead from the very first class.

The drills are written out here (in kuchishoka and western notation, thanks once again to Kristin). I don’t recommend giving written materials to students before introducing a drill or song, because it reinforces learning through intellect rather than learning through experience. But giving written materials AFTER introducing a drill or song is great! It helps students practice patterns correctly and can be critical to the success of your visual learners.

Happy teaching!

P.S. A shout out to my current community class students, who are demonstrating the drills in the video!