by ANNE BAKER
News Editor

Appalachian State University students were able to experience the art of Japanese drumming during a World Music Concert Monday evening.

The event took place at the Rosen Concert Hall of Broyhill Music Center.

This was the first performance for the Japanese Taiko Drum Ensemble, the newest music ensemble at Appalachian  led by music performance graduate student Bobby E. Fish.

There are 13 students in the group, all who will receive core curriculum credit for the class.

Fish proposed the idea to the music department after researching Taiko in America.

“It was recommended to me to go to [Director of Watauga College] David Huntley…and he got really excited about it, was very supportive and wanted me to put in an official proposal for the course which I did,” Fish said. “And he took that course proposal to the Faculty Senate, it was approved and we went from there.”

Taiko, which means “big drum,” in Japanese, is a relatively new art form which was started by Daihachi Ouguchi in Japan in the 1950s. 

“[Ouguchi] was a jazz drummer—he had the idea to bring different kinds of drums and several players together to form a group, and he got that idea from being a jazz drum set player,” Fish said. “So it’s interesting that sort of an American art form influenced the beginning of Taiko, and then Taiko grew to be probably the most well-known modern music form from Japan around the world.”

Besides teaching Taiko to Appalachian students, Fish also works with high-risk students in Brevard at an alternative school.

“I started there because I wanted to create a music program for alternative school students because the state doesn’t support funding for arts programs for high-risk youth,” he said. “…Taiko seemed to be the most accessible…and I can bring it to people with no musical background.”

Fish emphasized that Taiko is not taught from a traditional musical standpoint—instead, “the place that the experience comes from is more the spirit than anything,” he said. “It’s the attitude with which we come to the drums.”

Fish said this attitude was present at the performance Monday, making the evening both fun and successful.

“What we were really out there to do was play our first performance and put out the energy that we wanted to put out,” he said. “Even if there were imperfections about it—which there were—we made some mistakes and some people missed some things and our form wasn’t as clean and as pretty as we’d like for it to be, but the energy was right.”

There were four specific kinds of drums used at the performance, all borrowed from the group Fish teaches in Brevard.

“I’d say that generally speaking you’ll see Taiko ensembles using four to six specific drums and then there are sometimes other instruments involved,” Fish said.

Because of funding issues, it is unsure whether the class will continue at Appalachian.

“[Huntley] has suggested that if we lay off in the fall because of money concerns and whatnot then he’ll ask for [the class] again in the spring and we’ll see what happens from there,” he said. “And the School of Music is also looking to throw some support behind the ensemble, I think, when there’s money and time and space available.”

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