Great Lakes Taiko Center profile picture

Great Lakes Taiko Center

About Me

Raion Taiko was founded by Mayumi Sole in the fall of 2005. Mayumi and Brian Sole began collecting taiko drums and bringing them back to the United States from Japan. The group was originally formed simply out of a desire to have someone play the drums that had been collected. The first members were a group of high school students from Eastern High School in Lansing, Michigan. After two or three small performances at the high school, word spread and Raion Taiko suddenly had several paid gigs. What had started out as an experiment began to grow into something more. In 2006/2007, Raion Taiko played at the Michigan State University Japanese picnic, the Michigan State University International Day and most recently at a sales meeting for the Discovery Channel Networks. Brian and Mayumi are currently living in Japan, studying taiko intensively. They intend to return to Michigan by the end of 2009, to re-establish Raion Taiko and also to open Michigan's first taiko school.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 28/05/2007
Band Website: http://www.michigantaiko.com
Band Members: Brian and Mayumi Sole
Influences: Hono-O-Taiko, Yamato, Kaga Taiko, Kodo
Record Label: Unsigned

My Blog

Kaga Taiko Videos

A reminder to stop by the Raion Taiko Blog to read a little bit about Kaga Taiko and see videos of our performances at this year's Kaga Taiko Recital.  Also, see a bonus video of our son playing ...
Posted by on Thu, 25 Dec 2008 07:34:00 GMT

Taiko Training and Taiko as a Cure for the Common Cold

Greetings everyone.  Two new blogs are available for you to read at the raiontaiko.blogspot.com.A New Way of Training for Taiko  Read about how to work out your muscles while taking care of a two-year...
Posted by on Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:26:00 GMT

How Long Since you’ve stopped by the Raion taiko Blog?

Hey everyone, how long has it been since you visited the raion taiko blog?  If it's been awhile, click your mouse over to raiontaiko.blogspot.com to read about our November adventures: A Missed O...
Posted by on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:14:00 GMT

ANA Disappoints with Luggage Reimbursement

ANA gave us some money for our lost luggage.  (The luggage they lost).  Want to know how much they gave us? and why we are still not happy?  Stop by the Raion Taiko Blog to read the who...
Posted by on Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:15:00 GMT

Should Use a Japanese Airline to Fly to Japan?

If you follow me on Twitter, you are likely already aware that upon our recent return to Japan from a visit to the US, the airline we were flying on, ANA (All Nippon Airways) had lost our bag of taiko...
Posted by on Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:35:00 GMT

Raion Taiko Blog - Excuse 2

I would like to post one more excuse for my lack of blogging efforts in August. If you are a regular reader, then you know that designing t-shirts was my first excuse. If you don't know what t-shirts ...
Posted by on Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:16:00 GMT

New Blog Entry - Making Taiko Tshirts

My apologies for the long hiatus. There were many factors inovloved in my extended absence from updating our taiko blog. It must have been tough for the one or two of you who check here every day to f...
Posted by on Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:45:00 GMT

Volunteering at the 2008 Exstasia Taiko Festival

4 days of volunteering, often for 15 hrs at a time, world class taiko performers, an outdoor concert nearly ruined by a last minute thunderstorm... read about the whole experience at the Raion Taiko b...
Posted by on Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:55:00 GMT

"New" Blog Address

For the past year (+) Raion Taiko has been posting blogs here, on Myspace, as well as at a blogging site.  I have also been learning a lot about search engine optimization and internet marketing ...
Posted by on Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:42:00 GMT

Daihachi Oguchi 'kã R.I.P.

I learned the sad news this evening as I opened my Internet browser and saw the headline on Yahoo: "Master Japanese drummer, Oguchi dies". All of us who play and perform taiko today owe a debt of ...
Posted by on Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:27:00 GMT