(bright piano music begins)
♪ You are the best you the world will see ♪
♪ Come along now and share you with me ♪
♪ Let's learn something new and share feelings too ♪
♪ 'Cause these are the things to do ♪
♪ To be the best you ♪
(cheery music)
- Hello, friends, and hello, Possum.
- Oh, hi, Auntie Lena.
- Well, how are you feeling today, Possum?
- Oh, I'm a little tired.
- Well, I can tell.
Did you stay up late last night?
- No, I had a bad dream and didn't sleep very well.
- I'm sorry, Possum.
Well, what happened in your dream?
- Oh, there was a big monster chasing me
and it kept getting faster and bigger.
- Oh, no.
Then what happened?
- Well, I don't know.
I, I woke up before the monster got me.
- Woo, that's a relief.
- Mm-hmm, but it felt so real, Auntie Lena.
I don't want to go to bed tonight.
What if I have another bad dream?
- Well, I understand how you're feeling, Possum.
I've had plenty of bad dreams myself.
- Really?
Well, how do you go back to sleep?
- Sometimes, I like to imagine
what would happen if my bad dream had a different ending.
Let's try it out with yours, Possum.
- Oh, okay. - Maybe the monster
that was chasing you had an important message for you.
- An important message?
- Yes.
Maybe.
- Mm. - Maybe it needed to tell you
that you have a feather stuck to your tail.
- But that's silly, Auntie Lena.
- Yes, but it makes you feel a little better, right?
- Huh, yeah, it does.
- I also know a story that might help.
It's called "Ten Oni Drummers" by Matthew Gollub.
- Well, w-what does oni mean?
- Oni are creatures from Japanese culture
and traditional stories.
They're big and strong.
- L-l-like the monster in my dream.
- Yes, but they can be friendly too.
- Oh. - You'll see what I mean.
- Okay. - Let's listen
with our friends at Greenbridge Library.
(magical chime)
- [Both] Hi, friends.
- I'm Miss Pramila. - And I'm Ayomide.
- And today, we're gonna read
this beautiful book called "Ten Oni Drummers."
And it is by Matthew Gollub
and it's illustrated by Kazuko G Stone.
You ready? - Yes.
- All right, here we go.
In dreams, I gaze upon the sand, beneath the moonlight
in Japan.
I taste the salty wind and sea.
- [Ayomide] And sometimes I have company one oni
by the shore, rears its head and cause for more.
- [Miss Pramila] Ooh, see that coming out of the sand there?
- Yes. - Isn't that amazing?
Okay, let's see what happens when he calls for more.
Two tiny oni creep,
grunt and shake off years of sleep.
(cheery music)
- [Ayomide] Three oni eyes aglow,
drumming makes them grow and grow.
(cheery music)
- [Miss Pramila] Ichi, ni, san, tun-tun.
One, two, three, around they run.
(cheery music)
- [Ayomide] Four oni raise their flags,
trample forth from rocky cracks.
- [Miss Pramila] Wow, look at that.
They're going across the beach with their flags.
Five oni sail on swells,
land their rafts and sound their shells.
(bright music)
- [Ayomide] Six oni stoke their flames,
play their nasty goblin games.
- [Miss Pramila] That looks like so much fun, doesn't it?
They're standing around the fire and having a great time.
Ichi, ni, san, tun-tun.
One, two, three, around they run.
Shi, go, roku, hoh!
Four, five, six, their red eyes glow.
- [Ayomide] Seven oni toothsome grins,
dinner dripping down their trims.
- (laughs) Okay, here we go.
Eight oni pat their tums,
pound their even larger drums.
They drum beneath the blackened skies,
drum to reach enormous size.
Pound their giant drums of wood,
drum because it feels so good.
(lighthearted music)
Nine giant oni reach,
climb sheer cliffs above the beach.
Isn't that beautiful, look at that illustration.
I think we're gonna show our friends what that looks like.
Look at that.
(lighthearted music)
- [Ayomide] 10 oni fierce and tall,
bang their biggest drums of all.
Ichi, ni, san, tun-tun.
- One, two, three, around they run.
Shi, go, roku, hoh!
Four, five, six, their red eyes glow.
Shichi, hachi, ku, ju.
Seven, eight, nine, 10, you know who.
- To me, they're friendly,
and what's more,
they stand guard over slumber's shore.
(cheery music)
- [Miss Pramila] When spooky dreams fill me with fright,
they chase those dreams
into the night.
- [Ayomide] Yeah, tun-ta-ka tun-ta-ka tun-ta-ka tun-ta
- [Miss Pramila] I love that.
Just like drums.
Then as daybreak lights the land,
they shrink and sink back in the sand.
Oh, look at that.
They're all going in the sand.
The sun's just coming up.
That's beautiful.
So did you like that book? - Yes.
- It was lovely, wasn't it?
What'd you like the most about it?
- Um, like when they climbed the cliffs?
- (laughs) Wasn't that great?
I love that too.
You know, one of the things I was thinking about is
sometimes you might look at these oni
and think they look scary,
but this was so wonderful to see all the fun they have
and how they protect us.
Did you like that? - Mm-hmm.
- Right.
Well, I hope everyone at home enjoyed it,
and thank you so much.
- [Both] Bye-bye, friends.
- See, Possum, oni aren't like the monster
that chased you in your dream.
They're protectors of dreams.
- Oni are awesome.
I wish I had my own oni to protect my dreams.
- Me too.
Who knows, maybe you'll see them in your dreams tonight.
- Oh, I hope so.
Thank you for sharing that story with me, Auntie Lena.
- You're welcome, Possum.
It's one of my favorites to read
whenever I can't fall asleep.
I like to imagine the steady sound of the drum
and all the oni having fun on the beach.
- Do you remember the name of the drums they were playing?
- Yes, they're called taiko.
Have you ever heard of taiko before?
- No, are they from Japan too?
- Yes, they are.
Taiko are Japanese traditional drums.
A long time ago, they were used to communicate
between villages, tell stories at festivals,
and even scare bugs away.
And they're still played today by many different groups.
- Oh, what do they sound like?
- Well, Possum, would you like to find out with our friends?
- (gasps) Can we really, Auntie Lena?
- We sure can.
One of my friends, Miss Lika is a taiko drummer
and she would love to play a song for us.
Let's go to the Japanese Cultural
and Community Center of Washington and listen.
- [Both] Hi, friends.
- I'm Miss Lika, and this is my new friend...
- Rumi.
- And today,
we're at the Japanese Cultural Community Center
of Washington.
We're gonna be learning about an important part
of Japan's cultural heritage called taiko drumming.
Rumi, have you heard of taiko drumming before?
- A mouse?
- No, something new for you.
Something new, probably for a lot of you too.
In Japan, the word taiko simply means drum or fat drum.
So it, (chuckles) yeah, outside of Japan,
the word taiko refers to Japanese ensemble drumming
or Japanese group drumming.
We call that kumi-daiko or set-taiko.
So, are we ready to try some taiko today?
- Yeah. - Yeah, okay.
So the first thing we're gonna do, taiko is a full-body art.
That means it's part martial arts, maybe dance,
and a lot of rhythm.
So because we use our whole bodies,
we're gonna warm up a little bit.
So let's just start by getting those little jitters out.
Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it all out.
Shake it all, let's warm up, warm up, warm up, warm up.
The bottom up, all right.
Next, we do is gonna put our arms out
like here, like we're a statue.
And shake our hands back and forth like this
'cause we want our wrists and our hands to be really warm.
And the next thing we're gonna do is can you flick
some water off your fingers?
If you're flicking water flick
flick, flick, flick flick.
Can you do this at home?
Flick flick, flick flick, flick flick.
Yes, that warms up our hands because we hold bachi.
Bachi are called drums or drumsticks that we use.
I'm gonna give you a pair.
These are your bachi? - Yes.
And these are gonna be my bachi.
Now today, I have two drums for you.
We have a small drum called a shime,
and that comes from the Japanese word shimeru,
which means to pull tight.
And you can see there's two drum heads
and they're strung together with rope
and they pull them really tight to make a a nice sound.
This other drum is called a nagado,
which means long-body drum, and its head is tacked on.
You see this? - Mm.
- And they make some different sounds.
Rumi, which one do you think is the higher-pitch drum?
- The smaller one? - Yeah, you're right.
And the higher the pitch, the more easily it is to hear
between all the other drums,
which are typically lower pitch.
So this drum helps hold everything together.
It's like the glue in a taiko group
because everybody can hear this drum.
Should we try playing them? - Yeah.
- Great, okay.
We're gonna hold our bachi like we're holding a hammer
with all of our fingers and our thumb around the stick.
We don't want anything poking up
'cause those can get hurt if we hit them.
So we're gonna hold 'em just like this.
And then we're gonna point to the drum.
Now our bodies need to be nice
and strong, so we're gonna stand first.
Like we're riding a big horse.
Just gonna ride my big horse, mm,
and then I'm gonna take my right leg
and put it back just behind me, just a tiny bit.
So I'm stable.
Yeah, and I'm gonna reach for this very center of my drum.
Great, and then we're gonna lift our hands up really high
and we're gonna bring our right hand down
and we're gonna make a big sound.
We're gonna aim right for the middle, ready?
One, two, three, four. (drums bang)
Very good.
Now these drums, they have an oral tradition,
which means we teach the music to taiko drumming
through words.
Each sound has a word associated with it.
A big hit on the middle of the drum is called a doh.
Can you say that, doh. - Doh.
- Right.
Two big hits are called doh-doh.
Can you say that? - Doh-doh.
- Right.
And when we hit the drum softly in the middle,
it's called tusu. - Tusu.
- Right, and two is called tsu-ku.
- Tsu-ku. - Very good.
When we hit the rim, it's a kha
- Kha. - Good.
And twice is kha-ah. - Kha-ah.
- Very good, you got it?
The last thing, last sound that we make is...
- Silence.
- You got it, it's a silence, we call that startup, S-U.
Su, are we ready to play a song?
- Yeah. - Okay, let's play a song.
This song is called "Renshu."
This is our very first song.
Are you ready? - (inhales and chuckles)
- So the first thing we're gonna do is,
we're gonna hit four big sounds right in the middle.
Doh, doh, doh, doh.
Let's lift those bachi up.
I'll count to four, and then we begin.
One, two, three, four, and-
(drums doh)
That's our first line.
We're starting a new song, okay.
The second line, we're going to hit four doh-dohs.
Doh-doh, doh-doh. (drums doh-dohing)
That was so good.
Okay, for the third line, let's create something ourselves.
And you can use any part of the drum.
You can use the little hits or the rim hits called the ka.
What would you like to do for four beats?
- Mm.
The rim. - The rim, okay.
Do you wanna do kha or kha-ah?
- kha-ah. - Okay,
so we are gonna do four kha-ahs.
- [Both] Kha-ah, kha-ah, kha-ah, kha-ah.
- All right, so the last, very last stone,
we're gonna create today is using what we call kiai.
And kiais are little shouts.
If you've ever seen a taiko performance,
you'll hear us going (speaking in foreign language)
And you'll hear this because we're trying to give energy
to the audience and to each other, right?
So we're going use a word today, sa, can you hear sa?
- Sa. - Sa.
- Say it loud, sa. - Sa.
- Yes, that's it, okay, here we go.
Let's play together.
Raise those arms really high.
One, two, three, four.
- [Both] Doh, doh, doh, doh.
Doh-doh, Doh-doh, Doh-doh, Doh-doh.
Kha-ah, Kha-ah, Kha-ah, Kha-ah.
Sa, sa, sa, sa!
- All right, good job, gimme that.
(fists bumping)
Well, I've had such a great time playing with you today,
and I've had a great time sharing taiko with you as well.
So, let's say goodbye to our friends.
- [Both] Goodbye, friends.
(enchanted music)
- Wow, taiko drums are loud.
- Yes they are.
They really fill up a room like the sound of the ocean
or thunder.
- Oh, I wish I could play taiko like Miss Lika and the oni.
- With practice, I'm sure that you'd be great at it.
You already learned how to play the concertina.
- Yeah, but how am I gonna fit
a whole taiko drum in my tree?
- Hmm, you know you've got a point there, Possum.
Huh, I know.
- Oh, what, Auntie Lena?
- Why don't we make our own taiko drum?
A small one that we can hold in our hands.
- Oh, so taiko don't have to be big
like they are in the story.
- No, there are many different kinds of taiko.
Miss Lika can show us how to make one.
(magical chime)
- Hello, friends, I'm Miss Lika
and I'm back with you again
at the Japanese Cultural Community Center of Washington.
Today, we're gonna be making some wonderful drums.
They're handheld drums called Den-den daiko.
And today, we're gonna be putting only faces
on our Den-den daiko.
Oni used to be seen as fearsome and strong creatures.
But you know what, they can also be seen as good
because they chase away fear, evil,
and sometimes even bad dreams.
So let's make some Den-den daiko together.
Okay, let's start with our materials.
We're having stickers over here
and we're gonna need a stapler and some scissors.
You might need help from a grownup with those,
we have some straws that we can use for the handles,
maybe even a chopstick if you've got one at home.
We've got some colorful beads,
some tape,
maybe some markers for decorating, and some,
I use these wonderful paper plates.
And the next thing we have are some string.
These are nylon strings, we use them for kites.
They're really strong,
so they make a really good Den-den daiko.
The thing we have here is some glue
and some markers, maybe a pencil
if you wanna trace the outline of your oni first.
All right, before we get started,
let's show you what we're gonna make.
These are Den-den daiko.
We have an oni on one side
and we can put stickers on the other.
They have a handle here
and strings out the sides
with two little beads on each side.
And when we roll them between our hands...
(den-den daiko clacking)
We make a wonderful drumming sound.
Okay, are you ready to get started?
Let's go.
So over here I've got my two paper plates
and we're gonna go ahead and decorate both sides.
Now you can start anywhere you'd like,
but I like to start at the very top of the head.
So, maybe today, I'm gonna have curly hair on my oni.
So I'm gonna start with some curly hair
right on the top of his head.
Then I'm gonna put horns on an oni.
'cause oni always have horns.
So let's put two horns here.
My horns are big really long,
but you can make yours short.
Oh, how about one right on the top of his head?
Oh, that's silly.
Then we're gonna bring down the sides of his face.
And then next, we're gonna put in some ears.
What do oni ears look like?
I think they look like anything we want them to look like.
So today, I'm gonna draw oni ears that look like this.
How silly.
The next thing we're gonna draw is a jaw.
Now the jaw on an oni is really strong and square,
but you can make yours any shape you'd like.
The next thing I like to do is put some eyebrows on my oni,
maybe two eyes like this.
(pen scrabbling)
And let's draw a nice big nose.
Here we go.
And I'm gonna make a happy oni,
so I'm gonna give him a happy smiley face like this
and maybe a couple teeth.
And there's your oni.
Now we can take some colorful markers or crayons
and we can color in our oni if you'd like.
And then the next thing you can do is you can decorate
around your oni.
I like to use these little circles
because when I make a taiko drum,
we tag the skin on the drum using tags like this.
And so I like to go around my drum like this.
(plate scratches)
So it looks more like a taiko drum.
You can use any patterns that you'd like, maybe some swirls,
maybe some stars.
(pen scrabbling)
Anything you'd like.
Okay, so this side of my Den-den daiko is complete.
I'm gonna go ahead and put some stickers on the other side.
So now that we have both sides
of our Den-den daiko complete,
we're gonna choose first our string.
Hmm, I think today, I'm going to use orange.
What we wanna do with our string is measure across
the widest part of your plate once,
twice.
(cheery music)
and three times.
And then that is where we're gonna cut our string.
The next thing we're gonna do is choose some beads.
I've brought a few colors today, so, hmm,
maybe I'll try purple
'cause purple is one of my favorite colors.
The first thing I'll do is take one bead
and thread my string through,
and one more,
and thread it through, just like that.
Then what we're gonna do is we're gonna leave a little bit
of a tail and we're gonna tie two knots, one right on top
of another because we want that knot to be really big
so that the bead does not fall off.
There we go.
We pull it really tight and then let's check.
Looks like they're staying on.
All right, let's try the other side.
The next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna find the center
of our string.
(cheery music)
That's about center.
And I'm going to put center on the center
of my plate, just like that.
(cheery music)
Okay, then we're gonna choose some tape.
Just any tape will do.
I'm picking yellow today
and we're gonna tape that right to the center,
right over our strength,
just to hold it in place and give it a good rub.
Now let's take our glue.
The glue's gonna help hold the plate together,
but it's also gonna help hold my string in place.
So I'm gonna put a little dab there
and I'm gonna go all around the top of my plate first,
the little dab of glue.
Okay, so the next thing I'm gonna do is we're gonna choose
the stick.
Now you can use a chopstick if you've got that.
Most of us have these in our home,
but today, I'm going to use a straw.
Take the straw and center it on the bottom
of my Den-den daiko, just like that.
Then I'm gonna take another little piece of tape
and that's gonna hold it in place.
The next thing I'm gonna do, here's the fun part,
we're going to take the next plate
and put it on top of our plate on the table.
And we're going to squish, this is
where we might need a little bit of help from Mom and Dad.
We're gonna squish those ends together like this.
And we're gonna grab our stapler.
And do you see where the string is coming out here?
We're gonna put a staple right over that string
to hold it in place. (stapler clacks)
Push really hard. (stapler clacks)
There we go, that's the first one.
We're gonna flip it around.
(plate crackling) (bouncy music)
Make sure that string is nice and centered.
And again, put a staple right over the string.
And now we're gonna staple the handle onto the drum.
So we're gonna staple right through the straw,
so we might need a grownup to help us here too.
Ready, here's the first one.
Push really hard, and then we'll go to the other side
and we're gonna put that other second staple in
and push really hard like that.
And the last staple we're gonna put on is in the top
'cause that's really important.
We have a little glue in there,
but the staple will make sure that it stays in place.
So one more time. (stapler clacks)
And there we have it. (laughs)
We've made our very own oni Den-den daiko.
Should we see how it sounds?
Let's put the stick between our hands
and then we're gonna rotate quickly.
( den-den daiko clacking)
Do you like your new oni Den-den daiko?
The next time you have a bad dream,
let's use our oni Den-den daiko to chase them away.
What do you say, thank you for joining us,
friends, here today.
Bye.
(magical chime)
- Tun-tun-ta-ka.
Tun-tun-tun-ta-ka.
(Auntie Lena laughs) Tun-tun-tun-ta-ka.
- Well, Possum, it doesn't sound like you're tired anymore.
- Oh, yeah, I'm wide awake now.
I'm learning about taiko and oni with our friends was fun
and it helped me forget all about my bad dream.
- Oh, I'm so happy to hear that.
And I hope you sleep better tonight.
- And if that monster comes back in my dream,
I know the only will protect me
and maybe the monster will wanna play taiko too.
- (laughs) Well, if that happens, you'll have
to tell me all about it.
- Oh, I will, thank you, Auntie Lena.
- You're welcome, Possum.
And, friends, thank you for taking the time to look, listen,
and learn with us today.
Remember, you are the best you that the world will ever see.
- Bye for now. - Bye-Bye.
(den-den daiko clacking)
(cheery music)
Please, stay tuned after the credits
for Auntie Lena's parent tip.
(cheery music)
- [Narrator] Brought to you by Public Health, reminding you
to keep your family's protection strong
with updated covid vaccines.
Resources and information available
at kingcounty.gov/vaccine.
(cheery music)
- Bad dreams.
We've all had them nights
when the big monsters won't stop chasing you
or when you're soaring high in the sky
and then realize, wait, I don't know how to fly.
Going back to sleep after a bad dream can be hard.
As caring adults, it's not uncommon to wake up in the middle
of the night to comfort a little one who, like Possum,
don't wanna face another monster.
Luckily, there are plenty of stories
and tools at our disposal to ease their worries.
Like Auntie Lena,
Encourage your child to imagine a different ending
for their dream, or share a story that incorporates ways
that your family
or culture has dealt with bad dreams in the past.
Today's story, "Ten Oni Drummers" is an example of how
to put a positive spin on creatures
that your child might normally associate with a bad dream.
By sparking their creativity,
we can steer children away from dwelling on the bad part
of a bad dream,
and instead, get back to having the sweet dreams
that help their minds to grow and go.