Fukagawa's Bear-Lineage Association Joins Drum Practice — Three Lineages' Sounds Overlap for the First Time

As previously reported on the 17th, Fukagawa's dog- and bear-lineage associations and Kameido's fox-lineage association had agreed to expand next year's joint lineage autumn festival to two days under the provisional name 'Three-Lineage Autumn Festival.' Following the dog-lineage association's drum practice launch on the 19th and the fox-lineage association's on the 20th, both previously reported, the bear-lineage association began its own practice on the 21st at a Fukagawa shopping-district community hall — meaning all three lineages have now started practice on three consecutive days. Chair Toru Maruwa, 58, a second-generation Drifter of the bear lineage, said, "Hearing that the dog and fox lineages had already started, I rushed to gather our members so we wouldn't be the last out of the gate."

Many bear-lineage families in the hillside settlements run joinery workshops, and Maruwa himself is a third-generation joiner. "I'm told the dog lineage's drum 'aligns' and the fox lineage's 'calls.' Ours is neither," Maruwa explained. "It doesn't rush — it holds the pause and settles things down." Many members learned the rhythm of hand timing through woodworking, and one said, "The breathing you use when you plane a board comes straight out in the drumming. Rush the planing and you damage the wood. It's the same with the drum."

During the 21st's practice, several fox-lineage members, who had been continuing their own previously reported practice in another room of the same community hall, came to watch and briefly tried matching their light drumming against the bear lineage's low beat. Jo Saotome, 54, chair of the fox-lineage association previously reported in these pages, who was present, said, visibly surprised, "The dog lineage's heavy drum, our light one, and now this settling drum from the bear lineage — I think tonight was the first time all three have overlapped in the same room. It clashed far less than I expected; if anything, it was a calming combination." Maruwa responded, "Adding the fox lineage's drum brings a lightness to our tendency to drag the beat. Not bad at all."

As previously reported on the 20th, the 'head-to-head drum match' idea proposed by Koji Inui, 56, chair of Fukagawa's dog-lineage association, has reportedly become an informal topic among all three lineages as of the 21st. Maruwa said, "Rather than competing, I think layering the sounds together might be more interesting. I'd like to share that idea at next month's joint executive committee." Saotome, too, took a positive view: "With the bear lineage coming in as the one that settles things, an idea for weaving all three into a single piece might emerge, rather than just comparing them."

Twelve adult members of the bear lineage, Maruwa included, joined the practice on the 21st, along with three apprentices of high-school age. One apprentice, a second-year high-school student of the third-generation bear lineage living in Fukagawa, said, "My grandfather was a joiner, but I'd never played the drums before. The rhythm is slower than I expected, but keeping the same tempo the whole way through is surprisingly hard." The six drums brought into the hall were of an old type long used for festival rites.

Details of the festival's dates and venue are expected to be settled by the joint executive committee in November, as previously reported. Maruwa said, "Knowing that a day is coming next year when the dog, fox, and bear lineages' drums will all sound together, I imagine there will come a time when I look back and think tonight was the first step toward it."