forgotten_aria

I had my very last koto lesson today. My teacher is moving to LA and social pressures are such that I want to put my energies into an instrument that is less controversial for a white person to perform.

My teacher was great, very patient. I got to perform after her rock band, Ten, a few years back, which was amazing getting to see us both perform. She often tours with people I know from taiko.

We played the song that I had been working on. I still can play it front to back, but our last run through was my best, and really fun. It's a piece called Okoto which had a wonderful mix of old and new influences. We had a little bit of time left, so at my request, she dug out the second to last song we had played and ended with that, which I really love that song. I loved that my last lesson was basically the privilege of playing duets with her. When I didn't throw off the flow, it was really really happy to hear the lovely music coming out of what we were playing.

She pointed out that it had been about 4 years. She thought I had learned very fast, where I thought I had learned slowly because I started out with half lessons and never really had enough time to practice, so I thank her for the compliment.

Also very appreciate to the koto academy for bringing my teacher up from New York City every month. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity.

I don't think I'll have the stomach to sell my koto for a little while. I really love the instrument for a variety of reasons.

I am really hoping this Korean company, http://www.supersoundintl.com/, that's making fiber carbon gayageum starts it's production run soon, so I can get me one of those and still have expressiveness of the transverse plucked harp mixed with the instrument being weird enough to have little attachment to cultural tradition. Though they seem much more focused on promoting their band right now, than getting the instruments produced and sold, which makes me fear the cost of production was much higher than the CEO was hoping.

I'm very seriously considering putting myself on the wait list for a bali steel hand pan. (I'm still waffling a little bit, of course.) If I did, I would have to choose what scale I'd like to have made. They have a list of all their scales here but I think I've narrowed it down to three:

Gaku Joshi
F Bb C Eb F G Bb C Eb

Kokin Joshi
F Bb C Eb F F# Bb C Eb

(these are both common koto scales) (minus the F and F#)

D Minor
D A C D F G A C D

(which is more costly)
( cut for the embeded scale videos )

Dear guqin, you are super sexy, but you sound kind of like a steel guitar. Could you and the guzheng have a child with your looks and her sound?

Thanks,
Cat

I'm still hung up on the koto harp. Since koto-man let me down and didn't come back to Boston before he sold it after a month of playing with me, I have to now consider my other options. The chinese version, which is clearly not Japanese and has many more strings, is much cheaper. The authentic Japanese versions are sort of more than I should be spending on yet another instrument that I won't actually master. However, my hope would be to get good enough to perform it as a filler between set changes at an ONE show, so authenticity is worth something to me. Plus the Japanese ones are just prettier looking.

[Poll #1370454]

( Pictures, in case you're interested )

I've suddenly decided I want a koto harp. Normally they're ~$1200 which is more than I can afford, but there is someone selling one for $400, which is also more than I should afford, but he said the price is negotiable... we'll see just how negotiable. (Translation, I'm offering way too little. He's likely to refuse, unless really desperate.)

Whee!!