Tahitian festival – Kaua’i

A wonderful time with Mark and his family, on the island of Kauai, looking at new songs and ideas for his next project. Martin got to sit in with a Tahitian drum group to learn more of their music, and we went to a wonderful Tahitian festival of drum and dance. All the dance and drum teams competed for best performance.

The basic drum ensemble for Tahitian style consists of the to’ere a hollowed-out log of milo wood, which is played one-handed with a heavy tapered stick made of very hard iron wood (hitting the drum in different places creates a variety of tones). Together with the pahu drum which keeps a constant beat (pulse) much like a bass drum and the fa’atete drum (made traditionally out of coconut tree wood with sharkskin) is almost like a snare part.