Taiko and More Taiko
I attended my first session of the San Jose Taiko Adult Recreational Class on Sunday. The class actually began on September 3rd, but I was in Rochester with the Renegades at the time. Apparently about half of class was absent for that meeting, since it was smack in the middle of Labor Day weekend, so we spent a good portion of the class reviewing material from the first class meeting. I had taken a Public Workshop with SJT last month, so I didn't really need the refresher. It's always a good thing to work on basics though, so I welcomed the opportunity.
This is the second time I've participated in the ARC program, and I was happy to discover that I was reunited with several people who had taken the class with me before -- Mike, Larry, and Mari come to mind (there might be more than I'm not recalling). Even our instructors Mary and Matt are the same from my previous class. There was enough familiarity with the people and the equipment that I felt right at home in the class again. We began work on our first song, which is pretty straightforward so far.
The two hour session blew by fairly quickly. The class ended at 1:30, which meant I had half an hour to grab a quick lunch before I had to be back for the 2:00 Public Workshop session that I had also signed up for. When I registered for ARC, I was 6th on the waiting list. I was pretty sure I wouldn't get into the class, so I signed up for the workshop to get my taiko fix. Even after I was notified that I'd made it into ARC, I decided I would still attend the workshop. So I had three more hours of taiko to go!
When I returned back to the studio after lunch, I was greeted by SJT performing member Franco Imperial who was among my first taiko instructors from several years back. He knew that I had just gotten out of the ARC session, so his response was, "You're doing this workshop too? You must be nuts!" I got pretty much the same reaction from SJT Creative Director PJ Hirabayashi. She didn't have to say anything -- she just gave me this look of, "You're still here?!" Heh. Yes, I am that crazy!
suzimoses and brooksmoses joined me for the workshop and we had a great time. There's a lot of information to cram into three hours, but by the end the entire class was playing a whole song. In fact, the class was divided into three groups and we played the song in rounds. I've forgotten how many times I've taken this workshop, but out of all of them this was the most talented class I've been involved with in terms of picking up the technique and playing the music -- they were really good! They didn't make a lot of the basic errors that one might expect from a beginning class. Very impressive!
So this is the last time I'll be doing both ARC and the Public Workshop in the same day. It was a lot of fun, but five hours of taiko in one day is a bit much! I'll be content with my ARC class from now on. It runs until the week of Thanksgiving. Doesn't it figure that as soon as drum corps season is over, I find something else to fill that time slot?
This is the second time I've participated in the ARC program, and I was happy to discover that I was reunited with several people who had taken the class with me before -- Mike, Larry, and Mari come to mind (there might be more than I'm not recalling). Even our instructors Mary and Matt are the same from my previous class. There was enough familiarity with the people and the equipment that I felt right at home in the class again. We began work on our first song, which is pretty straightforward so far.
The two hour session blew by fairly quickly. The class ended at 1:30, which meant I had half an hour to grab a quick lunch before I had to be back for the 2:00 Public Workshop session that I had also signed up for. When I registered for ARC, I was 6th on the waiting list. I was pretty sure I wouldn't get into the class, so I signed up for the workshop to get my taiko fix. Even after I was notified that I'd made it into ARC, I decided I would still attend the workshop. So I had three more hours of taiko to go!
When I returned back to the studio after lunch, I was greeted by SJT performing member Franco Imperial who was among my first taiko instructors from several years back. He knew that I had just gotten out of the ARC session, so his response was, "You're doing this workshop too? You must be nuts!" I got pretty much the same reaction from SJT Creative Director PJ Hirabayashi. She didn't have to say anything -- she just gave me this look of, "You're still here?!" Heh. Yes, I am that crazy!
suzimoses and brooksmoses joined me for the workshop and we had a great time. There's a lot of information to cram into three hours, but by the end the entire class was playing a whole song. In fact, the class was divided into three groups and we played the song in rounds. I've forgotten how many times I've taken this workshop, but out of all of them this was the most talented class I've been involved with in terms of picking up the technique and playing the music -- they were really good! They didn't make a lot of the basic errors that one might expect from a beginning class. Very impressive!
So this is the last time I'll be doing both ARC and the Public Workshop in the same day. It was a lot of fun, but five hours of taiko in one day is a bit much! I'll be content with my ARC class from now on. It runs until the week of Thanksgiving. Doesn't it figure that as soon as drum corps season is over, I find something else to fill that time slot?