A variety of other instruments are also used in kumi-daiko to fill out the sound. Small hand symbols’ (called chappa or tebyoushi), small hand held gongs (call atarigane or chanchiki), flutes (fue or shakuhachi), gongs, and various clappers and rattles are all used to wonderful effect. The high, bright sounds of these instruments add great contrast to the sound and are easily heard above the roar of the big drums.

As a general rule, all taiko are struck with some sort of stick called bachi. The only hand drums in Japan seems to be the kotsuzumi and ootsuzumi used in Japanese classical music. All other taiko are hit with bachi, and there is a tremendous variety of bachi to choose from. Hard oak bachi are typically used for nagado-daiko. Larger bachi made of softwood are used for odaiko, and smaller, lighter bachi are used for shime-daiko. Beyond that, there are bachi made from bamboo, bachi with shiny decorations and tassels, and bachi with jingles and rattles. The proper selection of bachi can add great aural and visual interest to a performance.
Most taiko are measured in the traditional Japanese measure of shaku and sun. One shaku is 30.3 cm (about twelve inches), and is divided into ten sun. Usually only the diameter of the head is measured.

There are many kinds of Taiko drums in Japan, but they can be broadly divided into two categories: Taiko with a nailed head (byou-daiko), and Taiko with heads stretched over a hoop and tensioned with ropes (shime-daiko).

Byou-daiko

Byou-daiko (also called byou uchi-daiko) have bodies that are traditionally carved from a single log, and heads that are stretched onto the taiko and tacked in place. This style of taiko cannot be tuned after the head is stretched. The nagado-daiko (long bodied taiko) is the most representative style of byou-daiko. It seems very likely that this style of taiko has its roots in Chinese or Korean antecedents.

The favored wood for byou-daiko is keyaki (zelkova, a Japanese relative of the elm) which possesses all the qualities a taiko maker looks for: hardness; good tone; and a beautiful grain pattern. Other woods such as sen, tochi (horse chestnut), kusu (camphor) and toboku (from Camaroon) are also used on less expensive taiko. Since the bodies of byou-daiko are carved from a single log, making a large taiko typically requires a large tree that has grown for a minimum of two hundred years; the largest odaiko ever produced required a tree that was 1,200 years old. However, with proper care, a body can last for hundreds of years.

The increasing scarcity of old growth forests has driven prices up and spurred some taiko makers to use modern, unorthadox construction techniques. These makers can now stack-laminate several pieces of wood together, or use a stave construction to save wood and lower prices. Several varieties of plastic bodied taiko are also available, although the vast majority of taiko being made are still carved from one piece of wood.

The heads are made from cowhide, and it is said that three to four year old black Japanese cows produce the best hides. Proper preperations of the hide and the process to stretch the heads are typically considered trade secrets are guarded carefully. Very large odaiko requires the full hide from a holstein bull.