![]() In the contemporary koto world, a handful of great players and composers stand out. One way round those limitations is to use two or more kotos where, for example, one piano would do.īack to top Contemporary Stars Tadao Sawai 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 limitation, which contributes greatly to the koto's distinctive flavor, is the number of strings. In recent years, composers trained in western musical traditions have experimented with other tunings, including the standard western 12-note scale. Yasue Horiuchi has details on how to tune. A cheerful sounding variant, reminiscent of traditional Chinese music, is gaku-choshi. The most well-known of these is hira-joshi. The traditional Japanese tunings are variations of a pentatonic scale, usually minor with a melancholy flavor. 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 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. On those fingers, she (sometimes he) wears ivory picks. 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. ![]() The instrument is tuned by moving the bridges to the left and right. ![]() It consists of a long board of pawlonia (kiri) wood, with the strings stretched tautly over moveable and removeable plastic or ivory bridges. Unlike the western harp, it is laid horizontally. The koto is a 13-stringed harp-like Japanese musical instrument, also likened to a zither. NEW (-ish)! Anne Prescott's piece on Miyagi Michio Take a moment to join the kotoworld e-mail Group and post your message there. If you have any questions, comments, requests, information or links, please I've only had time to test it with Internet Explorer 5 on a Mac. The colours on this site will only come out right with a modern browser. Notes Turn on Japanese encoding for best results! If you've got speed problems, turn off graphics autoloading. Please note that Anne Prescott's piece on Michio Miyagi is comparatively new, so please check it out if you haven't already. Other information about koto and Japanese music in general: Peter Coates, Curtis Patterson, Darin Tokuo Miyashiro I never seem to be able to find the time to write new stuff myself. To those of you who visited the site back in 1996, sorry there have been so few additions and improvements. 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. I'm Rick Lavin, a koto instructor and performer based in Kumamoto, Japan. This site brings you general koto information, and a chance to talk about the koto in the associated online community. The koto is a 13-stringed harp-like Japanese musical instrument. It does not store any personal data.Koto: the Japanese harp or zither: KotoWorld Home Koto: the Japanese harp or zither The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.
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