Photo courtesy Marcus Center for the Performing Arts
When Masa Ogawa was growing up in Japan, his mother discovered a timeless treasure in an old shrine in their village that would change the course of his life. It was a Taiko drum. And for a child, what amazed is that it was so BIG. Some are the size of a car. The drum also represented history, a timeless relic from the past that was now revealed.
“We realized that the Taiko was more than 100 years old when we changed its cow skin for renewal,” says the veteran drummer. “There was a date that was written by the Taiko maker. I felt a deep respect for the instrument and its maker and was instantly drawn to it.”
Ogawa, now in his early 50s, was so drawn to that instrument as a child that he studied and learned to play that drum, not knowing then how its unique sounds would deeply resonate within him. As a young man in his early 20s, Ogawa went on to form Wadaiko Yamato, a Japanese musical group of 20 Taiko drummers, in 1993. Their performance at the Marcus Performing Arts Center’s Uihlein Hall will feature eight drummers along with several types of Taiko drums and other unique instruments.
In Japanese, the word “Wadaiko” translates as “Japanese drum,” and the word “Yamato” is the former name of the Nara prefecture, where the group originated. For the master drummer, that discovered drum became a challenge to overcome and master at his mother’s urging.
“It was a little troublesome for me, I think, because I did not know how to make a song for the Taiko drum, and I was doing glassblowing at the time,” he recalls. “However, I felt I could do something with Taiko. That feeling grew after I made one song and started to practice. I was getting more excited day by day.”
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Heavy Music
The Taiko drum typically looks like a hollow wooden shell with skins at each end, all of different sizes. There are three types of Taiko drums used in the Yamato performance: Miya-Daiko is the most popular type found in Japan, with the body made from one piece of wood, typically an entire tree. They can weigh up to 1,100 pounds; Okedō-Daiko Taiko combines individual pieces of wood, similar to a wine barrel. The drum skin is tuned with a long rope and has a lighter sound and weight, so the drummers can carry this drum around on stage. The third drum. Shime-Daiko is the smallest of the three, weighing about 34 pounds, also tuned with rope, tied tightly. This drum is also used in the daily regimen that strengthens the drummers’ stamina to physically support and play the drums.
“Every morning, Yamato drummers are running in the mountain and the rice field,” Ogawa explains. “They run about 10 km [6.21 miles], and just after running, they do shadow drumming with fat Bachi sticks. They are facing the sky and imagining the biggest Taiko. They hit that Taiko more than 1,000 times.”
And that’s all before breakfast! Next comes two-to-three hours of weight training, followed by lunch. Then it’s more practice and on to the performance. That daily regimen includes women as well as men. In this day and age, women have always been a part of the Yamato group despite the art’s male-dominated history.
“Because Yamato is a modern group, we do not think about that male-dominated history,” Ogawa emphasizes. “At the beginning, there were women in Yamato, and they were equally as strong or stronger than the men. They have stamina and vitality. Yamato could not create anything without them.”
For Ogawa, the leap from glass blowing to drumming was remarkably easy. “I think there is no difference between glass blowing and Taiko drumming,” he says. “At university, I recognized that I wanted to become some kind of expresser, and I enjoyed playing in a band with friends... I knew that I had a need to make something by myself, for someone. But I did not know what I could do or wanted to do.”
Through the “creating process” of crafting handmade glass, Ogawa discovered that giving his glassworks to others was just like performing on a Taiko drum. “After I gave [glass] to them, the smile on their faces or just that warm feeling would become my energy,” he says, adding, “that is still my motivation now.”
Yamato: The Drummers of Japan perform at 8 p.m. Friday, March 13, at the Marcus Performing Arts Center, 929 N. Water St. For more information, call 414-273-7206 or visit marcuscenter.org.
