Murray’s NATC09
I’ll add my two penn’orth to Olga’s report. Let me preface by saying I was really tired before I went to the conference and very apprehensive about performing in front of the most knowledgeable audience imaginable.
The Thursday evening welcome dissipated tiredness and any tension. The SoCal groups had put together a fantastic welcome. All their hard work is much appreciated. It was wonderful to see familiar faces and make new acquaintances. Having people jam in experience-related groups was wonderful; 0-5 years, 6-10 (Me!), 11-15 (Olga), 16-20 (Eileen), 21-30 (Esther), 30+ all the ‘classic’ players :)
Friday’s lunchtime entertainment of taiko games was fun and food for thought. A taiko ‘march’ using different playing positions has possibilities but playing ‘Tic Tac Toe’ by counting drum beats looked very difficult.
My Friday class was chappa technique with percussionist Patrick Graham from Canada, who played with On Ensemble on Saturday. I learned care of the instrument, some bits of physics and several basic techniques for getting good sounds.
I very much enjoyed seeing part of the tribute to Daihachi Oguchi.
Friday night’s community concert was huge fun. My nerves had completely disappeared when I realized just how happy everyone was to be there. I decided to just share the joy and play my heart out and it worked out. Being first on was great. You had no one to live up to and freedom to watch everything else afterwards. All of the groups were interesting and I came away totally inspired with the desire to play more taiko. I may have a sneaking preference for PROTA’s rock taiko.
Saturday morning’s class was shime technique with Kris Bergstrom. A nicer guy you could not hope to meet and I aim to pass on what I learned about improving dexterity to as mas group members as I can and encourage them all to join his “30 Days to Better Shime” program starting August 15th. http://OnEnsemble.org/2008/12/30-days-to-better-shime/
Saturday afternoon I learned the classic technique for tieing rope shime from Marco Lienhard a long time former member of Ondekoza.
Saturday evening’s Taiko concert was mind-blowingly good and featured wildly diverse styles of taiko and taiko-related music. On Ensemble and Portland Taiko were original exciting and fascinating. Kishin Daiko were amazingly together for such a big group and very loud and fast. Las Vegas Kaminari Taiko were full of heart and passion, an absolute delight to watch.
Swag included new bachi, DVDs, tabi and jika-tabi.
I enjoyed talking to dozens of folks whose names I lost, but shout outs to, Wendy and Rose from Minneapolis (our lovely, helpful roomies), Fox and Alissa from Smokin’ Bachi, Miriam and Megumi from Portland Taiko (hope to visit in November), and to old friend Brenda from Canada.
And I got my lunch by the seaside before coming home :-)