Building taiko and other stuff would be near impossible without my partner – Dad.  Yeah, sure, he gave me life, raised me and taught me how to used a table saw when I was 8…whatever.  But mostly, he has the mind of an engineer which comes in very handy when trying to figure out the exact angle of the naname stand and how much lumber to buy.

He also has the space and tools and gets things done!  Often, I come to visit and lay out a construction schedule and he has already finished what we were going to work on.  “Three coats of poly before we can head?  Yeah, finished that yesterday.”

Although we work as a team and cross-over in several areas of expertise, generally it can be said that I design the drums and stands and he figures out the execution.  This sometimes leads to differences of opinion as to how to approach certain things and we definitely have different styles of working but in the end, our strengths make up for the other’s weaknesses and we seem to get the job done!

At least, we haven’t lost a drum yet…