Koto

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Koto player Masayo Ishigure

Koto ( Japanese 箏 / 琴 ), more rarely sō, sō-no-koto ( 箏 ) and jūsangen ( 十三 弦 ), is a vaulted board zither with 13 strings that is played in courtly Japanese music ( gagaku ). The shape of the koto is based on the Chinese guzheng .

Until the Heian period (794–1185), koto referred to different stringed instruments. So was kin-no-koto for the Chinese zither guqin and biwa-no-goto for the lute biwa while Kudara-koto ( "from Kudara originating koto ") is another name for the historic Japanese angular harp Kugo was.

Design

An average koto is a 1.80 m long and 25 cm wide hollow stringed instrument made of paulownia wood. The instrument body is slightly curved upwards, has two sound holes in the bottom and two small bridges over which the strings are loosely stretched. The total of 13 strings are mostly made of nylon or Teflon today , as these are more durable and have almost the same sound quality as the traditionally used silk strings. Related vaulted board zithers are the guzheng, the Japanese wagon (also Yamato-goto ), the Korean gayageum , the Vietnamese đàn tranh and the Mongolian yatga .

The strings all have the same tension and are stretched on 13 movable bridges, the so-called Ji. By moving the Ji along the koto , the different tones can be set or changed during the game. Whereas the Ji used to be made of rosewood or even ivory , today the plastic variant is predominantly used.

Each part of the koto has a mythological description, and the shape of the koto is often compared to that of a dragon . The upper back of the koto is called "dragon shell " ( 竜 甲 , Ryūko ) (since Asian dragons, like a turtle, are said to have a shell), the lower part "dragon belly " ( 竜 腹 , Ryūhara ), the rear part is the " Dragon's Tail "( 竜 尾 , Ryūbi ), the front bridge" Dragon Horns "( 竜 角 , Ryūkaku ) and the rear bridge" Seat of Angels "( 天 御 , Tenmiyo ) or" Cloud Horns "( 雲 角 , Kumokaku ), indicative of the clouds over the dragon's horns.

Style of play

String attachment of the koto
Voting and playing side of the koto
Plucking the strings with the bare hand and square picks

The game of koto is one of the traditional Japanese arts of the imperial court and is still practiced today. Already in Genji Monogatari ("The Story of Prince Genji"), perhaps the oldest novel in the world from the end of the 10th / beginning of the 11th century, the koto is mentioned because of its great popularity at the Japanese court.

The koto is played either kneeling on the floor (in the traditional way) or sitting with the help of wooden legs. The strings are plucked while sitting at the right end with the right hand. You wear three claw-like picks , the tsume ( 爪 , "claw; fingernails"), like rings on your fingers. Tsume is available as ivory picks with bamboo rings or made entirely of plastic in several variants. With the left hand, sound effects are created, strings are plucked or the notes are raised by half a note or a full note by pressing the strings down accordingly.

The basic mood of the koto is called Hirajōshi (the standard mood ). The strings are tuned from back to front in the following order: D, G, A, Bb, D, Eb, G, A, Bb, D, Eb, G, A. There are many other tunings, such as Gakujoshi or Nogijoshi, in which the basic Hirajōshi mood is usually assumed.

The way of playing the koto is divided into the Ikuta and Yamada schools. The difference between the two is on the one hand in the different picks. Yamada have fingernail-like picks and Ikuta square picks. On the other hand, there is the difference in the playing styles. The Yamada School also focuses on singing accompaniment to the koto .

Thanks to the sliding bars, the koto is very flexible, and not only Asian, but also Western moods can be set. As a result, the koto invites many modern musicians to experiment with Japanese music and develop it further.

notation

Due to the many different koto schools that exist in Japan, different types of notation have emerged . What all notes have in common is that they first give a basic pitch and then the numbers of the strings to be struck; z. B. Hirajōshi tuning and then the first page 一 , the seventh 七 , the fifth 五 etc. attacks.

The 13 strings of the koto have their own names, which are represented with Japanese Kanji . The first string that lies on the side of the instrument away from the player is counted as the first string ( ichi一). The first ten strings are named after the Japanese numbers. The last three strings are called tō ( 斗 , 11th string), i ( 為 , 12th) and kin ( 巾 , 13th).

To memorize the sound of the Hirajōshi , there is a motto in which one syllable corresponds to a string: "matsumushi - suzumushi - kutsuwamushi" ( 松 虫 鈴 虫 く つ わ 虫 ). You count three beetles. The names of the beetles have no direct connection with the koto , because they are only used for their rhythmic sound.

Otherwise there are sometimes small differences in the writing of decorations, pauses, rhythms or half and whole tones. In the Eastern tradition, the notes are read from top to bottom and from right to left.

origin

Michiyo Yagi plays the 21-string bass koto

The koto was introduced to Japan from China during the Nara period (710–793) as an instrument of court music ( gagaku ) . One of the most famous pieces for koto is called Rokudan no Shirabe . Rokudan was composed by Yatsuhashi Kengyō .

There are two main forms:

literature

  • Henry Johnson: The Koto. A Traditional Instrument in Contemporary Japan . Hotei Publishing, Amsterdam 2004, ISBN 90-74822-63-0
  • Henry M. Johnson: A "Koto" by Any Other Name: Exploring Japanese Systems of Musical Instrument Classification. In: Asian Music, Vol. 28, No. 1, Fall 1996 - Winter 1997, pp. 43-59
  • Bonnie C. Wade: Tegotomono. Music for the Japanese Koto. ( Contributions in Intercultural and Comparative Studies, Number 2 ) Greenwood Press, Westport (Connecticut) 1976

Web links

Commons : Koto  - collection of images, videos and audio files