For my fieldwork topic I would like to study the taiko drumming group on campus. I have a friend who is in the group and have heard him mention going to/coming from rehearsal, but I realized I really know absolutely nothing about taiko drumming. All I know is that taiko means drum in Japanese, and taiko drumming is generally performed by an ensemble and is a relatively recent genre of music originating in Japan. I want to study something completely unfamiliar because I think it will give me a better perspective in terms of having no specific expectations or experiences to compare my research too. I am also attracted to the prospect of studying drumming because I have always been one to focus more on the melodic aspect of music - beat almost comes second, or is the background. I have never really studied rhythm purely on its own.
Some of the things I would like to focus on in this project is, how many people on this campus know what taiko drumming is, or have ever even heard a taiko performance before? I would like to interview my friend who is in the ensemble, and ask if he was also in an ensemble when he lived in Japan. I am curious to find out how both the ensembles and the audiences may differ, and the overall "enthusiasm" or interest in taiki drumming at Brown versus in Japan. I want to sit in on their rehearsals and attend as many of their concerts as possible between now and the end of the semester.
(Comment from Joshua.) There's a good literature on taiko, which often touches upon one of the aspects of the tradition you've raised here - the extent to which participants take it up after leaving Japan. I don't necessarily think you should look at this before doing any work on this project, but once you start to get an idea of what is going on locally, it might be really interesting for you to compare what you're seeing with those perspectives. Another thing that might be interesting is the extent to which the groups' participants work in light of a familiarity with the form's history, purpose, "meaning," etc, as opposed to treating it as a "purely musical" experience.
ReplyDelete