{"id":2384,"date":"2014-12-24T11:21:26","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T02:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/?p=2384"},"modified":"2014-12-24T11:21:26","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T02:21:26","slug":"things-i-have-learned-from-children-by-kenta-nakagome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/posts-by-kodo-members\/20141224_2384.html","title":{"rendered":"“Things I Have Learned from Children\u201d by Kenta Nakagome"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Things\u00a0I Have Learned from Children<\/h2>\n

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A\u00a0year has passed since I started touring as a member of the “School Workshop Performance” tour cast. When I was a school student myself, I wanted to\u00a0skip class as much as possible and I wished it was\u00a0Sunday or the summer holidays\u00a0every day of the year. When I think about it, it’s pretty strange that I have started going to school again.<\/p>\n

Our\u00a0performances are held as a part of each school’s curriculum for performing arts appreciation.<\/p>\n

During our performance, we want\u00a0to share\u00a0the true\u00a0sound of taiko drums, teach\u00a0the kids about\u00a0taiko as a musical instrument, and tell them all kinds of things. We interact with the students using our\u00a0taiko, all up-close & within arm\u2019s reach. This is the purpose of our\u00a0School tour.<\/p>\n

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For about a year, I have traveled around many schools,\u00a0playing taiko and spending\u00a0time with my fellow cast\u00a0members. It seems to me that while\u00a0we want to say and convey different things to the children, we\u00a0somehow end up receiving a lot more from them than we give.<\/p>\n

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I think children are wonderful beings.<\/p>\n

When I see other Kodo members communicate with children, they have an indescribably calm and warm look. We are there to give a performance, but we are unusually relaxed. It seems like I can see each member\u2019s true self appear at these performances.<\/p>\n

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As Kodo members, we always perform with pride and to the best of our abilities. We aim\u00a0to deliver good sound and a good performance. We all\u00a0have the same strong attitude towards our performances. However, most of the children have never heard of Kodo and some have never heard the sound of taiko before.<\/p>\n

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Although I do not know what the children are actually thinking, I feel that they have an instinctive insight into the real nature of each performer without considering the name of “Kodo” or our various titles and positions, like\u00a0“professional performer” or “musician.”<\/p>\n

They also judge whether our\u00a0taiko performance is good or bad, interesting or not interesting, purely by instinct.<\/p>\n

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For\u00a0School Workshop Performances, we perform in school gymnasiums.<\/p>\n

So, the audience gets to listen to our taiko at a closer range than in a concert hall. If the sound is too loud, some children block their ears, and if the music is too monotonous, they start chatting. If the performance is good, they concentrate on our music and I sometimes see some children enjoyably\u00a0swaying their bodies to the rhythm. For me, seeing that instant reaction from\u00a0the children is very interesting\u00a0and it makes me feel an air of tension, in a good way. I feel that children help us improve our own sensibilities when it comes to\u00a0conveying the sound of\u00a0taiko to an\u00a0audience.<\/p>\n

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I used to just play taiko powerfully, with all my might. However, when I play taiko in front of children, my sound automatically becomes softer at times and stronger when I feel it needs to be. I now think about\u00a0what sound will best reach the audience at\u00a0each different moment.<\/p>\n

As a member of the Kodo ensemble, I have always had in mind that I need to play taiko in a certain way or I need to act in a certain way. However, through our School Workshop Performances, I feel like I am now facing taiko anew.<\/p>\n

I have been given a great opportunity to reflect on the sound that I create.<\/p>\n

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The right sound to play\u00a0at each and every moment during our performance comes to us from amongst\u00a0the children and within us, as we share that same space in time.
\nKeeping all of this in\u00a0mind, I now enjoy going to school.<\/p>\n

\"kenta_s\"
\nKodo School Workshop Performances<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Things\u00a0I Have Learned from Children A\u00a0year has passed since I started touring as a member of the “School Workshop Performance” tour cast. When I was a school student myself, I wanted to\u00a0skip class as much as possible and I wished it was\u00a0Sunday or the summer holidays\u00a0every day of the year. When I think about it, it’s pretty strange that I have started going to school again. Our\u00a0performances are held as a part of each school’s curriculum for performing arts appreciation. During our performance, we want\u00a0to share\u00a0the true\u00a0sound of taiko drums, teach\u00a0the kids about\u00a0taiko as a musical instrument, and tell them all kinds of things. We interact with the students using … \u25b6\u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[29,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2384"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2384"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2451,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2384\/revisions\/2451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}