My homemade bread method

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freshly baked rye bread

freshly baked rye bread

I've been baking bread at home for over ten years, trying several different methods during that time.  The first book that helped me get more serious about bread was Dough by Richard Bertinet.  After that was Mark Bittman's New York Times article about Jim Lahey's revolutionary no-knead method and book My Bread.  Finally, Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast is the source of my current recipe and technique.  His Portland restaurants' bread and pizza simply speak for themselves and I rushed out to get his book after tasting his bread.  I really appreciate Forkish being very detailed in using scales (in grams), thermometers, and percentages so that we can get a handle on the relationship of the ingredients.  This allows for very easy up and down scaling of batch size, plus makes it easier to experiment and adjust to our own tastes.  The basic recipe makes two loaves, and here I've baked one and stored the other dough in the fridge to bake later or for pizza or focaccia.  Once you get the hang of the white bread, it's easy to substitute whole wheat, rye, or other flour, as well as throw in dried fruits, nuts, and seeds to your liking.  The important points are hydration level, long fermentation with less yeast, and high heat baking in the cast iron dutch oven.  Forkish has some good videos explaining and demonstrating these steps.  Making this bread is easy and inexpensive and the joy you can bring to others by sharing a loaf is even better than the happiness of seeing your beautiful bread come out of your own oven.

Overnight White Bread
1000g all purpose flour
750g water around 90F
20g sea salt
1g instant yeast (less when the house is warmer)

2. mix the dry, add water, and mix until the dry clumps are gone cover and ferment 12 - 18 hours at room temp find a warm spot if the house is cold

2. mix the dry, add water, and mix until the dry clumps are gone
cover and ferment 12 - 18 hours at room temp
find a warm spot if the house is cold

4. next day, 15 hours later it's ready to divide in half and form into rounds

4. next day, 15 hours later it's ready to divide in half and form into rounds

6. after a couple of hours covered, it has doubled and is ready to bake

6. after a couple of hours covered, it has doubled and is ready to bake

1. ingredients and equipment the small scale is not necessary because the yeast amount can vary

1. ingredients and equipment
the small scale is not necessary because the yeast amount can vary

3. assistant: "ok, now you have time to play! where's da bird!"

3. assistant: "ok, now you have time to play! where's da bird!"

5. I'm baking one and refrigerating the other to use later in the week

5. I'm baking one and refrigerating the other to use later in the week

7. preheat cast iron dutch oven in 475F oven (use oven thermometer) bake the bread covered 30 min, then remove lid and bake 15 min longer cool completely on rack before eating

7. preheat cast iron dutch oven in 475F oven (use oven thermometer)
bake the bread covered 30 min, then remove lid and bake 15 min longer
cool completely on rack before eating

Interview: Colleen Lanki of TomoeArts on kabuki and collaborating

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My friend and Vancouver-based dancer, director, writer, and teacher Colleen Lanki was in town for the final performance of Portland State University's kabuki production Chushingura.  She is the artistic director of TomoeArts, "a dance theatre company that works between traditions and disciplines" and regularly produces some of the most intriguing and original work I've seen.  Colleen kindly agreed to join me in my studio where we talked about the kabuki play, her training in Japan, thoughts on collaborating, and the various projects we worked on together.  Included in this recording is music I composed for two of the productions mentioned in the interview - EN: a raincity street dance and Voices of Hiroshima.  Working with Colleen has been fun and rewarding especially because we were able to create a number of different shows together.  Finding like-minded artists is not as common as I would like, so I'm happy when opportunities arise to work with someone like Colleen.

Voices of Hiroshima

Voices of Hiroshima

EN3: Community Circles

EN3: Community Circles

EN: a raincity street dance

EN: a raincity street dance

EN: The Procession of Performing Circles

EN: The Procession of Performing Circles

My interview with TaikoSource has been posted

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I recently had the opportunity to talk about music in an interview with Ben Pachter of TaikoSource.  The website is a good resource for taiko-related articles, interviews, song database, and more.  Ben asked me about my approach to composing for mixed ensembles, collaborative process, pedagogy, and how I navigate crossing over from Japanese instruments to western percussion.  There are a handful of other interviews already posted and I would encourage anyone to check them out for a closer look into these taiko players and teachers.

Here is the interview

Let me know if you listened and have any comments on what was talked about.  Do you agree, disagree, or see things from another perspective?

See the performance of Chushingura on video

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Portland State University has posted the video (in two parts) of the recent production of the kabuki play Kanadehon Chushingura (The Revenge of the 47 Loyal Samurai).  I was a geza musician in this eight-show run playing nohkan, shinobue, atarigane, and crow call.  This was a major production with a huge team of actors, musicians, make up and wardrobe crew as well as many other staff members.  Because of the rarity and scope of such a production, a lot of people established in the field of Japanese theater and literature came to town for the show.  It was great to see old friends and meet new ones. 

A Portland State University School of Theater and Film Main Stage Production Copresented by the PSU Center for Japanese Studies with support from the United States-Japan Foundation, Directed by Professor Laurence Kominz 02.28.2016 Visit Portland State University at http://www.pdx.edu

A very special guest was Donald Keene, the preeminent scholar, writer, historian, translator, and teacher of Japanese literature.  On March 7, he and his son Tsuruzawa Asazo presented a fascinating lecture/performance titled "A Journey through Sin, Redemption, Miracles and High Adventure: The Tale of the High Priest Kochi."  This bunraku puppetry play was originally published and staged in the 1680s, but was lost until a script was rediscovered in a British museum in 1968.  Keene's presentation included a documentary film showing the long and challenging process of remounting the play from this single script, along with Tsuruzawa's live virtuoso performance of an excerpt of the play on shamisen, chant, and song.  The story of Kochi was more mysterious and otherworldly than other Japanese plays I have seen even though it was based on a real person.

A Portland State University School of Theater and Film Main Stage Production Copresented by the PSU Center for Japanese Studies with support from the United States-Japan Foundation, Directed by Professor Laurence Kominz 02.28.2016 Visit Portland State University at http://www.pdx.edu

This was a very interesting project to be involved with.  Professor Larry Kominz did a wonderful job as director and gidayu chanter.  The show naturally got stronger as it progressed over the two-week run, and I enjoyed the way each performance was influenced by the energy of the various audiences.  I heard that this production was covered by more than 100 Japanese newspapers, and saw that there were several Japanese news outlets at the press conference after the final show on March 5.  I'm especially looking forward to seeing the video because my off-stage position during the performance didn't allow me to see the stage.  If you watch the video, please share any thoughts you have regarding the performance.

Video: soloing concepts by jazz drummer Antonio Sanchez

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Have you seen the movie Birdman?  Jazz drummer Antonio Sanchez wrote the film's score and most of the soundtrack is solo drumset.  He has also been Pat Metheny's drummer for the past 15 years.  I recently watched his instructional feature called Creative Soloing & Freedom presented by Drumeo and was impressed by the clarity with which he explained and demonstrated his concepts.  While I think it's well worth watching the video, I'll list the most important points here.

Try Drumeo Edge For Free, Today: - http://www.drumeo.com/trial/ It was incredible to have four-time Grammy Award winner Antonio Sanchez visit the Drumeo studios, where he shared his creative concepts for building solos over a groove, over a form, as well as completely open solos - in addition to sharing his techniques for sustaining motivic development throughout your solos.

Sanchez says that he tries to tell a story when playing a solo.  This means stopping yourself from operating on autopilot.  Instead of just letting your hands play your usual licks, you start with a motive (idea) and then develop it using techniques such as:

1. Giving yourself space to think.  The space could be silence or going into a holding pattern such as a groove.  "Give space...be patient...be friends of silence."

2. Using repetition to establish the motive in our memory and the audience's memory.  Ending a solo with the same motive from the beginning is a very effective way to structure it.

3. Creating an answer to your motive's call.  As an example, Sanchez sings the opening 2 bars of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Allegro) to see if his interviewer could sing the response (he did easily).  Another example was the melody of 'shave and a haircut - two bits.'

4. Using the full dynamic (volume) range of the instrument.  "I cannot stress enough how important soloing dynamics are."

5. Creating contrast through rhythm, sound, dynamics, etc. to interplay with the motive.

6. Developing your vocabulary by copying others, then making the material your own by exploring new ways to play them.  Emulating great players in the genre you're studying is crucial to learning that specific language.  It's important to understand the historical context of the style.

7. "Practicing with a metronome is extremely important...allows you to get your ideas in to the grid that is time.  You have to be very certain of what subdivisions you're playing all the time."

8. Making sense.  "People start following you if you make sense...saying something meaningful."  An example of NOT making sense would be the statement "I love scrambled eggs, but the movie was terrible."  Those two things are not directly related.

Sanchez says that this kind of approach in which you are truly improvising is more challenging as it has more risk involved.  But "going into the unknown" is the way to explore fresh ideas and play differently each time.  Because the possibilities are endless, it can be intimidating to start with this "blank sheet of paper."  Sanchez says that these ideas can be applied at any level since you don't need a lot of technique to start practicing this way. 

To me, everything presented in the video is spot on.  Soloing and improvisation is a topic I'm often asked to teach in workshops and private lessons, and it was good to hear new ways of thinking about the topic from one of the most in-demand drummers working today.  I would encourage everyone to check out this video and then share your most memorable take-away points.