2014 was a great year! After quite a bit of behind the scenes planning and preparation we launched kaDON at the World Taiko Gathering back in mid July. It’s hard to believe that it has only been half a year since we launched as I feel like much has already happened! We’ve released 6 courses and 53 video lessons, launched the online store and had our first in-person workshop in San Diego! 2015 will be an even bigger year as we are already planning more courses, workshops and special events and announcements.
Everything that we do at kaDON is powered by your support. I want to give a very special and huge thank you to all of our subscribers. Your support powers everything we do and it means a lot that so many of you would support this venture at such an early stage. kaDON will only continue to grow as we add more content to the site, organize more workshops and continue to develop kaDON. As we enter into 2015 I’m more dedicated than ever to our mission to make high quality instruction and repertoire accessible to every corner of the taiko world and to be a great resource for all in the taiko community. One of the many life lessons taiko has taught me is that we each empower each other. So no matter where you are in the taiko world know that you have friends and supporters here at kaDON!
Congratulations Nancy Mullick!
Our 2014 year end shime daiko giveaway contest winner is Canada’s Arctic Taiko Drummer Nancy Mullick! Nancy answered the four multiple choice questions correctly and submitted a great video showing us where she lived complete with taiko soundtrack and promised to give the shime “extraordinary life in an extraordinary place.” Congratulations Nancy!
I also wanted to give a shout out to all of you who entered the shime giveaway contest! It was fun reading and watching all of the responses and difficult to choose just one winner when I know that many of you would also do great things with a new shime. We do plan to have more contests and events for our subscribers in 2015!
Online Store Restocked
We have restocked the kaDON Online store with a new shipment of equipment! Theonline store has been updated and everything is ready to ship! Here is a list to the new items:
Hou Engraved Bachi 40cm (Multi-use)
Oak Engraved Tapered Bachi 39cm (Multi-use)
Hinoki Bachi 32cm (Shime)
Hinoki Bachi 51cm (Odaiko)
Chichibu Bachi 37cm (Chichibu Yatai Bayashi)
Chichibu Shime Bachi 41cm (Chichibu Yatai Bayashi)
Hou 49.5cm (Miyake)
Maple 42cm #8 (Chudaiko)
Maple 42cm #7.5 (Chudaiko – Coming very soon!)
Oak 42cm #7.5 (Chudaiko)
Oak 42cm #8.5 (Chudaiko)
Atarigane #4.5
Antler Shumoku (Atarigane Bachi)
Taiko Tacks #5 & #6
Shime Agebachi
Kotobuki Jishi CD
Taiko Tabi (Limited Quantity!)
Odaiko Basics Lesson 8
We uploaded Kenny Endo’s Odaiko Basics Lesson 8 this week. In this lesson Kenny introduces soloing and improvisation and demonstrates how we can use the patterns we’ve learned up to this point as a starting point for open and free flowing improvisation. Kenny used a similar idea back in Lesson 5 using the different ji pattern so if you are having a hard time with the improvisation you may want to also take a look back at Lesson 5 again. Together with Lesson 8 there should be quite a bit of ideas to build a good odaiko solo.
As always if you’d like to reach out for any reason feel free to email myself or any of the kaDON staff or instructors at: info@kadon.com.
Happy NEW YEAR!
peace,
shoji