The Pennekamp PTA hosts three cultural arts assemblies each year.  This year, our second assembly was John Mori's "Japanese Festival Sounds" which brought the rhythmic sounds of Japanese "taiko" (literally translated, it means "big fat drums") to the Pennekamp Campus.

While beautiful and powerful in its present artistic form, taiko had a variety of practical functions in ancient Japan.

These included announcing the time, calling together special gatherings, and establishing the boundaries of villages using the distances the sound carried from the center of the village as the indication of a village border.   

Villages with the highest quality drums and most powerful drummers creating the purest and longest reaching sounds could increase the land a village possessed!

Students watched as taiko masters performed on a variety of instruments. The nagado daiko (long bodied drum) which is the most commonly used taiko created a big sound.  This instrument is also referred to as odaiko (big drum) when it is the largest one in an ensemble. On the right, shime daiko (rope tensioned drum) created a higher pitched sound.

Bachi (drumsticks) are an important part of taiko.  Bachi range in size from very thin bamboo sticks to baseball sized clubs and can be made from a variety of woods including bamboo, bass wood, white oak, cypress, zelkova wood (related to elms) and hickory.  Students also saw the uchiwa daiko (literally "fan drum").

Horagai is a large shell used as a trumpet type instrument.  It is usually a Pacific Triton or Shank shell.  Chappa (hand cymbals) create sharp, brassy sounds.  Students were also introduced to the happi (pronounced "hoppy") or short work coat, the obi (belt or sash used to hold the happi closed), the tabi (split toed socks) and the hachimaki (headband).  The hachimaki is used as both a decorative part of the taiko outfit as well for the practical purpose of soaking up sweat!

Fue (pronounced "foo-ay"), Japanese flutes usually made of bamboo, are often the only melodic instruments in a taiko performance.  Here the fue was used to accompany the lion dance or "shishi-mai".    

In Japan, the lion dance is often seen at shrine festivals and at New Year's.

Students were then invited to perform!

They quickly learned it wasn't as easy as it looked! 

But after a little bit of practice...

they got the hang of it! 

Thank you to Jennifer Boxer and Deslee Mercier for chairing our cultural arts committee and to the Pennekamp PTA for sponsoring these events at Pennekamp.