Tsuchi's "Taiko Strange Story" 25th episode | The great presence in my roots

Dear readers of the JPC newsletter, the time has come for the familiar Taiko story.

This release, no, the newsletter will be published on October 10th.
This will be the first "Drum Day" of the Reiwa era.
If you are wondering why October 10th is Drum Day, please do some research for yourself. (Not kind lol)

So, this year was also a brutally hot summer. Summer is over and October is here. I felt the autumn breeze and felt comfortable at night, and felt a bit chilly and started to miss human skin.

Autumn is my favorite season when people's lives are filled with rich scents such as art, appetite, and clothing.
Late summer, early fall, late fall, and winter.
It's my favorite time of the year. September, after working like a workhorse through the dizzyingly hot summer, is finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. Preparations for the next tour begin in October, rehearsals begin, and November and December are the months when we depart across the country. Before you know it, you'll already be hearing the voices of this year coming to an end.
I'm not saying it's because I heard fifty voices, but it feels like another year has gone by so fast. As the days pass by at a dizzying pace, I often find myself thinking about things from the distant past and being lost in thought.

The other day, I went to a studio in Tokyo for some recording work.
The studio had a timpani among its permanent instruments. Two Radick ones with pedals. The beautiful copper shell showed that it had been well cared for. When I happened to have some free time, I took out a mallet from my drummer's stick bag and gently touched the head of the timpani with the mallet, and the nostalgic sound made me feel like I had traveled back in time. No matter what I hide, the first instrument I played was the timpani. (The second instrument I touched was a synthesizer lol) It's still an instrument I'm very attached to.
However, it's too big for an individual to own, and it doesn't come into play very often in the world of pop and rock music, which is where I mainly work now, so I rarely get a chance to touch it.
However, since it was the first instrument I played, it felt like I was reuniting with an old best friend.
It is an undeniable fact that one of the instruments that has shaped me into who I am today is the timpani.

The things Timpani taught me were very important. Its various dynamics. From pianissimo to fortissimo, sometimes with neighing or thunderous rolls, pianissimo touches like a wise man's whisper.
I was really trained in the severity of tuning. Even though I couldn't read music, I had the opportunity to play instruments such as the timpani, glockenspiel, and marimba, and I spent three years in the brass band club in a state where I had no choice but to memorize them physically. It was a relief that the wind band of a junior high school in Saitama Prefecture was small and had no budget, so it wasn't that strict, and it was pretty lenient. However, the external advisor was very serious and strict about music, and when the timpani was tuned poorly, things came flying at him before he could yell, "You're tuned poorly!" Mostly it was the blackboard eraser or the sandals that the teacher wore lol

``Tsuchida, tighten that bolt one more inch!'' ``Listen to your own timpani and the harmony around you!'' He was quite a Spartan, but he was a Spartan with a love for music, so I desperately followed him. For some reason, I wasn't told to be able to read music scores...Of course, I studied to read music scores myself...but I'm still not good at it lol
What I was most grateful for was the sound value.

Control the length of the sound. Does the sound you make when you say a "tone" break off at the beginning of the next note, or at the backbeat before that? Make the sound with one mallet, and gently stop the sound with the other hand. If you're a timpani player, you'll understand, but as a 13-year-old who was obsessed with rock drums, I was quite shocked by the act of ``controlling the length of the drum notes.''
What made me most happy was that I felt like I could breathe like everyone else playing wind instruments.

Percussion instruments make sounds when you strike them, so what happens after you strike them is, I'm sorry to say, but ``if you let it go, it's no good.''
This means that even after the sound has been produced, everyone can control how the sound disappears! That's it.
What a luxurious instrument.

Cymbals are instruments that allow you to control the note value in the same way, but the timpani can be played more melodically, so I remember having a lot of fun playing it.
However, the school I went to only had two hand-tied old Pearl fiberglass timpani. Still, I was happy to play.

A song like ``Radetsky March'' was a staple of junior high school brass bands, and only needed two timpani. The original arrangement may not have been enough, but for the arrangement we were playing, two were enough. It's a famous song that gets you excited. I have fond memories of the two percussionists taking turns playing the gran cassa, a large drum, snare drum, cymbals, and timpani.
One summer vacation, I went to an empty school, went to the music preparation room, a room with instruments (I had gotten the teacher's permission, lol), put a cassette tape full of British rock and new wave songs, and played the drums with them while blasting them.

The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Cream, the Kinks, the Faces, Japan, YMO, Todd Rundgren, Genesis, Maseta Nakabo. Everyone from the brass band comes to practice and begins practicing the song for the competition.

Fumonkan is famous for its wind orchestra competitions, but unfortunately it has closed due to deterioration.
Our club activities weren't at such a high level, so our practice had a somewhat laid-back atmosphere. But...

For that year's assigned song, I was in charge of snare, timpani, gran cassa, and cymbals...

Don't you do it all? I was stunned. Moreover, three timpani were required...I was shocked. With a pedal type, you can change the tuning in no time, but the one in front of you is a hand-tight type.
I thought to myself, ``I have no choice but to do this...'', and worked out the structure of the song and thought about how to distribute the instruments. The other percussion player is in his third year and has already retired. I had to manage it on my own.
When my jaw dropped to the floor, my teacher advisor said, ``Why don't you just play like you would on a drum set, instead of thinking that it's all different instruments?Examples are important, but you won't become a good player just by imitating them.''
I received some very encouraging words.
After all, my advisor loved the crossover fusion music that was happening at the time, and he was the one who introduced me to legendary drummers like Ponta, Gadd, and Porcaro.

I think it's normal for everyone to become obsessed with what they like when they're young, and that's part of the energy that comes with being young, but I'm still grateful that thanks to that teacher I became an omnivorous music lover.

So, this is the theme song.
I had to think about where to retune the timpani during a song, and which timpani should play which note first, since I couldn't blow the tune flute during the performance, so I was just thinking about it while listening to the other parts during the whole rehearsal. The percussion in the song wasn't too busy, just the snare, gran cassa, and cymbals, so once I decided on the formation of each instrument, all I had to do was practice. In order to tune the timpani in question, I came up with the idea of ​​catching the two-beat note of the euphonium that was playing at that pitch several measures before I played it, and tuning the timpani based on that sound.When I think about it now, I almost laugh at the fact that what I've been doing hasn't changed at all from when I was in middle school until now.
However, at that time, the Tsuchida boys had no idea what was going to happen 40 years in the future, and were desperately concentrating on not missing the second beat of the euphonium.
I think it was finally the actual event, Kawagoe Civic Hall. On a hot summer day, I brought in the instruments and tuned the timpani backstage (a task that still remains the same today), while listening to the other members practice their parts and getting ``that sound'' into my body. Ah, I remember the name of the song, I think it was "Ainu Rondo".
While listening to another school's performance, I was listening in a daze, thinking, "Oh, that school has three timpani...and they even have pedals...that's great..."
When it was our turn, we put our instruments on stage, got ready, the name of our school was read out, and it was time to perform.

As a result, we received a silver award. I think it was a regional tournament before the finals, and I remember all the club members dancing with joy as they received their first award.
As I was cleaning up my instrument with a refreshing feeling, one of the judges came up to me and said, ``Wow, you did a great job. You played the instruments of three people all by yourself, and on top of that, you changed the tuning of the hand-clamped timpani during the song, which is a big deal. I'm sure you have a great sense of pitch. Cherish your talent. Good luck.''
It was the first time in my life that I was complimented by an adult I didn't know.
This event has remained with me ever since, and even now it lies in a fundamental part of me.

When I have trouble tuning or get lost, I remember the time I spent practicing the timpani in that stuffy club room. I didn't have any academic training, and as my seniors and advisors told me, I just blindly studied instructional books on rudiments, syncopation, etc. I had no idea how to grip a stick, I didn't know how to check form with a single stroke, and there was no YouTube like there is now, so I read drum magazines and attended seminars here at Drum City in Asakusa, and learned various techniques. (Of course, we had yakisoba from a flower shop at the bus stop on the way home.)
I wanted to study at a music school, so I ordered pamphlets from various schools, but I was so scared by the high tuition fees that I gave up on the idea of going to a music school.
If I was going to spend millions, I thought it would be more fun to buy records. That choice was the right one for me.
Although I only know a small amount of music, just a scratch of my ears, out of the infinite spread of all kinds of music from around the world, I am grateful to the adults around me who showed me the entrance to this mellow world.

...I'm thinking about these things while I'm on standby for summer festivals, hiding behind the cases of guitar amps and Hammond organs piled up in a ridiculously huge warehouse, slacking off, and dozing off.
I don't know what the hell I'm writing about, but this is what's going on in my head.
Most of the time, I'm hungry, I'm sleepy, I see a girl waiting, I think she's cute, I happen to hear some music, I search the internet, etc.
Lately, I've been addicted to taking naps, and that involves taking a pillow and rolling around on the tatami mat in my Japanese-style room at home. From midday. This felt so good, and of course I didn't turn on the TV or play any music. Amidst the silence, I surrender to the sounds of everyday life, such as the sounds of cars passing by, the occasional sound of my neighbor's piano, the sound of my dog, the sound of cicadas, the voices of children gathered at the cram school across the street, and before I know it, I fall into a deep sleep while looking up at the aging ceiling of my house (my room was built 50 years ago, the same age as me!). It's like the terrible events of the world are in another world.
Once you wake up and look at the reality, it's a reality that instantly makes you feel depressed.
My home is my sanctuary, a momentary escape from reality.
I'm sure everyone has a place like that.
Cherish those times and places and enjoy the moments in your life. I feel like if I do that, I will naturally learn to be considerate and considerate.

We live in a world where exclusive tendencies are prevalent and it seems like it's justice to take a position of mount over others, but I don't think anything will come of that. I think it's important to have compassion and tolerance. People to people, countries to countries, even though the scale is different, I feel that it is the same thing. It is the height of foolishness for ordinary citizens in neighboring countries to fall out over a fight instigated by politicians.
It's the same in any country, where there are good people and bad people.
It is precisely at times like these that I think of cultural exchange.
Well, we are almost running out of space.
I hope you all have a peaceful day every day.
Thank you for your continued support.
See you soon. how do you do.