It's a long, long way from the mountains and islands of Japan to the hills of south Wales, but a musical tradition from East Asia has found a home in the classrooms of the Welsh valleys. David Powell, founder of Upbeat Music and Arts, began a pioneering taiko drumming programme in schools five years ago. As I speak to him, his enthusiasm for taiko is immediately apparent. Powell was first introduced to the discipline by his colleague Dan Jones, director of Mix Music Education.
‘I'd done thirty years of teaching percussion but I'd never participated in taiko,’ Powell tells me.
‘Dan was so enthusiastic, he said “you'll absolutely love it” – and he was absolutely right! I just love seeing kids have such great fun. For me, it's about passion for what you do.’
A brief history
Taiko drumming has a history stretching back a millennia and a half – it grew alongside the Buddhist religion, in which it plays an integral part. The drums are used in ceremonies and prayers in the temples and shrines of Japan, and are also used to announce the time or to call people for duties within the temple.
In contrast, taiko was also used in war. The power of the drum was useful on the battlefield – during the 14th century, taiko were used to issue commands and coordinate troop movements. The sound of the taiko can carry two miles and it was once used to mark village boundaries.
In the 20th century, taiko shook itself loose from its roots and developed into a popular form of entertainment. After the Second World War, Japan was a defeated nation and had numerous reforms and restrictions imposed. There was a need to revive a sense of national identity and taiko played an important part in this process. A young jazz drummer, Daihachi Oguchi, was introduced to taiko by a relative, and saw an opportunity to blend the two traditions. He split the rhythms, using the big drums to keep time, the smaller to carry a background rhythm, and the medium drums for the main rhythm. Across Japan, thanks to the brand-new medium of television, this modern style was an instant success.
Back in Wales
Music Teacher readers will know that music education in Wales has faced enormous challenges in the last decade. Powell was a senior manager at a music service: ‘With all the cuts in 2013, I took redundancy’, he tells me. ‘One reason we went into taiko is that there was no Wider Opportunities funding in Wales and there never was. Having also been a primary school teacher I realised that schools were desperate for inclusive activities, not just peripatetic services, which were shrinking – especially in areas of social deprivation as there was just no money around. I believed that the way forward in the primary sector was to offer whole class provision at an affordable price so that it was attractive and sustainable for schools.’
His instinct has been proved right, and he is proud of his company's history: ‘It literally started out with just me in a van, a set of African drums, a samba set, and a set of 15 taiko drums. Now we've got 48 taiko drums, 200 djembes, eight samba sets and four vans!’ Powell's company is bucking the national trend for music educators to work as freelancers and now employs four music and arts practitioners, three percussionists, and a dancer.
Upbeat typically run six-week programmes, which involves five hours of tuition, with the sixth hour being a performance. ‘We get so many responses from teachers saying that they can't believe what these children have achieved in five hours,’ says Powell.
What does a taiko session involve? It's entirely oral learning with no notation used – the rhythm patterns are learned phonetically. Choreographed movement is also an important part of the learning sessions and ultimately the performance.
‘There are processes within taiko that are disciplined – the children have to learn general behaviours,’ Powell tells me. ‘We all greet each other with a bow at the start of every session. The children are involved in the setting up of the equipment and the care of the equipment.
Upbeat Music and Arts uses taiko to create fun musical experiences
‘For that hour they are fully engaged, there's no down time for them – its energetic and we keep the pace really high. The children share a drum in our sessions, so if you've got 30 children, you've got 16 drums – one for the tutor and 15 for the children. There are lots of drills, so they're learning their pieces alongside learning their behaviours. They learn movements too – it looks slick, and the aesthetics are as important as the acoustics. Children learn to present themselves and to take pride in their performance.’
As I speak to Powell, he returns again and again to the ‘soft skills’ that children develop and use in the taiko sessions: behaviour, engagement, listening, responsibility, aesthetics, and performing. I ask him what it is about taiko in particular that lends itself so well to the development of these skills.
‘The name of our company is not an accident,’ he says. ‘Upbeat is all about that well-being agenda – engendering a feeling of success in children, taking them out of the everyday. In taiko I saw a discipline that really lent itself to all those basic skills in training. It's taking in information, repetition, and gradually building across the five weeks as they learn their sequences. We use some nice arrangement techniques – sometimes simple is the most effective! It's always in combination with movement and energy, and there's lots of choreographed shouting.’
Whole class instrumental teachers rely on the class teacher for support and background information, and Powell's favourite moments are when the class teachers are surprised by children's achievements. ‘The ones who are identified at the start as the ones that won't stick with it through an hour are often the most engaged and the most fascinated by the whole thing,’ he says.
