A week ago I went to watch a Japanese drum performance. A man played on the traditional taiko drum together with a young man, who I believe was his student.

The man said that he had visited Japan on several occasions and had been inspired by the music there, and now he played rhythms that came from different parts of Japan. Apparently he has been playing taiko drums for twenty years!

After the performance, the audience was invited up to try out the drums, and drum sticks were given out to children for them to tap along with the drumming.

Here’s a closer look of the taiko drum.

Here is a video of the performance. The sound of the drumming was a lot more impressive in real life, its hard to capture on film. Enjoy!

Read more about taiko drums at Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiko