"Taiko: The Young Craftsmen"

Produced and presented by Hans Karlsson.

Play here or in Program Player: Culture --> Taiko 02: Young Craftsmen (NOTE: No Internet Explorer support)

Introduction

In our second programme about the Japanese taiko we focus on the craft of making the drums, and how it is about to be passed over to a new generation.

Attaching the skin

In the second half of the programme we discuss an important step in the production process - attaching the skin to the body of the drum. The method used today is surprisingly similar to what you can see in this image. The set-up uses ropes attached to the edge of the skin around the drum, and by twisting the ropes the pull on the skin increase step by step. The sound of the instrument is tested after each round of increasing the tension and adjustments. What we saw in Miyamoto Unosuke's factory looked very similar to this scene, except from the fact that the craftsmen wore modern clothes...