 Without further ado, let's give a warm shabuigan welcome to Taiko Project Albums. History is starting to incorporate more into traditional Japanese music and theater, so just going Kabuki. And then it wasn't until about the fifties when a band named Raihachi O-Kuchi, you know, the jazz musicians decided to try to put Taiko together and play it in a kubo ensemble kind of setting. And that's what you see here today, and it's called Kumi Daiko, which means kubo. The next piece that we would like to share with you is a piece called Yodon Fuchii. Yodon in Japanese means four, so we're actually going to be playing on four different sides of the drum. This is a piece that comes from a group in Japan called Ska-no-ku Taiko, so it's in Yodon Fuchii. A Japanese festival without Taiko. He went upon himself to go back to Japan and taiko here to America. And this group is called Kina Taiko. And their philosophy is more of a Buddhist side of things. Naka sensei, his group, sometimes we kind of go with an energetic, you know, therapeutic thing. But for Kina Taiko, it's a little bit more laid back, a little bit more Los Angeles, a little bit more laid back, a little bit more West Side kind of thing. So we're going to play a therapy. This is a piece called Shishimai. And this is the lion dance. So it's got your whole thing. And we like to incorporate a lot of different kinds of stuff into our music nowadays. So this is Shishimai. It's actually one of the middle sized drum. This one's unique, too, because instead of the rope, or the nothing most, we actually have two drum heads that are tapped on individually by hand. And this is made out of one solid piece of wood that's just hollowed out. And the cow hides are tapped on. And this one has a significantly lower pitch. 300 lbs. 5 lbs. 1 lb. 2 lb. 3 lb. And Kina in Japanese means flat. And this is a flat drum. If you see the concept of playing this piece, you can see it by yourself. Waikouk, or Hinoki, the type of Japanese theater. And sometimes they're made from a special premium brand of Honepō Dao. But we also have these colors. This one we're going to have Jen play. He drew in this next song. He's called Koutou. And this is kind of like the Japanese version of a heart or a tickler. And it has a number of strings on it that are tuned to the western scale. He sold it playing a song and also... He sold it. He sold it. He sold it. He sold it in a station where all the drum sounds that can be made have a sound that we can make with our voice too. And so we normally learn how to sing a song with our voice. And then learn how to translate it onto the drums. And just the same way you would take words and arrange them into a sentence. We take them and we arrange them into a song like so. Dōng, dōng, dōng, dōng, dōng, dōng, dōng. And try it out. Before we do that, we're going to play our last song called Omiage. We've got Sushi. They chop it up into those tiny pieces. Right here we're going to need a giant space. The pause is going to demonstrate for us. You can be speeding up until you can't play any faster. And then there'll be one... Once you're on stage, you can go ahead and select your instrument. You'll see that there are sticks where they hold up. Okay. So, once again, the piece of the thing is called Omiage. The first thing you have to do is get to our stance. I want you to put your left foot forward. And we're ready to put it back. You can take only a nice strong stance if you want to hit the drum. We really are... Here we go. So, even though there are many of us in this room, there are ten of you on stage here. We want it to sound like one drum. Okay? One drum. We all have to play together. In the audience, I'm going to ask you guys to give me a favor and help them out. Okay? So, I'm going to say each knee, we're all going to give a nice big sore to help them start on stage. Is everyone ready? Oh, no. Yes. Okay, here we go. Each knee. Sore! We're going to be our volunteers. Okay, hit the drum. So, if you hit the drum hard, they won't break. Your knees put that. So, when Ma's moves his arms, you're going to move your arms. If Ma's shakes his head, you're going to shake your head. Ma, shake your head. Everyone shake your head. Yeah, here we go. We got that idea. Okay, so let's try one hit. Okay? I'm going to say each knee. Everyone gives a nice big sore. Ma's going to do one hit only, and we're going to try to follow it. Okay? So, all eyes should be on Ma's. Very nice. Arms in the air. Here we go. Each knee. Sore! That wasn't a mistake. Here we go. Again. One hit at a time. We're going to be following our leader, Ma's here at the front. We're going to be playing Orochi all together. Here we go. Each knee. Okay. So, again, this is going to be Orochi. We're all watching Ma's. Okay? One hit at a time. We're going to be speeding up until we can't get any faster. And then, one last door in the air. Here's my audience ready. On my stage. Here's ready. I'm going to take that as a yes. Here we go. We're going to be playing between a shoe and a sock. It provides lots of grip, but it's lightweight. So, it's like the perfect blend of shoe and sock. And we can tell you who we're ninjas. Another question? Yes, Ma? Do you practice or how many times do you practice? We practice twice a week for about three or four hours each time. We always talk about wanting to practice more. And we also teach about four different classes a week as well. Kids as young as seven years old that start playing with us. And we have students that play with us until as old as 81. So, age is never a factor to not play taiko. Or anything else about it? Yes, in the back. It is not fake. But there's a lot of spirituality that goes behind making a taiko. Because, for example, the taiko maker that made most of these drums has been making taiko for about 403, 404, 405 years. And they talk about generations of creating taiko. It's kind of like a blend of earth through the tree that makes up the body of it. Like plants as the tree of the body. It's a blend of earth through the metal attacks and also the life of the animal. And how high that's usually the head of the taiko. So, sometimes horse tides are also used to create a different sound. And sometimes big skin are also used for taiko. But, yes, you saw the real thing. We're trying not to have too much fun. We have a ton of fun. We love playing taiko. Does anyone want to maybe say something about playing taiko? Well, for me, ever since I was like a music and sports, I actually started in college. You're going from high school to college. I knew I wanted to join a club or something, but I didn't know why. And then I came across Taiko. Oh, this is perfect. With music and sports combined into one. So, that's the way to go. I think taiko is very interesting because it combines a lot of different influences. There's martial arts, there's dance, there's the physical training aspect of music. But I think for me, even though all of those things are important and these guys can tell you I harp on musical stuff a lot, there's something deeper about just watching the taiko performance, especially the first time you see it. It just kind of touches you in a special place. And that's what happens to me the first time. And that's why I chose to not be an engineer like my parents wanted me to. And to do this for my living. Taiko is life. Taiko, I also grew up with it. I was watching it at the festival with us. And my parents tried to get me into it a little bit. They liked one of their music and one of them. And also, in general, outside of Taiko it's kind of another group of friends or family. I have a family, we have a lot of friends together. It looks like we're having fun and you like watching it too. So at least the worst thing you have to go last is everyone's sense actually. But basically we have the same name. Like you guys got to experience today there's a lot of physical movements and visual aspects of Taiko and not just the music. Like for us, we did incorporate a lot of the more things that we grew up listening to but there's also those traditional elements in the music that we try to preserve and be respectful of. And then also studying also the movements. It's also very abrasive on the body. Practicing many, many hours and hitting so hard. So we are always studying the best way to get the best sound without hurting our bodies and still being humans for a long time. For example, Maz has been playing since he was six. And so 20 over 25, 30 years. It's kind of healthy. But, yes. So, yeah. Yes, and Richard. So the koto is a 13 string zither. The vibrato is played a little bit but there are those little white bridges. Do you can see them? So they're actually movable. So after the show we're going to take it apart and take all the bridges out. By moving it left or right. By moving it right it kind of raises the pitch of the strings. Moving it left lowers the pitch. And then depending on what song you're playing you can tune it to different tunes. And I think traditionally there's many different kinds of folklore to me and scales and overcurrents. Cool, thank you. We're actually going to conclude our Q&A but we're actually going to be out in the lobby. We have a seating as far as we can hear more of our music but we'll be out there and people have any questions and we'd like to know anything more about Tycho or our group but we'd like to thank you for being a great audience. This is our first time doing a new responsive.