Japan’s Kodo Drummers Lead Pack in Intensity of Training

It’s a safe assumption that the late Keith Moon never got up at the crack of dawn for a 10-kilometer run, even when he wasn’t out touring with The Who.

The same is true of Cream’s Ginger Baker, Ratt’s Bobby Blotzer and all the other great rock ‘n’ roll performers whose prowess behind the drums was--or is--often rivaled by their prowess at partying all night and sleeping all day.

Not so for the famed Kodo drummers of Japan, whose full-bodied drumming technique is considerably more intense, and exhausting, than Western styles. Accordingly, their vigorous, samurai-like training regimen leaves little time, and even less stamina, for partying.

“We’re not rock musicians, we’re professionals ,” company director Takashi Akamine said. “We devote our lives to training and maintaining our physical fitness.”

Indeed. The 16 Kodo drummers--11 of whom will be appearing Friday and Saturday at Symphony Hall in downtown San Diego--live together on Japan’s tiny Sado Island, where they do get up each morning at the crack of dawn for a 10K run.

After a quick shower, they take turns cooking breakfast and cleaning house. And then, promptly at 9 a.m., it’s off to the rehearsal hall for another eight hours of grueling physical and mental conditioning.

Kodo drummers are trained to attack their drums with their entire bodies, and with a Zen-like concentration. Their aim, after all, is to play the drums so that listeners not only hear, but also feel, the “tribal heartbeat reverberating through their bodies,” according to Akamine.

This “heartbeat” is pounded out on five different traditional Japanese drums, of assorted sizes, and a Chinese gong. The main drum is the miyadaiko , which was first used more than 700 years ago in

ancient Japanese religious ceremonies.

Performances are often quite frenzied, Akamine added, climaxing in the “Odaiko” finale in which two drummers, clad only in loincloths, flail a giant 900-pound drum--carved from the trunk of a single tree--with large clubs.

“Technique-wise, there are better rock drummers, better jazz drummers, better classical percussionists,” Akamine said. “But what makes us unique is both the intensity and the fact that we maintain this intensity for the entire performance, which generally lasts an hour and 40 minutes.”

To add variety, the Kodo troupe also uses several nonpercussive instruments, such as the koto , or Japanese harp, and the shamisen , or Japanese banjo.

The musical selections range from traditional Japanese instrumentals to contemporary pieces written by the drummers themselves, sometimes in collaboration with outsiders like the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and American jazz drummer Max Roach.

The art of Kodo drumming is rooted in ancient Japan, when village boundaries were established by the farthest distance at which a drum could be heard.

The troupe was established in 1971 as Ondekoze, or “demon drummers,” by a Japanese philanthropist who wanted the island of Sado to be known for something other than farming and fishing, Akamine said.

“As soon as they graduated from high school, most of the young people went to the big city,” Akamine said. “So, to stop people from leaving--and to attract other young people to the island--he started a traditional performing arts group.”

The company spent most of its early years training and developing its act, with performances limited to the Far East and, starting in 1975, occasional visits to the United States and France.

After a name change to Kodo, or “heartbeat,” in 1981, the drummers began regularly touring the United States, Europe, South America, and even Australia. Highlights include sell-out performances at the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles and, a year later, the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland and London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Critics have had nothing but kind words to say about the Kodo drummers. The Guardian in London hailed their performance as “an exhilarating revelation of the emotional and spiritual power of the drum.” Le Monde, the Paris daily, said, “Their drums are globes of fire, cannons, extraterrestrial suns, and the men that play them perhaps are gods.”

And according to the New York Post, “There is both innocence and tradition embodied in this drumming, as well as brazen virtuosity and a subtlety of detail. Its rhythms really do move the tribal blood still running through our urban veins.”

“We’re not a rock group, we’re not on TV or in the movies, but we’re very popular among certain people,” Akamine said. “And we seem to be getting more popular all the time.”