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Opening question: What was your favourite toy or game growing up?
Rebecca: Yellow plastic lamb / Nancy: Swings / Cathy: Monopoly / Ellen: Stuffed animals that would join her and her brother while watching Saturday morning cartoons / Franco: Apple II+ / Lane: Anything outside , also hotwheels which ended up getting destroyed by younger brother / Theresa: Drums! Playing in parades in Sacramento with sister / Sonya: stuffed animals, horses, plastic dinosaurs / Yurika: digging holes in the backyard with sister and brother, looking for treasure
“Ei Ja Nai Ka?” Call and Response
Today we learned the kakegoe (掛け声) for a song that is played by San Jose Taiko and many other taiko groups around the world called “Ei Ja Nai Ka.” Kakegoe are usually words of encouragement for the musicians, singers, or dancers performing with music. Usually they are phased a longer than kiai and might fit in musically, but always shouted with energy and intention.
Ei Ja Nai Ka? hai! ASORE! ASORE!
Ei Ja Nai Ka? hai! ASORE SORE YOI SHO!
Ei Ja Nai Ka? hai! ASORE! ASORE!
Ei Ja Nai Ka? hai! ASORE SORE YOI SHO!
Ei EI Ja JA Nai NAI Ka KA
YOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - HAI!
Yurika had recorded this for our summer obon performance at home:
Here are a couple of videos of Ei Ja Nai Ka? being performed at home during COVID and also at the San Jose Obon Festival. You can see how Ei Ja Nai Ka? has spread all over the world here.
Putting Things Together
Franco went over a review of the RumbaKo “sweeps” that we worked on last week (see videos below). The sweeps are great to practice as they challenge our right and left sides to do something very different - while one side is playing the taiko with rhythmic strikes, the other hand is trying to make a smooth movement. Franco suggested that if that is difficult at first, it’s ok to move the “smooth” hand more like a ticking clock.
We also did a bit more practice on the Horsebeat from last week and added an element, alternating 4 horsebeats with 4 counts of movement. The movements can be smooth movements or they can be sharp movements.
After practicing this for a while, we also reviewed the song that we made up using numbers. Then putting it all together:
5 . 5 . 4 . . 4 . . / 5 . 5 . 1 . 1 . 2 . (“Ho!”)
Horsebeat x 4 / Movement x 4 counts
Repeat the whole thing!
ANNOUNCEMENTS and REMINDERS:
Payment for classes should be made here: https://www.paypal.me/sanjosetaiko OR by check made out to San Jose Taiko, 565 N. 5th Street, San Jose CA 95112 (please mark the check PRC). The fee is $10 drop-in or $36/month. (The fee for September is $45/month since there are 5 Tuesdays.)
Bachi can be purchased to be mailed for $10 a pair.
Our friends in southern California are also running a taiko class for Parkinson’s called “Rhythmic Flow Taiko” on Sundays. Please check their website for more info.
We will be running classes through December. We’re not sure when we’ll be back at the studio, so it will be Zoom for the time being. If we do end up going back to the studio, we are planning to also have either a separate Zoom class or a hybrid Zoom/studio class if you can’t come all the way to SJ.
At any time, feel free to email yurika@taiko.org for questions!