Hana-Hachijou!

Sumi is finally getting over her illness, and not a moment too soon. Tonight we are going to be having a private workshop with Chieko Kojima! Long story short, Chieko was a member of Ondekoza, the predecessor to Kodo, then one of the original members of the 1981 Kodo and one of the first women to perform kumidaiko by basically creating her own style, as she wasn't allowed to play the "guy songs" (things were even more misogynistic back then). She also wasn't keen on wearing the Kodo outfit of choice at that time: a fundoshi

Basically an adult diaper

That is a very short and pithy way to describe her creation of Hana-Hachijo, a style of hachijo specifically written for a female wearing a kimono to play and very different from other styles of taiko. Tonight, we are going to meet up with Manami and Maika and the four of us are going to have a 3 hour private lesson where we'll basically learn the song and how to start twirling our bachi and hitting with correct style. An intro to Hana-Hachijo.

But first! Sumi wanted to sleep in and make sure she was feeling well for tonight, so I took a solo trip down to Ochanomizu and Meidai Dori, better known as Guitar Street.

Several blocks of mostly instrument shops

There are a lot of guitar shops, but also other instruments as well. New and used gear, recording studios, practice spaces, lessons. It's pretty cool. I spent the morning looking around, trying out a few instruments, and shaking my head at some of the prices. I'm very utilitarian with my gear, so paying for anything other than functionality offends my artistic sense. That said, there were deals as well as overpriced crap.

Some really interesting gear in this place (see below)

The best of all planets

The most overrated of all planets

All the planets!

A good general store

I want a windpal...

There were some interesting Japanese brands that you don't see in the US here. I took some pictures before I saw the sign telling dumb tourists not to take pictures..

Saito makes some decent basses. Neck felt a little chunky for me, but nice tone.

These are not used. They are "pre-distressed". What does it say about you that you will pay $4k+ for a brand new axe that looks like it's been on the road for decades?

There were a few oddities there, and one I'm still trying to get Bill to buy.

A Gibson 12/6 double neck. Sadly, $7500 is a good price for one. 

A hollow-body flying V? Who ever asked for one of these?

A Roland G707 Guitar synth controller. Very rare.

I headed back to the ryoukan, took shower #2 today, and Sumi and I went to splurge on lunch at Mo-Mo-Paradise

100 minutes of all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu. We didn't gorge ourselves, but we did enjoy some decent sukiyaki

Heading over to Shinjuku, we found the rehearsal studio hidden in a residential area of Shinjuku. We were early, so we hung out in the shade for a bit. Chieko arrived about 30 minutes early and was surprised to see us, but invited us in to the studio and we relaxed a bit before Manami, Maika, and Yuuko, the woman who helped us set up the workshop and a taiko player in her own right, arrived.

The workshop was a lot of fun. I was told to use the spread out "manly" stance (literally "otoko-teki") rather than the dainty closed stance that women wearing kimonos need to do. This was good, because a) I will not be wearing a kimono and b) I could get myself lower so I had less chance of hitting the ceiling with my hands, let alone my bachi. The studio is in the basement of the building and the ceiling is quite low. They usually use it for Miyake, which is a very low style, and Hana-Hachijo is not usually played by six foot tall white guys, so I caused several problems this evening.

We managed to learn a lot of the basics in the short time we had. There was a particularly useful and hilarious exercise using a squeaky-toy that I am planning on bringing into Hibiki. It is really something special to be able to take lessons from such accomplished performers like Chieko. Being one of the founding members of one of the most important kumidaiko groups in the world, she has an experience and point of view that is quite unique. Below is a quick clip of the squeaky-toy (harder than it looks) and of Chieko performing Hana-Hachijo with Kaoru Watanabe