“Valuable Lessons Performers Learn by Making Equipment” by Tomohiro Mitome

Sep. 1, 2014

This is Tomohiro Mitome, leader of taiko performing arts ensemble Kodo.

It is now September and little by little we can feel hints of autumn in the air. Actually, each year when the Ogi area falls quiet after the lively summer festivals, “Earth Celebration” and “Ogi Matsuri,” this calm feels like autumn has arrived all of a sudden.

This month, I would like to talk about my thoughts on making taiko drumsticks (bachi) and equipment.

I am constantly asked by taiko players, “Do you make your own drumsticks?” While it’s not every single pair, I do generally make my own drumsticks myself. This is connected to one of the core elements of Kodo’s Mission Statement: “Creating.”

When you become an apprentice and enter the Kodo Apprentice Centre, first you make your own chopsticks, then you make your own drumsticks. For the drumsticks, you use a saw to cut a square piece of timber to the right length, then using a plane you whittle the wood from a square piece into round sticks.

At first, you can’t make them well, but no matter how bumpy or oval your drumsticks are, they are filled with your blood, sweat and tears and you’ll be fond of them. And, it is a really huge shock when one of those drumsticks breaks. We really value them, so much so that we all keep our broken drumsticks for a special send-off, in the form of a lunar new year’s bonfire ritual each January.

Each pair of drumsticks is made from the same piece of wood, and if the sticks aren’t almost the same weight, the tone of the drum beats won’t be the same from your left and right hand. We are particular about our sound, so making drumsticks is very important to us.

In other words, for us, making drumsticks = making sound.

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