Monday, August 29, 2005

Taisha JH Band - 8th and 9th graders


Summer band concert with JH and Taisha ELEMs - 4
Originally uploaded by Jason In Japan.

Here is the main Taisha JH band, composed of ni nen sei and san nen sei.

They are really good and recently won a competition where they came in first place in all of Shimane ken - the equivalent of getting first place in a state finals in the US. So now they go off and represent Shimane in a region wide competition against the other kens in the Chugoku region - Okayama, Yamaguchi, Hiroshima and Tottori. Ganbatte!

Sakamoto sensei is their leader and conductor and he's a really cool guy - the only Japanese person I know with an iPod! :)

They played two songs this day - one is a short piece that all the bands in the upcoming competition will have to play and then one of their choosing - the 2nd piece is involved and complicated with starts and stops and many instruments, including those long bells in the foreground on the left and even a harp and a gong.
Funny thing is at the end of the song, it incorporates a bit of an old American song called "This Old Man" - maybe that's the title. You know it tho - "This old man, he play two, he play knick-knack on my shoe, with a knick-knack-paddy-whack give a dog a bone, this old man came rolling home."
So I hum along everytime they play it.

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