The koto is a 13-stringed harp-like Japanese musical instrument. This site brings you general koto information, and a chance to talk about the koto in the associated online community.

I'm Rick Lavin, a koto instructor and performer based in Kumamoto, Japan. Please send your questions and comments in to the KotoWorld eGroup, where I and any other members will pool our wisdom to help you out, and, even more importantly, your questions and any answers to them will serve as a useful reference for anybody in the future with similar questions.

Please note that Anne Prescott's piece on Michio Miyagi is comparatively new, so please check it out if you haven't already.

Notes

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Introduction

Koto Basics: what is it?

The koto is a 13-stringed harp-like Japanese musical instrument, also likened to a zither. Unlike the western harp, it is laid horizontally. It consists of a long board of pawlonia (kiri) wood, with the strings stretched tautly over moveable and removeable plastic or ivory bridges. The instrument is tuned by moving the bridges to the left and right. The performer kneels on the floor at the far right end of the instrument and plays chiefly with the thumb, forefinger and middle finger of the right hand. On those fingers, she (sometimes he) wears ivory picks. The lefthand is chiefly used to raise the pitch a semi- or a full tone by pressing down to the left of the bridges while playing with the right.

Tuning

Since the bridges can be moved before each piece, and even during a piece, there is in principle no restriction as to how the koto should be tuned. The traditional Japanese tunings are variations of a pentatonic scale, usually minor with a melancholy flavor. The most well-known of these is hira-joshi. Another is kumoi. A cheerful sounding variant, reminiscent of traditional Chinese music, is gaku-choshi. Yasue Horiuchi has details on how to tune.

In recent years, composers trained in western musical traditions have experimented with other tunings, including the standard western 12-note scale. One limitation, which contributes greatly to the koto's distinctive flavor, is the number of strings. If tuned to a doh-re-mi pattern, the koto spans less than 2 octaves, and even then the use of semitones has to be limited for the music to be playable.

One way round those limitations is to use two or more kotos where, for example, one piano would do.

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Contemporary Stars

Tadao Sawai

In the contemporary koto world, a handful of great players and composers stand out. One of those until recently was Tadao Sawai, generally recognized as a top composer and possibly the most technically accomplished performer ever on the standard 13-string koto. His untimely death in 1997 was a great loss to the koto world.

After the founding of the Sawai Koto Academy some 15 years ago, his teaching spread far and wide throughout Japan and is gaining a following in various countries spread across 4 continents. Perhaps his most significant contribution was a technical one: he brought western levels of precision to tuning and rythmn, popularized a range of innovative techniques which increase significantly the tonal possibilities of the koto, and raised the bar in the training and evaluation of teachers of the instrument.

Sawai is the first top koto artist to leave behind a significant body of CDs and videos, in addition to written music, so that future generations can see and hear his work. Unfortunately, the Japanese market for any koto music which is unsuitable for background use in stores or Japanese restaurants is so small that most CDs go out of print soon after publishing, so enthusiasts are encouraged to obtain any recordings when available.

Kazue Sawai

Tadao Sawai's wife, Kazue Sawai, has made her own unique contribution to the instrument's development, bringing a stage presence and passion (and controversy) previously unknown to the rather sedate koto world. Her speciality is the 17-string bass koto, hitherto considered as an accompaniment to the 13-string standard koto, which she has forged into a major solo instrument in its own right. She has encouraged many composers to create works that push the boundaries of the 13-string and 17-string koto ever further. As well as functioning as the spark in the creation of imaginative new works, her ground-breaking reinterpretations of ancient koto classics have attracted much attention.

Since the untimely death of her husband, Tadao Sawai, in 1997, she has taken almost all her husband's work upon herself, teaching his students, performing in his place, and popularising his large body of works.

Keiko Nosaka

Keiko Nosaka is another star in her mid-fifties, who, like Kazue Sawai, is well-known for the passion she brings to live performances. And, with composer Minoru Miki, she instigated a koto revolution with the invention in 1969 of the 20-string (still called this but now more usually with 21 strings) koto. The added strings gave composers like Miki greater flexibility, aided immensely by her universally recognised virtuosity. And Miki's gentle melodies are aided by the romantic quality of Nosaka's performances.

More recently, Nosaka has broken further new ground by introducing the 25-string koto. The newness (and expense) of the instrument, coupled with the sheer difficulty for players accustomed to 13 strings to handle nearly double that number, mean that at present only Nosaka and a handful of her disciples are active with this instrument. In addition, at present the only composer of note writing for the instrument is Akira Ifukube, better known for his orchestral works, including the soundtracks to the Godzilla movies. Some of the results of the Nosaka/Ifukube collaboration are collected on a Toshiba-EMI CD, Keiko Nosaka, Anthologie de la musique pour koto a vingt cordes; Akira Ifukube.

Future Plans

Writing more stuff myself when I get the time

Getting my pals to write stuff

Giving you more links to information that's available elsewhere (Please help to keep me up-to-date!)

Serving as a repository for information that you choose to submit.

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