Who plays better taiko?

The argument has been made that Japanese play taiko better than non-Japanese. I've heard it from people I like, I've heard it said in different ways, and I've heard it said by both Japanese and non-Japanese alike.

Allow me to completely destroy this argument.

Premise: Japanese play taiko better than non-Japanese.

Problem #1: The overarching problem here is the question of the word "Japanese". Who is Japanese? A person born in Japan? A person who is a citizen of Japan? A person born to Japanese parents? Since this argument in itself could derail the premise, I will say that for this post, a "Japanese" person is one born to Japanese parents who was raised in and lives in Japan.

Problem #2: Let's pick out one of the ~1.25 billion people in Japan and one of the ~7 trillion people from the rest of the world. Oh, looks like you grabbed a 19-year-old athlete from the Netherlands and a 85-year-old Japanese coma patient. Not a good comparison, right? Looks like we'll have to modify our premise.

Premise 2.0: Given generally good health and within a reasonable age range, Japanese play taiko better than non-Japanese.

Problem #3: Digging into the pool again, let's say you come up with a percussionist or dancer from one, and a couch potato from the other. Well that's not fair either, no matter which way you look at it, right? Not a fair comparison if one side has a great advantage before they even get to a taiko.

Premise 3.0: Given generally good health and within a reasonable age range, a Japanese taiko player plays taiko better than a non-Japanese taiko player.

Problem #4: You would never compare a beginning student to a master, would you? There might be a few exceptions, but most people doing taiko for a few months aren't going to have the abilities of someone who's been doing it for over ten years.

Problem #5: Let's say you play in a community taiko group that meets a couple of times a month. Would you compare yourself to someone in Kodo? Why the hell would you do that? You silly. Groups with radically different expectations and standards gives us the apples-to-oranges situation.

Premise 4.0: Given generally good health and within a reasonable age range, a Japanese taiko player plays taiko better than a non-Japanese taiko player of the same relative time playing, and group focus.

Problem #6: What about types of taiko? Would someone who has mastered naname-style playing but isn't all that good on other types be easily measured against someone who is equally moderate on everything from Odaiko to katsugi okedo?


Premise 5.0: Given generally good health and within a reasonable age range, a Japanese taiko player plays taiko better than a non-Japanese taiko player of the same relative time playing, group focus, and experience on instruments.

Problem #7: What exactly are you judging? A single strike on the taiko? Endurance? Ki? How they play an entire section of a song? How they solo? Are you going to take all of those into account?

Problem #8: Who said you're the judge? The premise indicates a "truth" that one is better than the other, but it's obviously a subjective statement. You may rate highly on ki and ease of striking, but the person next to you might value fluidity and fast chops more.

Problem #9: Intangibles about a "better" or "higher quality" sound by an ethnicity are so subjective and smack of elitism or even racism. I've yet to see a spectrogram or waveform of one taiko player shown to be "better" than another due to mathematical qualities. You can show me who's a technically better throat singer through a spectrograph because it's based on harmonics, but I may still like the person who's less technical because of their style. See #8, above.

Problem #10: Who said you can't enjoy both players? Think of a music genre you like. Are there more than one artist or group in that genre that you like? Even if you find one is "better" than the other in your eyes, you're still enjoying both, right? So then does it really matter who's "better"?

So here's what we're at:

Premise 6.0: Given generally good health and within a reasonable age range, a Japanese taiko player plays taiko better than a non-Japanese taiko player of the same relative time playing, group focus, and experience on instruments, assuming the people who are judging said players have the same sensibilities and preferences.

Wow. What a crappy premise. I suggest these instead:


Premise: Qualifying who plays better taiko than whom is about as productive as eating soup with a toothpick.

Premise: Taiko is fun. Yay!