Meet Naoki Ishikawa the Virtuoso Drummer

Heard of "Blast !", that Disney's marching band music/dance performance show? It's being staged right now here in Tokyo and causing quite a sensation with a brilliant Japanese percussionist playing for the first time for the group.

Naoki Ishikawa, 41, is the first Japanese drummer to join the show. Says Ishikawa:

"It's like having guests to an Omatsuri - in the middle of a fiesta with lots of people sharing time, air and occasion together. Thriving."

Naoki met the drum for the first time in the US where he had moved with his father on business. He joined a highschool marching band and went on drumming his way through college. After graduation he was admitted to "Blast !" The following year Naoki Ishikawa was playing solo.

"I had always thought I should be drumming solo some day and one day I found myself drumming solo - just like that," recalls Ishikawa. He goes on:

"The group is charming not for solo drumming. It charms with you a perfect mass ensemble. All eight of us are habitually training every minute we have drumming like a single drummer.

"Not just physically coordinating the fingertips but binding eight minds into one into a perfect bondage. It's funny we often find ourselves strolling exactly in the same pace without knowing. That's how eight of us learn do everything alike."

Ishikawa teaches junior and senior highschool brass bands. Some of his students have won trophies in national competitions. Ishikawa comments:

"It's important that young people learn to join force toward set goals, having fun sharing work and experience at home and beyond borders. Young people benefit from sharing work in ensemble the way they do in brass band performances."

Back to Naoki Ishikawa in Blast!, I've seen him perform in DVD and found his drumming skill simply astounding. If you're around a while longer, you might check Blast!. It's performing till mid September. (Nathan Shiga)