Miyagi is largely regarded as being responsible for keeping the koto alive when traditional Japanese arts were being forgotten and replaced by Westernization. Michio Miyagi (1894–1956), a blind composer, innovator, and performer, is considered to have been the first Japanese composer to combine western music and traditional koto music. It was named the taishōgoto after the Taishō period.Īt the beginning of the Meiji Period (1868–1912), Western music was introduced to Japan.
On this koto, one would push down buttons above the metal strings like the western autoharp. Around the 1920s, Goro Morita created a new version of the two-stringed koto. Japanese developments in bridgeless zithers include the one-stringed koto ( ichigenkin) and two-stringed koto ( nigenkin or yakumo goto). Nosaka (a musician who won Grand Prize in Music from the Japanese Ministry of Culture in 2002), felt confined by playing a koto with just 13 strings, and created new versions of the instrument with 20 or more strings. Ī smaller influence in the evolution of the koto is found in the inspiration of a woman named Keiko Nosaka. Yatsuhashi is now known as the "Father of Modern Koto". Yatsuhashi changed the tsukushi goto tunings, which were based on the older gagaku ways of tuning and with this change, a new style of koto was born. Yatsuhashi was a gifted blind musician from Kyoto who vastly extended the limited selection of only six traditional koto songs to a brand-new style of koto music which he called kumi uta. Perhaps the most important influence on the development of koto was Yatsuhashi Kengyo (1614–1685). These were made with 17, 21, and 31 strings. It was purposefully created to extend the range of the instrument and advance the style of play.
The tagenso is the newest addition to the koto family, surfacing in the 19th century. These two have relatively stayed the same, with the exception of material innovations such as the use of plastic, as well as modern material for the strings. The two main koto varieties still used today are the gakuso and zokuso. When these strict rules were relieved, women began to play the koto, with the exception of the chikuso, as its design for the blind led to a decline in use other koto proved more useful.
3 stringed japanese instrument professional#
Women were forbidden from playing the instrument in the professional world, nor were they allowed to teach it. The koto of the chikuso was made for the Tsukushigato tradition, originally intended only for blind men. In one part of The Tale of Genji, the titular character falls deeply in love with a mysterious woman whom he has never seen before, after hearing her playing the koto from a distance. According to Japanese literature, the koto was used as imagery and other extra music significance. Some literary and historical records indicate that solo pieces for koto existed centuries before sōkyoku, the music of the solo koto genre, was established. It was a popular instrument among the wealthy the instrument was considered a romantic one. The modern koto originates from the gakusō used in Japanese court music ( gagaku). The azumagoto or yamatogoto was called the wagon, the kin no koto was called the kin, and the sau no koto ( sau being an older pronunciation of 箏) was called the sō or koto. As the number of different stringed instruments in Japan grew, the once-basic definition of koto could not describe the wide variety of these instruments and so the meanings changed. When the koto was first imported to Japan, the native word koto was a generic term for any and all Japanese stringed instruments. This variety of instrument came in two basic forms, a zither that had bridges and a zither without bridges.Īn 1878 depiction by Settei Hasegawa of a woman playing the koto The Japanese koto belongs to the Asian zither family that also comprises the Chinese zheng (ancestral to the other zithers in the family), the Korean gayageum, and the Vietnamese đàn tranh. The first known version had five strings, which eventually increased to seven strings.
It was first introduced to Japan from China in the 7th and 8th century. The ancestor of the koto was the Chinese guzheng. The four types of koto ( gakuso, chikuso, zokuso, tagenso) were all created by different subcultures, but also adapted to change the playing style. Variations of the instrument were eventually created, and eventually a few of them would become the standard variations for modern day koto. The term koto appears in the Kojiki in reference to an ancient string instrument in this usage. When read as kin, it indicates the Chinese instrument guqin. However, 琴 ( koto) is the general term for all string instruments in the Japanese language, including instruments such as the kin no koto, sō no koto, yamato-goto, wagon, nanagen-kin, and so on. The character for koto is 箏, although 琴 is often used. Problems playing this file? See media help.
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