Looking, Listening, and Moving

This chapter contrasts how North American taiko practitioners generally don’t objectify taiko music in the ways that dominate the western art music tradition. The taiko aesthetics of embodied musical practice and knowledge is addressed in terms of both epistemology and autoethnographic experience.One piece – “Aranami,” composed by Rev. Tom Kurai – is addressed in detail. The taiko mnemonic practice of kuchi shōga is addressed. Practices of visual representation in ethnomusicology and anthropology are described in relation to Steven Feld’s concept of coaesthetic witnessing. The visual spectacle of taiko is addressed in relation to photographic traditions of documenting the WW2 Japanese American incarceration.