Loading in, loading out...

I often joke around that 90% of my job as a taiko drummer is driving stuff around--loading and unloading equipment. 10% of my time I am actually drumming. While moving and packing drums has been pretty normal--we have Toni Yagami chudaiko bags, and other cases for shime and okedotaiko, what often causes us to make a ridiculous amount of trips back and forth to the van are our numerous stands. Shime stands, okedo stand pieces, chu stands, percussion tables, etc, etc. After about a decade of doing this, I think I've finally figured out a simple solution, and I am very grateful that Toni is humoring me and helping make some STAND BAGS! Here are some sketches and ideas that we have. If you have the same problem lugging stands around, maybe Toni can make some stand bags for you, too! (after she does ours)

Here are some of my basic ideas--first, here we have three shime stands that fold up and can stack together pretty compact.



Normally, we'd just pick one or two up in one hand and carry them from van to stage and back. What this and the other stand bags are going to do that is going to save us tons of time (I think) is that we can pack multiple stands and carry three at a time over our shoulders, which means our hands are still free to carry other stuff. We're ordering two for now, which means we should be able to transport 6 stands, which should be plenty.



We also have two more designs, and anyone out there who has Asano Taiko okedos and stands might find these intriguing. As some of you may know, Asano Taiko's okedo stands break down into two pieces. A piece shaped like an "I" and another piece shaped like an "H". If you're like TAIKOPROJECT, every now and then we take the wrong sized stand, or mismatched, or one time we left a stand piece at a gig. Sigh. These okedo stand bags we hope will make it so none of these things happen, AND that we can transport them and protect them better.

This first photo is the "I" pieces. There's a caster on one of them, but we're going to take it off--



Here's the bag sketch. Also, there will be some padding on the top flap, because we have had to repair a number of pegs, since they're kind of fragile. This one also slings over the shoulder, making it easy to carry along with other pieces of equipment.



Finally, we have our okedo "H" stand pieces. These come in various sizes, but are all pretty close in their dimensions. Again, they sling over the shoulder and will also protect the stands when they're packed away.



Here's the bag sketch--



Toni has just started working on these, but I am really excited to see how they'll turn out. When they're done, we'll post photos on our blog!