Welcome to "DIY Taiko", Chung's project to explore taiko practice alternatives.
Jan 2025 Annoucement:
Upon departing USA in 2019, my life with taiko has officially come close. Taiko has been an important part of my life, and I believe the ideas presented here still have certain value. In essence, I wanted to show different ways to respect kata and to promote healthy practice. Perhaps you will find something interesting from this archive.
I have moved on to another venture, now I am a professional piano technician in Hong Kong: https://www.katamusic.hk/en/.
DIY Taiko is created by Chung Wan Choi (Chung), who is frustrated with the limited access to practice instruments, which is essential to one’s taiko learning.
Tire drums are easy to make and plays well for beta style (upright). However, they are bulky for storage and difficult to imitate the proper naname (slanted) angle and height.
To solve these problems, Chung researches and designs effective practice instruments made of simple materials found in recycling centers and hardware stores.
Her most recent projects involve making of shumoku, also the original Q-moku, which enables low volume atarigane practice.
The PVC Naname Practice Taiko design was rooted on the ground that not all are privileged enough for quality practice opportunity. Being able to play taiko is a privilege; it depends on factors such as one’s location, income, and job type. I haven’t observed anyone who cannot go to conference (i.e. NATC. ECTC) directly because of one’s race, but I have those who simply cannot afford the costs to attend these. In deeper sense, perhaps it was about race; like, who gets the job that allows hobby, extra commitment and time-off, who gets to attend college, etc.
For what’s been raging in the US, I feel very frustrated. We all love taiko, and we hope taiko can contribute something to this matter. Though, logistical reality means taiko will rarely reach the poorer and remote places, where taiko might make a difference. There, the PVC practice drum might be able to help
• Checkout the new practice shumoku and its development!
• Start migrating the site to Chung’s personal website to avoid advertisements.
After a series of design changes, I no longer build the model which I created an instruction for, as seen in
PVC Naname Practice Taiko instruction is out!
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