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Wandering musicians move to a different beat

Tabla player Toshihiro Wakaike, left, spends around four months each year performing in Taiwan. Joining him on his latest visit is sitar player Ryohei Kanemitsu, right. PHOTO: RON BROWNLOW, TAIPEI TIMES

Taiwan attracts many itinerant and nonconformist foreigners. Then there's Toshihiro Wakaike, aka "Waka," who for the last 20 years has been tapping his way through India, Japan and Southeast Asia as a student, practitioner and teacher of the Indian percussion instrument called the tabla.

Waka, 38, whose hair and clothes evoke the media image of an Afghan tribesman, spends about four months each year in Taiwan, when he can be seen thumping his tabla at nightspots like The Wall (這牆) or by National Taiwan University in the pedestrian tunnel under Roosevelt Road, hat upside down on the pavement, a stack of CDs for sale at his feet.

He was first exposed to the instrument in 1987 while on vacation in India. Two years later he had had enough of being an average salaryman and beat a path back to the subcontinent, where he has lived on and off for a total of seven years. He does not miss the rat race back home. "The social pressure is very difficult in my hometown. Everyone says you should get married, own a home," Waka said. "I just want to create my life by myself. It's a very interesting adventure."

The tabla is a pair of hand drums, a smaller one that complements the melody and a larger one that has a deeper bass tone. It's a sophisticated instrument of art music, with a rich theoretical history and complex polyrhythms that take years to master. Waka, who has devoted himself to the tabla, can't say what motivated him to take it up, just that he was attracted by "the sound and the feeling of Indian music" and that it was a natural progression from piano lessons.

Recently he's been traveling and performing with Ryohei Kanemitsu, 23, aka "Yo," a sitar player he met in Shantiniketan, India. Yo, who had a neat haircut and colorful sweater that made him look like a backpacker, also took up his instrument while on vacation in India. Three years ago he dropped out of college and returned to study the sitar at The Visva Bharati University. "I don't know, I just like the sitar," Yo said. "Most of my friends said what are you doing … You are running away from the pressure."

It would be easy to pin Yo and Waka as eccentric "freeters," the term for the growing number of Japanese adults who float between odd jobs and have rejected the social model of marriage and full-time employment. Both said they did not fit in when they were young. Waka was obsessed with insects and has fond memories of studying a book about plankton. Yo did not mix easily with other children and as a teenager would often go camping alone to get away.

But mastering their instruments, not to mention the rules and formulas of South Asian music, is in itself a full-time job. If they haven't acquired the trappings of success, it's because there isn't much of a market for the kind of music they play. Yo said he has improved to the point where even in Taiwan, where audiences lack an understanding of his music, he feels that the sound coming from his sitar connects with people as tangibly as if the strings he plucks were tied to his listeners. Waka said he can now support himself by his music and no longer has to return to Japan to do odd jobs.

They expect to release an album here this spring, although Waka couldn't recall the name of the record label. "They told us it will be in March or April," he said, "but this is Taiwan, so who knows."

Wakwa will perform at 10pm on Jan. 27 at Sappho, located at 1, Ln 102 Anhe Rd Sec 2, Taipei (台北市安和路二段102巷1號). For more information, call (02) 2700-5411

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