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The top of the drumhead
must be made out of an excellent cowhide. Western
cowhide goes slack too easily so it is
unacceptable. Some other hides used are horse,
camel, snake, fish, elephant, and whales to make
drum heads. They don't last very long.
Today the drumheads are
kept in place using heavy-duty tacks. These are the
only non-customary features of Taiko. The larger
drums often have handles. This helps for carrying
the drum as well as giving them a nice
appearance.
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Original Taiko drums were
made out of tree stumps. Now they use thin wine
barrels. The weight on the drum is important for
sound quality. Top quality trees were used to make
the Taiko. This causes the price to be very high
for good drums.
The qualities in Taiko
drums are the hardness, good tone, and beautiful
grain. A large Taiko drum requires wood from a tree
that has grown for minimum of two hundred years and
after cutting the tree it must cure for 25 to 50
years. With the proper care Taiko drums can last
for hundreds of years.
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Some types of Taiko drums
are Chu Daiko, Shime Daiko and Gaku Daiko. During a
performance the Chappa and gong may also round out
the ensemble. Drums come in all sizes. They also
have O'daiko paintings, different sound, and
colors.
O'daiko can often weigh
over three tons and be six feet in diameter. Taiko
drums are mostly made out of American Ash and
Japanese Keyaki. They are both alike in a lot of
ways such as; color, weight, density, pores, flex,
hardness, tensile, strength and fiber structure.
The only real difference is that American Ash is a
little bit lighter. American Ash is the toughest
wood in the world by weight.
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The larger drums have a
deeper sound. They are usually played with two
people at once. The drum is placed on the floor or
on a small, flat stand. Smaller drums are typically
placed on a stand and played horizontally. One
person basically plays solo. These drums make
higher sounds that stand out above the larger
drums.
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