Drill: Soloing to your own downbeat

One of the harder things I've made people do in terms of drills or song ideas is making one hand play a constant downbeat while the other hand is free to improvise. On paper, this sounds hard. In practice...it's still hard!

The idea of doing this is to develop hand independence, which is invaluable for taiko players. A secondary benefit is helping you to feel the pulse of the ji by making you have to play it!

There are a lot of ways to tinker with the difficulty level of this drill:

• Play more or less downbeats. In the above video, I'm playing quarter-notes, but you can play half-notes or eighth-notes to suit your comfort level.
• Switch hands so that your non-dominant hand gets some solo time.
• Add musicality by having the downbeat hand playing on a distinct tone.
• Change the number of surfaces to solo on (more surfaces = more complexity).

As with most drills, start moderate until you know what's a comfortable level. If you start at a level that's too difficult, frustration can take away any benefits. Since you can really customize this drill, you'll be able to keep adjusting things to provide you with both satisfaction and a challenge!