Shime Stands Revisited

Despite the fact that the drum head height of the shime when on the stands I built previously is very close to that of the other drums we use in our group, pretty much every drummer has felt that they're too low. I think that the angle of the drum head may have something to do with it. Maybe they would feel differently if the head of the drum was parallel to the floor. In any case, I decided to make additional stands that place the shime higher. Since I love to experiment, a new design was in order.

This stand places the top head of the shime four inches higher than the previous design. The construction was largely the same. I doweled and glued all the joins. The head of the triangle is held together with hinges so the stand will fold flat for storage and transport. And for a change of pace I painted it black.

I thought the dark stand would contrast nicely with the white of the heads and rope, with the wood tones of the body creating a nice middle ground. I probably think about these things too much. In any case, painting the stand was a far more difficult than I would have ever thought, so I don't know if I'm going to make a habit of it.

43rd Annual International Taiko Festival

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the 43rd annual International Taiko Festival hosted by San Francisco Taiko Dojo at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley with my older daughter, and I just had to take the opportunity to talk about how much fun I had. (please excuse me while I gush . . .)

photo courtesy of San Francisco Taiko Dojo

The show opened with a performance of Hiryu San Dan Gaeshi, performed by San Francisco Taiko Dojo. Center and side stages were full of moving, leaping drummers and performers.  There were more taiko players than I had ever seen perform at one time. 


In addition to SF Taiko, in attendance were Sacramento Taiko Dan and Zi-Pang from Japan.

Sacramento Taiko Dan, at one point opening with an impressive vocal harmony, displayed their exceptional drumming skills. This is my first time seeing them perform and Tiffany Tamaribuchi  has to be one of the most impressive Odaiko drummers I have had the pleasure to see.  


Zi-Pang was something new for me. Leader and founder Hiroyuki Hayashida is a premiere katsugi okedaiko player, and he and the other members of  Zi-Pang were truly impressive. I found their unconventional addition of cymbals to one of the pieces less to my taste, as it brought the Asian flavor of taiko that I love so much more toward a western drum sound, but I still found seeing them play quite enjoyable. Their energy and passion was truly infectious.

photo courtesy of San Francisco Taiko Dojo and Hiroyuki Hayashida

Every player of taiko knows the power of the big drums. The way a single beat can echo through your chest, changing the rhythm of your heart and reaching you on a level you've rarely felt. This performance held true to that experience, and the focused expertise of the drummers was matched only by how much they seemed to enjoy what they were doing. 

photo courtesy of San Francisco Taiko Dojo

More than anything for me, as a taiko player, this show was inspirational. Zellerbach Hall is a fantastic venue, managing to feel small and intimate despite it's size. I felt close to the performers, participating in their excitement and their skill. Being as close to them as I was, they seemed less like rock stars or the magic creations of motion pictures and more like real people doing something they had dedicated a great deal of time and effort to perfect. It made my taiko goals seem possible, attainable, not because the performers were reduced but because they elevated me, they brought me into their sphere of influence and wrapped me in the pounding rhythm and raw enthusiasm of world class taiko.

Finishing the Bachi Bag

Once I had an idea of what size the outer circumference and height of the bag should be I cut a rectangular piece of fabric to fit those dimensions and finished three of the edges, then folded over about an inch and a half and sewed it again to strengthen all the fastening surfaces.

Next, I cut out a circular bottom and affixed a two inch tall side to the bottom panel. When that was finished, I attached it along one side to the body of the bag. I also sewed a casing along the top of the body piece so I could put in a draw string

Now I wanted to see how the bachi pouches were actually going to work, but I knew I might have to attach things to the outer side of the bag body and I was having a difficult time visualizing how that would all go together. To get a better idea of what needed to be done I pinned it all together to see how it would all fit. (you can see the draw string casing along the top)

Once I had it all pinned together I could flip it over and see how the bachi pouches on one side would line up with the strap rings on the other and adjust it all so they wouldn't interfere with each other. I went ahead and sewed on the rings. (you can see a small part of the pins holding the bachi pouches to the other side of the fabric)

It's not always clear what order the steps of constructing something should be done in. Taking time to visualize the steps helps, but you can still (and I often do) get it wrong. I just take my best guess and proceed hoping I don't have to redo things too many times on any given project. I also write the steps down, making corrections to what I've written when I have to reorder steps, so in the future when making a similar thing I can learn from my prior experience.

Next I sewed inch and a half velcro along the sides of the bottom panel and the bottom and opposing sides of the front opening of the body. When the velcro was pressed together it made a fabric cylinder. I should note that in the sketch the bag is held together with straps and buckles. That may have made more of a fashion statement, but I decided that velcro would not only fasten more securely, but it would ultimately be easier to use.

Finally I went ahead and sewed in the bachi pouches, put in a few extra pockets with flaps and velcro closures and the body was complete.

I made a sort of lid, or top flap and sewed it to the body on the same side I had sewn the bottom panel, only on the top of the body this time. I'm still not quite happy with the attachment of the top flap, but I can fix it later when a better design comes to me. It will work in the mean time. Once I affixed a shoulder strap to the rings, the bag was done.

The bag can be used in the manner of any shoulder satchel, loading things in from the top and pulling them out the same way, or the velcro along it's primary seams can be opened and it can be laid flat, giving easy access to all the bachi at once.

That's Gerald, a stuffed giraffe helping me with construction. Pretend he's my happi and tabi and other taiko gear filling the interior of the bag.



It's always difficult to judge how much detail is too much or not enough. If anyone keeping up with me has an opinion, please leave a comment indicating what level of detail you'd be interested in seeing. More, less, or I'm getting it about right, etc. Thanks!

Momentarily Side Tracked

Materials for the drums I'm currently building are on their way. I needed something to fill my idle hands, so . . .

I bring my own bachi with me to practice every week, like I'm pretty sure most taiko drummers do. That used to be a total of two; one for my right hand and one for my left. As the years went by I would occasionally break (chip, crack, splinter or sometimes dramatically explode) a bachi while I was playing. So, I started bringing an extra set. Seemed like the prudent thing to do. More time went by and I started to have different sized bachi for different sorts of things. Longer ones for some pieces, larger ones for playing the Odaiko, more recently smaller ones for playing shime. Then I discovered that different types of wood affected the sound of what I was playing . . . well, ultimately the point is that I bring a lot of bachi back and forth with me to class. More than I can easily carry. It's a testament to how obsessed I am with the giant drums, I guess.  In any case, I needed an easier way to carry them and my happi  and tape for blisters and all the other things that I often want with me. I was thinking about it one afternoon (quite some time ago, actually) and I jotted a little sketch onto a random piece of paper of what I thought a good bachi bag might look like.

If it's not that clear what's what, I apologize, but it was enough to keep the idea firmly in my head so when I finally got sufficiently tired of playing pick up sticks with my bachi every time I tried to carry them all from my vehicle into class I had a good place to start.
I had some unbleached fairly heavy canvas from a previous project. First thing I did was estimate the finished size I was shooting for.  I measured out a backpack I have, I measured around the brim of my hat (it looked like a good size) and when I had a rough idea of how big around I wanted the cylinder of the bag I took a handful of my bachi and laid them out on the fabric to get an idea of how many pairs would fit in a bag of that size. I wanted some 'empty slots' for future types and sizes of bachi that I haven't discovered yet but am sure to not be able to live without once I do, so I left space for more.

The white you see there isn't the table top or a work surface, that's the piece of fabric I'm making the bag out of.