Japan's koto is built like a dragon, from shell and stomach to tail
Every part of a koto carries a dragon's name. The top is its shell, the underside its stomach, the string holes its eyes, and the far end its tail. Japan's national instrument is a six-foot zither of paulownia wood, plucked with three fingerpicks while the player kneels on the floor.
The koto descends from the Chinese zheng, which reached Japan in the seventh and eighth centuries, and belongs to a family of Asian zithers that includes Korea's gayageum and Vietnam's đàn tranh. The earliest form had five strings, later seven. The standard modern koto has 13, each resting on a movable bridge that sets its pitch, so a player may retune between pieces. Bridges were once ivory and are now mostly plastic; strings may be plastic or the pricier yellow silk that some players still prefer for its sound.
The modern instrument grew out of the gakuso used in court music, a romantic instrument of the wealthy. In The Tale of Genji, the hero falls for a woman he has never seen simply by hearing her koto in the distance. Another branch, the chikuso, was meant only for blind men, and women were long barred from playing or teaching professionally.
Two blind musicians reshaped the tradition. Yatsuhashi Kengyo, a Kyoto player of the seventeenth century, found only six traditional songs available, retuned the instrument and invented a new repertoire; he is called the father of modern koto. Centuries later, as Westernisation threatened traditional arts after the Meiji period began, Michio Miyagi blended Western music with koto writing, composed over 300 works, and invented the popular 17-string bass koto. His Haru no Umi, or Spring Sea, still welcomes each New Year in Japan.
Experiment continues. The nineteenth century added the tagenso, a many-stringed koto meant to widen the range, and Keiko Nosaka, frustrated by 13 strings, built versions with 20 or more. Kazue Sawai, once Miyagi's favoured young student, carried the instrument abroad, notably arranging John Cage's Three Dances for four prepared bass koto.
Source: Koto (instrument)
