Hi everyone! My name is Sarah Yamamoto, and as Kris mentioned in his last post, I will be blogging during Stanford Taiko’s intensive at LATI next week. We are just wrapping up final exams right now, and everyone is very excited to spend spring break focused solely on taiko. We’re very grateful for the opportunity to learn about both playing and making taiko from such accomplished players and teachers. Kris already mentioned the fact that he began studying taiko at Stanford, and it is certainly inspiring for the current members to see how far he has taken his passion.
Measuring individuals’ experience, the group as it stands now is relatively young; on average, each member has spent 2.07 years with Stanford Taiko, though a few have had prior taiko experience. We will be spending much of the week focusing on breadth, learning fundamentals for a variety of different styles, with creativity layering on top of these basics in the latter half of the week. As a novice player, I look forward to learning new ways of approaching basic form as well as expanding my improvisational repertoire.
Finally, LATI and Asano Taiko US have kindly provided space for us to host an informal jam session on Tuesday, March 25, 6:30-9:30pm, and if you’re in the area, we would love to see you there! Collegiate, community and professional players are all welcome.
See you at the jam session or on the blog!