| THE KOTO: ITS HISTORY, STYLES AND EVOLUTION | ||||
| "Koto" was the generic name for all Japanese chordophones or plucked string instruments when the so was imported to Japan. Eventually, this general term could not describe the large variety of string instruments, and the names were changed. Azuma-goto or yamato-goto became wagon, biwa no koto was simplified to koto, kin no koto became the kin, and sau no koto was changed to so or koto accordingly. | ||||
| The Modern Koto |
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| The modern koto originates from the so or gakuso of Japanese court music, and was an important instrument of the Togaku style of gagaku ensemble. According to historical and literary records, a number of solo pieces for koto existed centuries before sokyoku or music for solo koto developed as an independent genre. Popular among aristocrats, the koto was a romantic instrument, according to ancient Japanese literature, and one rich with imagery and extramusical significance. In one section of The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari), Genji falls deeply in love with a woman he has never seen after hearing her exquisite koto performance from a distance. | ||||
| The history of the so or koto in Japan dates from the 16th-century. At that time, Kenjun (1547-1636), a Buddhist priest who lived in Northern Kyushu, began to compose for the instrument, calling the original style "Tsukushi-goto," after the region. Yatsuhashi Kengyo (1614-1685), a gifted blind musician from Kyoto, learned the repertoire of Tsukushi-goto and transformed the limited repertoire of six short songs to a new style of koto music that he called kumiuta. Kumiuta (lit. "suite of songs") were compositions in the form of six short songs to be played succession. Yatsuhashi changed the original Tsukushi-goto tunings based on gagaku modes to tunings based on the in scale, such as the common tunings hirajoshi and kumoijoshi and the Yatsuhashi style of koto was born. | ||||
| Some Koto Tunings |
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| As the disciple of Kitajima Kengyo who continued the work of Yatsuhashi Kengyo (the founder of the Yatsuhashi style), Ikuta Kengyo (1656-1715) compiled Kitajima's compositions and created the Ikuta School. Ikuta rearranged a shamisen style called jiuta, a vocal style of shamisen music of the Edo Period popular in the Keihan region (Kyoto and Osaka). Derived from the colloquial music of blind itinerant musicians, these songs were called kamigata-uta (songs in a Kyoto-Osaka style) by the people of Edo. In the region of Kyoto and Osaka, they were called simply ji-uta or "regional songs." Ikuta's arrangements of jiuta became the foundation of the repertoire for the Ikuta School. The songs, performed by koto and shamisen, were a series of short songs with instrumental interludes placed between the songs. Over time, the instrumental parts were extended and evolved as a new style of koto music called tegotomono (lit. te-goto = hand affair). | ||||
| While tegotomono style was thriving in Osaka and Kyoto, Yamada Kengyo (1757-1817) was transforming shamisen styles as music for koto, and founded the Yamada School of koto music in Tokyo. Yamada based his style on the vocal compositions of Edo or old Tokyo. These pieces, composed for Tokyo-style shamisen, were adapted for the koto and evolved as the principal repertoire of the Yamada School. | ||||
| In the latter years of the Edo Period, a Nagoya musician, Yoshizawa Kengyo (1800-1872), created another song style with direct ties to the older kumiuta style. Yoshizawa used waka poetry taken from ancient anthologies as song texts and created a new tuning based on both in and yo scales. This tuning was called kokinjoshi, the name borrowed from the ancient Japanese poetry anthology Kokin Waka Shu. | ||||
| In & Yo Modes |
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| Today, the Yamada School (Yamada-ryu) and The Ikuta School (Ikuta-ryu) are the two major schools that dominate the koto world. While there are some similarities between the styles, each school has its own exclusive repertoire that cannot be interchanged, performed by someone outside the school or altered without permission from the masters. Breaking the rules of this hierarchical and rigidly structured world of traditional music often results in reprimands, loss of musician's license, total expulsion from the school and other serious repercussions. | ||||
| Nevertheless, there have been several serious attempts to change or modernize the traditional system since Western music was introduced in the beginning of the Meiji Period (1868-1912). One successful movement was led by Miyagi Michio (1895-1956), the first Japanese composer to combine Western and traditional koto musics by using the diatonic scale in place of modes, triple instead of the customary duple meter, and a thicker, orchestral texture in direct opposition to the monophony of traditional sokyoku or the heterophonic and quasi-polyphonic instrumental dialogue of sankyoku. | ||||
| Today, the predominant type of modern koto has a rectangular body about 80-90 centimeters long and 24 centimeters wide with thirteen nylon or silk strings of equal length, thickness and tension, stretched over thirteen movable bridges in the shape of an inverted "Y." Tunings vary according to the mode of each piece, but the most common are hirajoshi and kumoijoshi (see Diagram #2, above) and are mostly pentatonic. The performer places the koto on the floor or low table, and plucks the strings with small plectra placed on the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand. Plectra for the Yamada and Ikuta Schools have different shapes. With the left hand, the performer presses the strings to the left side of the bridges to raise the pitch and ornament the melody. Although the most common type of koto has 13 strings, other types are used to perform contemporary music. They include a 17-string, 20-string (although it actually has 21 strings) and 24-string kotos. Other variants also exist, invented to accommodate the demands of modern music. The most unusual and rarest type--an 80-string koto--was invented by Miyagi Michio and looks more like a Western harp than a Japanese koto. | ||||
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THE KOTO: ITS HISTORY, STYLES AND EVOLUTION THE LOST-AND-FOUND KOTO OF YATSUHASHI FREEMUSE: THE WORLD FORUM ON MUSIC AND CENSORSHIP Article Archives |
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