Happy New Year, it’s great to be back! First some shout outs: to the inspiring and dedicated groups I worked with in November: Kokyo Taiko, Soten Taiko, Beni Daiko, Ft. Wayne Taiko and Southern Indiana Taiko; to the 200+ folks who took my workshop and the many more I met at the Percussive Arts Society International Conference; and to kaDon, who provided TimbreTaiko and uchiwa clamp setups for PASIC! These were practical and easy to use and you can read more about them here.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the power of Call and Answer to help students get used to improvising. I’ve also talked about how important it is to mix up your activities to keep students engaged. This is true for students of any age! The activity below is afantastic way to challenge students who are already successful at basic call and answer. Originally from my Orff training, I’ve adapted it for taiko.
Play a 4-beat rhythm for students to echo.
While they are echoing the first rhythm, play a second 4-beat rhythm. This is the next pattern the students have to echo.
While students are echoing the second rhythm, play a third, and so on and so on until their heads explode.
The example below shows three full rounds and the beginning of a fourth.
This is HARD, for students and teachers alike. In my experience, the first two rounds usually go fine; things go off the rails in Round 3. Start with just 3 rounds, and give students feedback on how they’re doing. As they improve, try more than 3 rounds. It’s really challenging to keep track of how well students are copying one rhythm while you’re playing a new rhythm, but you need to so you can give genuine feedback. (That’s what makes this challenging for teachers.) Let me know how this goes for you, and happy teaching!