A Year of Koto: Intro
“In my opinion the banjo is really in servitude, shackled down by very traditional art forms. A lot of them I really like, but I love the sound of the banjo so much, and it’s so limited in its application. It’s a bit of a shame, you know? I mean a guitar, that’s all over the place. It doesn’t need any help. The banjo needs a lot of stinking help. It’s locked in tight.”
- Paul Metzger
(As of this writing, I’ve been studying koto pretty hard for about a year – one quarter the amount of time needed for basic fluency in any instrument, and one tenth the time needed for mastery (very roughly). Given that, I think a year of studying and reading is enough to allow someone to speak without totally putting their foot in their mouth. We’ll see if I’m right!)
My interest in koto started maybe three or four years ago when I bought a copy of Chieko Mori’s Jumping Rabbit at Tower Records in Corte Madera. I didn’t know who she was, only that the disc was from Tzadik, a label I knew and trusted.
I don’t remember the first time I put it on, but I do remember that I couldn’t stop listening for months and months afterwards. I’m sure some of my friends got sick of hearing it. In a collection of over three thousand CDs, I still count it among my favorites.
A year or two later, I met a koto player in Boston, where I was getting my school on. She agreed to teach me and, incredibly, to loan me her spare koto. That was about a year ago as of this writing – autumn 2008. I’m now back in California, studying under a new teacher, with an instrument of my own.
To date, koto remains (somewhat embarrassingly) my most successful attempt at studying a “real” instrument (this despite five or six years of holding a guitar). My musical background is a fairly nonstandard hodge-podge of disparate pursuits, adding up to a jagged and sometimes awkward skillset. With koto, I’ve mostly been just learning pieces as they come to me through my teacher. Sometimes I’m asked to perform them in relatively casual contexts, which on one occasion involved a small amount of composition (something not usually encouraged for a student of my skill level). For the most part I’ve simply practiced my pieces 5-6 nights a week. This has been radically different from my approach to guitar, to singing, and to computer music.
When I began my studies, I was terribly excited just to be sitting in front of this thing. I mean look at it, it’s gorgeous, right? I bought every recording of Chieko’s I could find (I count four discs so far, including two compilations). Moreover, I downloaded and purchased pretty much anything with the word “koto” on it. Listened voraciously, constantly searched the internet, read the single English-language book on koto, etc. I was obsessed, enamored, infatuated. Most musicians here probably know the story.
Now I’ve chilled out a bit. Hearing the sound of it almost every day, it’s (thankfully) lost its exoticism – although it has steadfastly maintained its cultural identity, its Japan-ness.
I’m looking at taking a trip to Tokyo at some point soon and hopefully taking a couple lessons at my school’s HQ while I’m there. (More on schools later.) Chieko is also presently teaching in Tokyo. I hope to get in contact with her for a lesson or two. She is one of (as far as I know) only a handful of published players who are interested in improvisation and modern composition – things that seem to be generally stifled in the school system. I’m not sure what school she belongs to, or to what degree her teaching is geared toward preparing students for the testing and degree system – her English web site doesn’t mention either of these things.
My understanding of certain aspects of the instrument and it’s music and culture are, at this point, somewhat limited. I don’t speak Japanese, and I am in that way lacking comprehensive resources on the current state of the culture that surrounds the instrument. I read what I can and ask a lot of questions of my teachers, but that’s still not as good as being in Japan.
Still, I’ve learned a fair amount at this point – enough to say at least that there are many beautiful, interesting, and sometimes problematic sounds and ideas surrounding this instrument and its community.
The purpose of this writing is to provide background for forthcoming writings on koto. My intention here is to share what I know (about the instrument, the music, and the tradition), to offer a few observations, and to ask a few questions that I feel are important to consider. My hope is that in so doing I can, with respect for its tradition, do my part to open the instrument up to new music and new musicians.