EVERY GENRE PROJECT - September 29 - Taiko

Genre of the Day - Taiko 🇯🇵

Album of the Day - いぶき (Ibuki) by Kodō (1997)

Taiko belongs to that curious phenomenon of genres, like mariachi, of which college instrumental troupes somewhat inexplicably became ubiquitous. I even know a couple of members of my school’s taiko organization; they produce cute little photocards of each member. As one site on taiko, which simply translates to drum, puts it, “percussion instruments are generally the most primitive instruments in any society.” Perhaps given that notion, because rhythmic sense is perhaps the most intuitive musical expression for busy students to learn, taiko ensembles flourish. Nonetheless, taiko is also sonically potent and visually intriguing as a distinctive cultural symbol of Japan; it’s simultaneously music and theater, rooted in ancient tradition and ultimately bound to fanciful tales of those arcane times. From jongo and inkiranya to drum’n’bass, taiko is part of the globe and era-spanning consensus of drums’ primacy and sacredness in musical expression.

Taiko’s booming drums have been reverberating since 12,000 years ago. Perhaps taiko has persisted because its sheer sonic power is wholly unignorable: at their loudest, the largest taiko drums—which can weigh up to one ton—can produce thunderous noises as loud as 120 decibels, the same level of sound one would hear standing next to an airplane taking off. Originally, this was in the pursuit of instilling fear as a presence on the battlefield. Over the last millennium, taiko became incorporated into new art and theatrical forms as a portent of drama, doom, or grandeur. Taiko drums also possessed importance in rituals in both Shinto and Buddhism, being imbued with spiritual potency as a wooden construction and helping enshrine or shake off spirits and accompany certain chants. 

Taiko in the ensemble form, as it’s predominantly proliferated today, didn’t actually emerge until after World War II; ironically, once Japan was technically forbidden post-war to maintain a military, an art once used in military music re-emerged as a new, more artistic, corps. As a jazz drummer, Daihachi Oguchi was accustomed to bending rhythmic rules: his greatest breakthrough therein came in 1951, as he reasoned that multiple taiko drums could be played together at once to produce more magnificent orders of rhythmic magnitude. In a feat of musical translation, he applied his knowledge of drum sets to the cadre of Japanese drums, stratifying an ensemble from the small, floor-bound shime-daiko to the wider and more ubiquitous nagado-daiko. Taiko suddenly ascended from ritual and folk purposes to concert hall fare as a facet of the postwar revival of long-gone strains of Japanese culture, though still lent a sense of ingenuity thanks to Oguchi’s innovation.

Kodo emphasizes taiko’s elemental presence in the ensemble group’s name, which translates to heartbeat. Their experimental interpretations of taiko assert the form as one in motion, grounded in antiquity but amenable to any possibility of sound. The swung rhythm of opening “七節” (NANAFUSHI) activates all levels of the ensemble like moving parts in an experiment. Fierce cries introduce the full-throttle speed of “野火” (Wildfire) before soothing fue flute and chimes wash over the listener in “アカバナー” (Red Banner), as if coaxing you back to consciousness after being briefly knocked asunder by the might of the drums. “THE HUNTED” is its most riveting odyssey, each minute rhythmically unpredictable yet rigorously and commandingly delivered. Taiko conveys an eternal power through the conduits of timber and timbre, and represents that ancient tradition can synthesize and sublimate to novel glories.