Demos & Instructional Videos

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Taiko

NEW! — Songs: Tamiko’s Drill Tutorial
Beginner Player Tutorial for Tamiko’s Drill. A short song designed as a teaching drill by Tamiko Ooka of NYC’s Soh Daiko, arranged for Shangö Mountain Taiko, by Kurt Griffith. Played to the “swing” Jiuchi, this is easy to learn and gain confidence with, with enough variation to keep it interesting. Kurt brought this one back from the East Coast Taiko Conference 2024. We’re playing it with a simple SMT arrangement with alternating solos.

Further Instructional Content - Notation, Arrangement & Practice Recordings are available here.

Intro to Taiko Matsuri Daiko Demo
Introduction to the Taiko classic festival song Matsuri Daiko - for the Shangö Mountain Taiko Trainees. Edited down to just the the Demo Segment of Masturi Daiko without the World Percussion and background discussion from the Introduction to Taiko Livestream from April 2020 - pre-SMT content. Note: Unlisted Video. View on YouTube.
 

Taiko 101 - Taiko History. Depending on when and where you first learned about taiko, you might know some, a lot, or hardly any taiko history! While I'm no expert, I wanted to put something out there that would give at least a start to those looking to understand where taiko has come from - and where it's gone! – Adam Weiner, Tic Tac Taiko
 

Raku – Apr 11, 2009. Shidara demonstrates the song Raku (composed by artistic director chabo-san) before teaching it to the residency participants. This song was written by Shidara artistic director Chabo-san at Shidara's home in Toei-cho of Aichi prefecture, Japan.

NEW! — Prelude: Introduction to Taiko Drumming — This is the instructional content from my Livestream on March 30, 2020, just when the Pandemic was really emerging in the USA. Interesting to look back. We clipped out all the dumb stuff like checking the chat, adjusting cameras, and other content that aged poorly, added much needed graphics, diagrams and titles. MUCH better. Now an actually useful instructional video.

Included are some background and history of Taiko. Some of the basics of taiko drumming in the naname-uchi style, the drums, kuchishoga, and introductions to the Taiko songs Renshu, and Matsuri Daiko.

You can download a PDF of the Taiko Introductory Material on the Taiko Workshops page. So! Re!

Excerpt - Renshu

The Renshu segment from Prelude: Introduction to Taiko Drumming. Includes the kuchishoga, patterns, jiuchi, and song run-through.

Excerpt – Matsuri

The Matsuri segment from Prelude: Introduction to Taiko Drumming. Includes the kuchishoga, patterns, jiuchi, relationship to the 2-4 root rhythm and song run-through.

You can download a PDF of the Taiko Introductory Material on the Taiko Workshops page. So! Re!
 

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Two-Four: Decontructed — Shangö Percussion uses a basic 2/4 rhythm as a beginner pattern and as a shakedown and simple performance piece. Tracy Prior Seffers of Shenandoah Rhythm Jam, who teaches world percussion and holds open drum circles, showed us a very clever breakdown of 2/4 that gives us ease of learning and great flexibility for improvisation.

The idea is that the Dominant Hand, (usually the Right), does a repetitive motion with the baseline phrase, and the non-dominant (typically the Left) performs fill beats.

You can download a PDF of the Rhythm Notation on the Recordings & Docs page. Ashé!
 

A Lil’ Drummin’, Boyz — Rhythms & Patterns – A percussion positive Afro – Middle Eastern – Worldbeat interpretation of the classic holiday song “A Little Drummer Boy” with tons of drums! Most recorded versons of the song are notoriouly light on drums for a song about a drummer. This video Introduces the Rhythm Patterns and Arrangement with even a couple of Taiko parts! Percussion Arrangement by Thunder Magewind, Kurt Griffith, and Members of Four Winds Earth Chorus. Happy Hols!

Here is the Original 2006 Recording by Four Winds Earth Chorus. to enjoy in our Audio Files. You can download a PDF of the Rhythm Notation and arrangeemnt on the Recordings & Docs page. Ashé!
 

NEW! TCA TaikoThon 2020 - Shangö Percussion segment. – This was the segment Kurt sent up for Taiko Community Alliance TaikoThon 2020, featuring Shangö Percussion. Jambo and Konichi wa! We be jammin’ in Berkeley Springs! Features our worldbeat take on Matsuri Daiko! Enjoy! Taikothon is a live multi-hour on-line event to showcase taiko and the taiko community, typically hosted in autumn in alignment with TCA’s annual Membership Drive. This year featured a lot of Coping with Covid!
 

Corona Matsuri Project Introduction – A little trailer and promo introducing the Corona Matsuri Uplift Project with a bunch of crazy drumming! I might be a little out of my mind, but willing have some fun with this and invest a little sweat in trying to put this together. If you’re interested, bored, frustrated, inspired, curious, climbing the walls… you’re all welcome to shake it off, shake it up, and kick in!
 

New! – Demo 2/4 - Matsuri Daiko Solo Tag the Shango Players. We've been having a little trouble with figuring out where people's solos in the Ni Yon (2/4) Matsuri Daiko Jam ended. So we're picking up an idea from Shoji Kameda's Omiyage and using a dead simple Solo Tag to signal the end of solos for the next player. Will make the changeovers much sharper.
 

Demo Yama-Taiko: Rhythms the basic parts of my original Taiko & World Percussion Composition experiment Yama-Taiko - or ”Mountain Drums.” We have the Baseline or Jiuchi. The Main Line for Hand Drums, which is also the first double length line of the full eight line Yama-Taiko Pattern. The arrangement is designed to have all kinds of drums interacting with Taiko, and celebrate Shangö Percussion’s Mountain Home here in West Virginia. Check out some recordings and a downloadable PDF of the rhythms and arrangements on the Yama-Taiko page.