Another Song for Beginners: Sanae Swing

Many beginning students have trouble feeling a swing jiuchi. This is especially true for new players who don’t have music or dance training before coming to taiko. I created Sanae Swing as an entry-level piece to help these players build facility with swing ji and with creating and playing solos.

Structurally, the song is very simple. It’s just an Intro/Outro pattern, a tag, and places for players to plug in solos (or duets, if they’re not comfortable soloing yet). The kuchishoka deck is a great tool for students who are new to creating solos. I highly recommend printing one (or more) and using it (them)!

The video above shows our community class playing a short arrangement of Sanae Swing. They opted for duets rather than solos and used the kuchishoka decks to create them. The kuchishoka and western notation are here. If you teach this song, please post video and let me know! I’d love to see where people go with it.

Happy teaching!

A Song for Beginners: Bamboo Shoots

Every beginning player needs to learn songs that reinforce the skills they’re learning. Renshu (by Seiichi Tanaka) is such a song. Renshu is canon, and an important part of North American taiko history. You should teach Renshu! (If you don’t know or know of Renshu, Google it now!)

But you shouldn’t only teach Renshu. In general, beginning players like to learn a lot of new songs. The more songs you can teach them, the more they’ll feel like they’re progressing (and the greater rep they’ll have to draw on for future performances).

Bamboo Shoots (Takenoko) targets middle and high level beginners. It’s challenging enough that your fastest learners won’t get bored but easy enough that slower learners will still succeed, especially if they have faster peers to copy. The video features my community class playing a short arrangement of Bamboo Shoots and includes the kuchishoka. The full song is written out here in kuchishoka and western notation.

The song’s pretty simple. If you use it, please post a video and let me know. I’d love to see where people go with it. Happy teaching!

Introducing New Songs: Method 1

There are a lot of ways to teach new songs to your students. Kristin and I have different “go-to” methods we rely on. This week I’m writing about mine; in a future post, she’ll introduce hers.

My method is adapted from my Orff training. Under the Orff method, students learn music much the way humans learn language - through listening, repeating, getting it wrong at first, learning from mistakes, and repeating the process until they’ve got it. It’s active learning that, over the long haul, builds real ownership of the material and a capacity for creative risk-taking. It’s a great way to teach kids and adults and it’s a great way to teach taiko.

The steps are below. I usually stop between steps and take questions, or if I see people struggling in a way that indicates lack of understanding. I don’t usually stop for struggling that reflects the normal effort of memorizing a new pattern.

The video on the right shows all of the steps. It’s just under 3 minutes long, but the full process takes 10-20 minutes, depending on how long a phrase you’re teaching and how quickly your class learns.

1. Introduce the full phrase while tapping on your body.

Use whatever phrasing is natural in the song you’re teaching. In the video, it’s 4 measures, which I find to be a good length. Tap your shoulders and legs to show where the pulse of the phrase is.

In the video, I’m teaching the tag from Sanae Swing, one of my beginner songs. Note that I tell the students what I’m going to do before I do it. This kind of signposting is helpful for most types of learners.

2. Break the full phrase into smaller sections and echo teach them.

Get students copying you on the body tapping. Then say “First me” and say a small section of the phrase. After you finish, say “Now you.” Students say that same section back to you. Keep tapping the entire time.

They will not get it right the first time - they’re not supposed to! They’re supposed to do their best. Don’t stop when they make mistakes. Just say “First me” again, repeat the section, and say “Now you” for them to echo again. Keep this up until about ⅔ of them are getting it right about ⅔ of the time (the ⅔ ⅔ rule).

3. Keep adding small sections until you’ve introduced the entire phrase.

Once you hit the ⅔ ⅔ mark on the first section, add the second. This time, DON’T signpost. Just do it. In the video, I add a third section because the class had gotten to ⅔ ⅔ on the first two sections.

I can’t say it enough: don’t wait for everyone to have it perfect before you add the next section. You have to allow for things to be imperfect in this process; imperfection is a natural step in learning. Aim for ⅔ ⅔ and then add on.

4. Show sticking.

Once you’ve introduced all sections and hit ⅔ ⅔ on the full phrase, teach the sticking. Either turn your back to students when you do this or mirror the sticking if you’re facing them (i.e., use your left hand for right hand hits) so highly visual learners don’t get confused.

Change to a count of “ichi ni so-re” to start rather than First me/Now you. It prepares students for the next step.

As you did with the echoing, go over the sticking for one section several times. Add on the next section when you hit ⅔ ⅔. Keep that up until you’ve taught all of the sticking.

5. Build the phrase by sections on the drums.

Have students go to their taiko. Add the jiuchi. Build up the full phrase by sections, as you did with the echo teaching and sticking. Count in by “ichi ni so-re.” Add a new section when you hit ⅔ ⅔. In the video, the class is working on sections 1 and 2.

If you follow these steps, by the time you’ve built up the whole pattern on the drums, students have said, played, or air-bachied (that’s a word, look it up) the phrase 30-50 times. This is enough repetition for many students to have memorized it. Note, we don’t touch drums until Step 5.

This method is harder for visual learners. For this reason, I encourage students to write down what they’ve learned when we take a break and check it with me to make sure they’ve got it right. I don’t let them read from this paper as we play, however. Visual learners CAN succeed with this method, it just takes a little more time and a little more support from the teacher during breaks.

If you use this method, let me know. I’d love to hear how it works for you. Happy teaching!

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!

If you fail to plan.…

Planning your lessons in advance takes time, but it’s time well spent. It’s the difference between mediocre classes and students liking taiko more than recess. (TL;DR? Here’s a template you can use, and see you next post.)

There are lots of different ways to approach planning lessons. Here are two tips I’ve found helpful over the years.

1. Plan your objective first.

You need to have a clear idea of what you want your students to understand or be able to do at the end of your class. Is this session about kuchishoka? Form? Learning a song? Building fundamentals for soloing? It doesn’t have to be just one thing, but it needs to be spelled out clearly. Begin with “By the end of this class, students will…” and then complete the sentence. (You can leave out the “by the end of this class” if it feels too wordy - I usually do).

2. Keep your students active.

When I was teaching in Japan, I was introduced to this format for lesson planning. I loved it, and still turn to it today. (Here’s an example of a lesson I planned using this format. Both “teacher” and “teaching artist” refer to the instructor leading the class.)

Try using this format to plan your next class. If you see a lot of “listening” or “watching” and fewer active verbs (i.e., drumming, chanting, moving, etc.) change up the lesson so students are more active.

A general rule of thumb: for K-1 students, you need to change activities at least every 5 minutes, or even more frequently. For 2nd and 3rd graders, change every 7 (ish) minutes; for 4th-5th graders, change every 10-15 minutes. Gr. 6 and up can easily spend 45 minutes and more on an activity, as long as they’re actively involved in their learning.

This means you have to have a lot of activities ready for lower grades and that it will take you several classes in a row to complete an extended activity. This is a great approach! It gives students a week to absorb information and experiences before moving on to more complex steps, which greatly increases success.

If you have any questions about a specific lesson you’re working on, feel free to email me. Happy teaching!

Practicing Kuchishoka: Kuchishoka Cards

When they’re first learning, students need steady practice with kuchishoka to build fluency. The more fun that practice is, the more likely they are to fully engage with it, which results in better understanding, which makes the practice more fun, making them more likely to engage fully, which results in better understanding, which makes it more fun, making them more likely to engage...you get the idea.

My wonderful life and business partner Kristin helped me create this set of kuchishoka cards, and below are 2 games that use the cards. The cards incorporate western notation and Japanese lettering, allowing for easy and natural connections to general music classes and lessons on Japanese language and culture. There are lots of ways to use these in support of your state and national standards while also building skills for taiko.

Students love these games! They’re good for kids ages 7 and up - even adults get into them. Download and print the deck and try these out. The composition extension is a fun challenge for more advanced students. Good luck, and let me know how it goes!

Kuchishoka Karuta

I first encountered Karuta in my Japanese language classes, where teachers used it as a way of practicing hiragana and katakana. For Kuchishoka Karuta, the teacher breaks students into groups of 2-3 and gives each group one set of kuchishoka cards. Students sit on the floor and spread the full deck of cards face up on the floor in between them. The teacher plays a single note and students look for the card with that note. When they find it, they slap it. Whoever slaps it first gets to keep it.

For example, if you play don, students search for a don card. When they find one, they slap their hand down on it. The deck has multiples of each card, so it’s possible for everyone playing to wind up with a card. You can make it harder by removing duplicates, or make the game last longer by giving each group two sets of cards.

Continue until all cards have been picked up.

Composition Extension: Guide students in creating a short pattern using the cards they won during the game. Have students rotate to other groups and try playing the patterns other students created. If time allows, have the class work together to put all patterns together into a song.

Kuchishoka Go Fish

Just like regular Go Fish, the goal is to make a book (a complete set) of a type of note (i.e., all of the don, all of the doko, etc.)

Divide students into pairs and give each pair a deck of kuchishoka cards. Students deal out 2 hands of 7 cards each, with the remaining cards going face down in a pile in the middle. Students play Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who goes first.

The first student plays a note on their drum of a card they’re seeking. They must have at least one of that type of card in their hand to ask for it. For example, if Michelle has two don and wants to know if her partner Mia has any, she plays a don on her drum. If Mia has any don cards, she gives those cards to Michelle. If Mia doesn’t have any don, she says “Go fish!” and Michelle draws the top card from the pile. If she draws a “don,” she gets to go again. If she doesn’t, it becomes Mia’s turn to ask.

Once a student has collected all of the cards of one type, they put those cards together in a small pile face up in front of them.

The game continues until all cards have been collected into books.

You can play the game in groups of 3 as well; in that case, only deal out 4 cards to each student.

Links

Kuchishoka Cards (PDF)

Want to discuss how to incorporate these in your classroom or integrate lessons with your state/national standards? I can help! Email me to set up a video or in-person session.

Interested in ordering the fancy version of Kuchishoka Cards (seen in the picture with this post) for yourself or your classroom? They’re available at our South Bay Beat Institute Store.

Introducing Kuchishoka to Kids

The power of the Orff method comes from the way it fires up imagination and encourages experience. For kids between the ages of 4-8, hearing a story that includes kuchishoka primes their minds to understand how syllables relate to drumming.

“The Squirrel Village” introduces Kindergarten through 3rd grade students to don and doko. Nearly every time I’ve told it, the students join me in chanting and playing their laps by the time I finish. That even happened in the video below, where I’m telling the story to a group of adults as part of a training! (Bonus points if you spot the math integration in the story.)

I recommend using this story with grades K-3. As with any storytelling, delivery is much more important than getting the text exactly right. Try this in your next kids’ class and let me know how it goes!

(And yes, the story requires great suspension of disbelief, which is easy for most students in this age range.)