Cool Stuff #3

Admittedly, this week's adventures in world music didn't have quite the effect on me of the previous week (the Middle East is just too cool). Additionally, I already included two of the instruments from India that I absolutely love in last week's Cool Stuff. So, I decided to try and take a few detours from the class discussions and discovered a few things that I deem to be rather cool.

First, I had a conversation with a percussionist friend of mine about gamelan orchestras. Somewhere along the way he decided to ask me if I knew the difference between a tam-tam and a gong, which then allowed me to explain to him the discomfort that Dr. Robbins must feel each time he dscusses that very topic (I would just leave it that tam-tams aren't pitched). So, in honor of that, here's a gamelan orchestra!

Following my brief stay in the Indonesian culture, I quickly moved on to the Japanese (I was ready to hear some drumming). Two things really popped out at me: 1) I love taiko drumming 2) I found a video (though low quality) of a Japanese group performing at the WGI World Championships for Indoor Percussion. The latter of the two is especially interesting because it is clearly an American activity. However, the Japanese group has certainly put their twist on it, including traditional scales, instruments, etc... in the production.

As a side note: Watching Aimachi and the taiko drummers got me thinking and reminded me of a drum corps that performed a Japanese themed show this past year entitled Samurai. The show is full of Japanese inspired music and I thought I'd share a clip of the percussion feature.