The Koto: A Traditional Instrument in Contemporary Japan (review)

Beautifully produced as Hotei publications are, Henry Johnson's volume on the traditional koto is both a compendium of information and a work of art in itself. Color reproductions of woodblock prints are exquisite; generous space is allotted to facsimiles and transnotations of musical scores; a luxurious number of photographs illustrating the manufacture of the instrument are an organologist's delight. Drawing on his Ph.D. dissertation and further development of the facets of the study for subsequent published articles,¹ the author intends the book to be an introduction, "a glimpse into this instrument's extraordinary history, physical structure, performance traditions, and performance contexts" (pp. 14–15). The net result is that the koto is presented as a meaningful object of Japanese material culture. As a freestanding volume (as opposed to a music encyclopedia article), it is unique; no other book exists that focuses on the koto in such depth.

Johnson's primary sources are diverse: interviews with koto makers and with musicians of five ryūha of the Ikuta school of koto playing; performances of traditional music; and instruments and scores as well as graphic art in libraries and archives in Japan, England, and Holland. (This book complements well Hotei Publishing's The Ear Catches the Eye: Music in Japanese Prints, 2000). The secondary source literature from which he drew is extensive; one of the greatest contributions of the book is the bibliography of work by Japanese and non-Japanese writers that can serve as the solid basis of anyone's further study about the koto. Significantly, Johnson brought to his study the perspective of a player—one who, unlike most kotoists, studied with artists of multiple schools of playing in order to conduct comparative research on the koto in its cultural context.

Whereas the koto's probable predecessor, the Chinese guzheng, is played now mostly with 21 strings rather than the traditional 16 strings, the 13-stringed koto on which Johnson focuses has remained the Japanese zither of choice since its introduction from China nearly 1,300 years ago. Laid out well in chapter two, "Instrument Names and Types," are the variants of that 13-stringed instrument including the zokusō ("everyday koto"), the gakusō (of gagaku, temple, and shrine music), and other closely related forms. Narrowing focus to types of zokusō, we learn that most musicians in contemporary times prefer the type known as Yamadagoto, derived from the performance tradition established by Yamada Kengyō (1757–1817) whose interest in narrative styles of shamisen (plucked lute) genres in the Kanto region led to slight adaptations and the development of new repertory. Here and in chapter three, "Manufacture and Component Parts," one excellent trait of this book comes into play, with a well-organized table comparing the Yamadagoto with the other most prominent zokusō instrument used historically by players of the Ikuta ryū of the Kansai region (p. 41; see also pp. 55, 57, 68–72).

Chapter four, "Performance Traditions," provides a clear exegesis of the context of the koto in terms of social groups—court and aristocracy, blind male professional, female amateur—and especially the relational systems characteristic of the internal structure of everyday performance traditions. Explained in considerable detail are lineages and groups (ryū, ha, and others) and the iemoto system by which transmission is maintained, including license and permit systems and performing names. The description of the iemoto system as a "rigid social system of learning and performance" (p. 104) is nicely balanced with two perspectives: the nature of the ryūha system where division into branches occurs as a way of giving identity to a particular performance style, and also the flexibility of musicians with regard to the form of the instrument itself, as evidenced by numerous modified, smaller, and larger koto that have been devised from the Meiji era onward (pp. 42–49).

One caveat...