For the past two years, Asayake Taiko has practiced their music in garages and in the rooms at RIMAC. They’ve used the most primitive instruments, from phone books to car tires. They’ve self-organized their entire team, and spent the long days of summer making their own drums from scratch.
And now Asayake Taiko, UCSD’s first and only student taiko performing group, is ready to make an appearance on campus.
Taiko refers to the modern art of Japanese drum ensembles. Both a musical and artistic endeavor, taiko was traditionally used in Japan on the battlefields, in religious ceremonies and in refined cultural settings. The tradition became well-established in Japanese-American communities in North America after the second World War, and today there are over 150 taiko groups in North America.
Asayake Taiko began in 2002 with a small group of UCSD students who were interested in this musical art form. Most members had no prior experience, and the team had no real taiko drums to work with. Members learned taiko fundamentals by hitting phone books and tires strapped to chairs.
“I think the hardest part was getting people committed to taiko without drums,” said Marissa Miyao, a Thurgood Marshall College junior.
The team spent the past summer constructing their taiko drums from large wine barrels. Individual staves from the barrels were glued together, sanded and varnished. Cowhide was stretched across the outside of the barrels to form the head of the drums. Although the team faced several difficulties in making the drums, they have recently been finished and the team has started practicing on them.
In addition to creating the drums, team members also had to continually motivate themselves and each other.
“It’s a newly developed group, so not only do you have to join, [but] you have to take initiative to manage and create the club,” Marshall junior Ronald Melencio said.
Although a majority of the team is Japanese, the group is open to anyone who is interested in learning how to play.
“I have a vast interest in the Japanese language and culture, and I figured that doing taiko was a good way of expanding that interest and knowledge,” Melencio said.
Asayake Taiko will perform for the first time on April 18 at the Nikkei Student Union culture show at Neurosciences Institute and on May 21 at the daytime events of the Sun God Festival. The team will also participate in an invitational at Stanford scheduled from May 28 to May 31.
The group will perform two sets of pieces at their shows: “Matsuri,” a well-known traditional piece that most taiko players learn first, and “Arashi,” a piece composed by one of the founders of the team. According to Melencio, the new obstacle for Asayake Taiko is to reach “performance-level taiko playing.”
“This first performance will be the culmination of over a year of hard work and preparation for [the group], but I know afterward everyone will be very proud of how far they’ve come,”Monte Kawahara, an Eleanor Roosevelt College senior said.
Kawahara, who has been playing taiko since he was six, has also played in the well-known San Jose Taiko group. In addition to playing in the background of Asayake Taiko, he serves as a technical advisor to the group, drawing on his experiences to help members learn proper form, rhythm and performance techniques.
“It’s fun and inspirational to see the beginning of the group, how motivated everyone is, and watching the growth and improvements along the way,” Kawahara said.
The group has received support from NSU and has also received performance requests from UCSD music classes.
Now equipped with real drums and performance venues, the members of Asayake Taiko are looking forward to the future of the team.
“I have high aspirations for this group,” Bobby Koga, a co-founder of the team who just graduated from UCSD said. “Each individual in this group has contributed immensely … within the next year I really see taiko becoming a popular attraction throughout the student body, as they are on many other UC campuses. I would definitely like to see its influence throughout San Diego.”
