“A Taste of Autumn!”

Everyone, September has arrived. In Japan, autumn means reading, autumn means exercise, and of course… autumn means delicious food!
Of course, the taste of Japanese food is our favorite, but as long as we are in Germany, we would like to try out the typical Autumn foods here and enjoy them.
Alright, everyone, when you think of Germany, what type of food comes to mind? That’s right! When you think of Germany, you think of beer and sausage! In Japan, it would be like a beer and edamame (green soybean) set. In Germany, each region has its own varieties of delicious sausages. In Nurnberg, the sausage is white and thin. We’ve been looking forward to this.

“A Fresh Feeling!”

We have new surroundings. We have traveled to the city of Nurnberg, in the south of Germany. Three years ago, Yamato came to Nurnberg for the first time, making this our second visit. Entering the theater, each of us found the same memories from our last visit flooding back to us. Just as we were hearing each other say things like, “Oh yeah, that’s right, this is where we practiced,” this particular theater’s special characteristic came back to us. The back stage area is very, very small. The back stage area is actually a stairway, which is not what we are used to. Back in 2005, during our “Kaminari” tour, in order to get a little bit more backstage space, we used a special sub-stage during our concerts. This time as well, we will have a similar sub-stage and we can also see other various arrangements and devices that have been made to increase the space for us.

“Workshop”

Today, we gave the first workshop of the second half of our European tour. There were six participants ranging in age from 30 to 60 years old. It is great to meet people in countries so far away from Japan who share an interest in Japanese drumming. As we are leading the workshop, we always feel the energy building between us and the participants. Today was no exception. Everyone was excited and worked hard together for a one hour workshop with no break.
How about you? Have you ever been a participant in one of our workshops? Well, here is a commercial:

“Songs”

Memorizing the songs of Yamato is a process that makes us acutely aware that we have truly become a member of Yamato. Before joining Yamato, each of us had a special feeling about the songs.
“I can’t forget the performance I saw of “Rakuda”
“My image of Yamato was made when I saw “Yakara” at Tenkyosai.”
“Before I joined Yamato, my alarm clock was always set to play ‘Aozora’ to wake me up!”
And there are many more examples…
Recently we had the opportunity to memorize and practice some songs performed during previous tours. Finally a chance to perform the songs we had longed to learn. When the music for those songs was put into our hands, we were so overjoyed, we were speechless. While at the same time, nervousness and pressure began to creep in. Memorizing the music, performing the piece and making it into a song is much more difficult than we had ever imagined. But the combination of rehearsals for the school performances we will do when we return to Japan and practicing for our tour concerts as well is giving us a lot of motivation to work hard.

“Sparkling Water”

Today I would like to introduce one of our tour drinks. In Japan, this drink is probably not very common (at least we don’t drink it very often in Japan). During tours, however, we always drink it. The drink is sparkling water. In foreign countries, instead of normal water, this type of carbonated water is drunk. Unlike Japan, water is not provided free of charge to customers in a restaurant, like it is in Japan. Therefore, the first thing we order at restaurants is sparkling water.

“Freiburg, one year later”

So, at some point we are moving from one city to another. We have arrived in a town about 400 km to the south west of Nurnberg called Freiburg. After our final evening concert in Nurnberg, the crew traveled here by “nightliner” (overnight bus), and we, the drummers, left our hotel at 7 O’clock this morning. This town is a little bit special to us. Last year we had an opportunity to be a guest on the television program, “Verstehen Sie Spass?”, which is popular all over Europe. It was during the taping of that show that we were staying in Freiburg. There were no concerts to perform during that time so we had rented an apartment here for a week. Oh yeah, I remember. Every morning, we sprinted up that hill for training. It was great! (Please look at the reports from June 1- 9, 2007)

“An Interesting Find Overseas”

Switzerland!
Today we are leaving behind our dear “friend”, Germany and moving on to Switzerland.
The first thing that comes to mind about Switzerland is high prices! In addition to that, we have been informed that we will not be able to prepare our own food at today’s venue. This is a big problem.

“Sunny Skies!”

This week’s concert venue is only a one minute walk away from Lake Geneva (Lac Leman). Overlapping the borders of France and Switzerland, this lake is central Europe’s 12th largest lake. For some reason, there is a huge fountain in this lake? The fountain can reach a height of 145 meters! But what is really impressive is the speed at which the water comes out: 200 km per hour! The fountain is not there to bring attention to some attraction in the area. It is just there all by itself. We were not able to see one today, but we have also heard that you can often see rainbows around the fountain. This impressive, rainbow-making fountain, up against the beautiful backdrop of sunny skies gives us all a wonderful feeling!
We also have a special memory about Geneva. Two years ago we had the final performance of our 2006 European tour here. Following the concert, we celebrated by having a champagne fight near the lake.

“Mohawk Report”
When we were in the passionate country of Spain, one of our members, Tetsuro Okubo, suddenly changed form into “Mohican Taro”. At first, during the performances, if he happened to look in your direction, even though he had a serious expression on his face, you couldn’t help but laugh. Now, we have begun to get used to it and, in fact, we have a hard time imagining him without this hairstyle.
It’s been about one month since he cut his hair. Now, the weather in Europe has been feeling more and more like Autumn and Tetsuro has begun saying “It’s cold today, isn’t it,” as he wraps a towel around his head.
The other day we asked Tetsuro: “So, how do you like your haircut?”
He replied: “This hairstyle requires a lot of work. You always have to look after it. It needs constant attention.”

“Pull-Ups”

It has been raining lightly all day, every day in Geneva. Even here, in the dressing rooms in the 2nd basement beneath the stage we notice the high humidity. We are worried that the bad weather will have a negative effect on our drum heads, and make it difficult to produce a nice sound. We hope the sun will come out soon.

Anyway, today we will introduce one of Yamato’s training techniques.
I believe we have written before about “Shime Lifts” training: Lifting a shime taiko, which weights about 10 kilograms, over and over.
This time we’ll tell you about “In Tore” (This is where we use parts of the theater’s sub-stage for our training exercises.)
What type of training? Pull-ups!
Just hearing this word can make your nerves snap. This exercise feels like it is working out the muscles in your arms, back, stomach, neck… (In actuality, though, it is probably just the muscles in your arms.) After awhile it gets too difficult to lift the weight of your own body.
“Argh… so heavy! Do I need to go on a diet???”
No, the key to doing pull ups is “ki-ai”, (a vocalization of your “fighting spirit”).

“Before you know it…”

It is already our fourth day of concerts in Geneva. As usual, up until concert time today, we will practice, practice, practice! Fundamental practice, individual practice, and practicing our songs. “Doko doko doko doko” this sound never stops.

Before you know it, it is already 7 PM.? Time to change our focus to working hard to get the stage ready to welcome tonight’s guests.

“Down, down to the basement”

The basement of the theater where we are performing this week’s concerts is actually quite far beneath the ground. First you come in the entrance to the theater. The first floor beneath the ground floor is the catering room. Go down a set of stairs and you reach the 2nd basement, which is for storage. Go down another set of stairs and you have reached the 3rd basement, where the dressing rooms are. Go down one more set of stairs and there is a fourth basement, with more dressing rooms. After going up and down these stairs so many times, you start to forget what floor the stage is on.

Furthermore, we are spending most of the day indoors in the theater, where there is no sunlight. It’s almost like we are living in a cave underground. Back in Japan, when we were working outside, helping to clean up our village, Asukamura, we all got nice, dark tans, but now, we are almost all back to our normal skin tones. We all would love a chance to get out in the sun and tan again, but here, the fall is already nearly over and the days are feeling more and more like winter every day. Tanning may be rather difficult. Ahhhh, I miss the sun!

“Finally, a short break”

Today is the last day of our concerts in Geneva. At the theater here, we had some problems with the sound. The drums did not reverberate as they normally do. This was partly because of the high humidity, and partly because the ceiling absorbed some of the sound. BUT!!! We made up for it with people power! 6 days, 7 concerts, and they were all a big success.

Dinnertime! Just what we’ve been waiting for. Now we can use all that ramen we bought as we were leaving Germany.

Ah, another week of work, well done!

“An Impression of Japanese people??”

Today was a moving day. We left Geneva on a two-hour bus ride to Switzerland’s capital city of Bern. After we arrived, we made a great discovery at a store near our hotel. A cake called “Japonais”. In French, “Japonais” means “Japanese person”. So the face drawn on this cake was meant to look like a Japanese face.

Ah, hold on a minute…

This face … the more you look at it, the more it looks like Takahiro Mon. It looks just like him, don’t you think? Of course, we had to taste it as well. With a name like “Japonais” we expected that the taste would also somehow have some sort of Japanese influence.

Mmmm, is it burdock root? Wait, maybe roasted soybean flour? I can’t tell. This is a very mysterious cake.

“Hana Matsuri”

Hello everyone! This Takahiro Mon, a Yamato member of only about 1 and a half years. Sorry for the sudden change in writers of the web reports. I’m sure all the senior members will be surprised. Actually, I am probably more surprised than anyone. I’m so nervous to have such and important task, but, everyone, please, I hope you will enjoy my report.
Today, we practiced the song called “Hana Matsuri”. This is a song we will perform at Tenkyosai, which we will hold on October 11th. Originally we had used this song at Kongendo Dojo (Yamato’s own taiko teaching facility for elementary and junior high school students) as part of a recreation activity at our summer retreat. Everyone danced yosakoi to this music. It seems that everyone danced so passionately and improved quickly, so they thought, “Alright, let’s add some taiko and we can perform this at Tenkyosai!” The sheet music and a video were quickly sent to us from Japan. The senior members all began memorizing the music immediately. Tetsuro Okubo, who was in charge of the vocals really got into the music. He even had a mic set up for himself. I’m going to have to memorize the music soon too…There aren’t that many days left until Tenkyosai. Oh no!

“Odaiko”

Tetsuro Okubo is always practicing his Odaiko technique. Today he received instruction from Akiko Ogawa. Shin-on is the name of the final piece performed at last year’s and this year’s tour concerts. Usually the Odaiko part is played by Takeru Matsushita and Marika Nito. From August, the part was assigned to Testuro Okubo and now he dedicates most of his practice time to the Odaiko. Seeing how much he improves every day, we feel we must also work hard to keep up with him.

“O-mochi”

Tonight’s dinner is udon noodles! We got them the other day when we were leaving Germany to travel to Switzerland. We even added some mochi rice cakes to make it “Chikara Udon” or “Power Udon”. We bought this mochi in Europe and the price was almost three times what it costs in Japan! We were very surprised at the price and it seems almost too expensive to eat it. So we must be sure to thoroughly enjoy each bite. Of course, udon and mochi are very delicious, but if you’re going to eat, mochi, you can’t forget about sweetened soy sauce. Toasted mochi with sweetened soy sauce is a food traditionally eaten at New Years and makes us look forward to the holidays.

“Tsuke Don”

We discovered that they sell maguro (tuna) sashimi at the supermarket near the theater so today we are splurging a bit and enjoying Maguro Tsuke Don. For the most part, the supermarkets here don’t sell raw fish and an opportunity like this is pretty rare. Having not eaten fish for quite a while, it tastes especially good to us. We are feeling very happy because for two days in a row now we could eat foods that remind us of home.
Before the performance we ate hot sandwiches and could even eat onigiri (rice balls). Eric, who is part of the sound crew, brought along his hot sandwich maker and we enjoyed hot, crispy sandwiches. It was the first time for me to eat hot sandwiches at the theater and strangely, I was moved by this experience

“Icing”

At this theater, they had prepared ice for us following each performance. Even though every day we are practicing taiko, swinging our arms, hitting the drums hundreds, even thousands of times, we actually normally do not do any type of icing like a professional baseball player might do. (Sometimes we don’t even stretch.) But since they had prepared it for us, Tetsuro Okubo decided that he might as well take a challenge and give it a try. “Ow, Ow, Oooww,Ooow,” he said as he slowly immersed his arm into the ice-cold water. It seems, though, that although it was slightly painful at first, in the end, it was refreshing. Since we work out a lot like professional sports players, I can imagine how this would be a pretty effective treatment.

“Switzerland”

This is our last day of concerts in Switzerland. After the concert is finished, we are packing up and have the trailer loaded in no time at all. As soon as it is loaded up, it departs for our next concert destination, Silkeborg in Denmark. It is a long 1300 km to the north form here.

“Rent-a-Car”

Today we arrived in the last country of this year’s Shin-On Tour, Denmark. First we took a one-hour bus ride from Bern to the Zurich airport. Then, for the first time in quite a while, we traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark by plane. We collected our luggage and as we exited the airport, who should be waiting there to greet us? Senior members Masa Ogawa and Mika Miyazaki had traveled all the way from Japan and were awaiting our arrival. We hadn’t seen them for quite a while.
Usually we travel around by tour bus, but in Denmark we have rented cars and will do the driving on our own. Today we only spent three and a half hours traveling. There are only 10 more days left for the tour. We must work hard all the way till the end.

“Sudoku”

Today is our first day off since we left Japan on August 11th. I think everyone was thinking of all the things they might do today, but because of a conversation at lunchtime, we all ended up doing Sudoku puzzles. We had the Sudoku page from the newspaper copied for us and all got down to work trying to solve the puzzles. In the end, we ended up spending about 8 hours struggling with the numbers. By the time we went to bed, there were numbers still passing before our eyes and taking over our dreams.
By the way, do you know the game, Sudoku? Have you ever tried it? It started in Japan, but has become very popular in Europe as well. At any gas station or book store here it is easy to find a selection of books full of Sudoku puzzles.
Even Yamato has gotten hooked a little bit on this game. Once you try it, it is difficult to stop, you can’t stop, it’s kind of scary. We recommend that you give it a try.

“Workshop, 2nd Day” and “First Concert in Denmark”
Today was a busy day.
In the morning we held a workshop. We started with reviewing what was learned yesterday and then we challenged them with a new rhythm. I think everyone had a good time. After we finished the workshop, we had to carry the drums we had used to the theater and then start preparations for tonight’s concert. Time flies by and before you know it, it’s time for the concert to start. The students who had taken part in the workshop came to watch tonight’s show and after the performance they even helped us pack up the drums. Even though we had only met them yesterday, we could spend meaningful time together. It is wonderful to be able to feel connections between people.

“Oxtail Soup”

“Training”

The weather was great today so after breakfast we did training in front of the lodging house. As usual we began with “suburi” (kind of like playing “air taiko”), then continue with several sets of sit-ups, hyperextensions and push-ups. Finally we use the back side of the stair case to end with pull ups. When you first start training with pull-ups, just lifting your body ten times is really tiring, but if you keep doing it every day, you start to get used to it. It is kind of strange.

“Cola”
Today was a moving day. We arrived in Denmark’s capital of Copenhagen. We were offered “Welcome Drinks” when we arrived at our hotel so we set down our luggage and headed straight for the hotel bar. At the bar, there was a selection of “organic” drinks. Not just orange juice, or fruit juices, but also organic ginger ale and organic cola. We all had a great time trying out and comparing all the different drinks.

“Tivoli Park”
When we went running this morning, we discovered an arch, which looks to be the entrance to an amusement park, with “Tivoli” written over it. When we hear “Tivoli”, we are reminded of the “Kurashiki Tivoli Park” in Okayama Prefecture. Depending on whom you ask, it seems that Okayama’s park was designed based on this one in Copenhagen. Being close to the Halloween season, there were many souvenirs with a pumpkin-headed figure. It looked like a lively place.

“Ramen