Kinnara Taiko
| Kinnara Taiko | |
|---|---|
| Genres | Japanese Taiko drums, percussion ensemble |
| Years active | 1969–present |
Kinnara Taiko is a Japanese American drumming ensemble (playing taiko) based out of Senshin Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles, USA. They began playing taiko in 1969 when a few third-generation Japanese Americans gathered after an Obon festival and had an impromptu experimental session on an odaiko drum.
Naming themselves after the celestial musicians of Buddhist mythology, the Kinnara, Kinnara Taiko became the first Japanese American Buddhist taiko group. As a Buddhist group, Kinnara places more emphasis on participation, self-awareness and discovering the joy in “just playing” taiko rather than stressing perfection and professionalism as other performance-focused taiko groups do.
They contributed largely to the development of kumi-daiko in North America with their innovation of wine barrel drums and their extensive outreach to other Japanese American Buddhist communities in helping start other temple-based taiko groups.
Kinnara Taiko officially began in 1969 at the Jodo Shinshu Senshin Buddhist Temple (a member of the Buddhist Churches of America) in Los Angeles. After playing on a drum for hours the night of an Obon festival when Rev. Masao “Mas” Kodani, who had been recently schooled in Japan, brought up the drum’s use in Japan, he and six other temple members decided to start a formal group based loosely on the pictures and recordings they had seen and heard of Japanese taiko players.
Having only a single taiko drum and not enough money to purchase new authentic drums for the other players, the members of Kinnara began experimenting with inexpensive versions for their own drums. At first they used nail keg wooden barrels and tried to stretch leather over them for the drumheads, but soon upgraded to oak wine barrels and rawhide with much more success. They practiced in Senshin Temple and performed at both temple functions and public events, where they drew considerable crowds due to their uniqueness as one of the first taiko groups in the country.
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