By CHIHARU SATO/ Staff Writer
NAGAHAMA, Shiga Prefecture--Masako Naito wanted to connect herself with music around the world using her favorite instrument: the koto.
But the traditional, harp-like instrument was not quite a match for her dream. So the free-spirited thinker made it more shorter, pop-oriented and easier to play. Thus, the "Doremi Pop-Corn" was born.
With this modern version of the koto that can produce music based on the do-re-mi note scale, Naito will visit Brazil next year to collaborate with local musicians.
Born into a merchant family in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture, Naito began learning the koto and traditional Japanese dance as a child. She has always liked the sound of the koto better than the piano, and didn't give up her passion even after she married and devoted herself to being a mother.
Masako Naito plays the "Doremi Pop-Corn" koto, the brainchild of her free-wheeling imagination. Photo taken in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture. (Noboru Tomura)
Naito encountered jazz in the mid-1990s. Yearning to play improvised music after being fascinated by a live performance she had seen, she started taking lessons from jazz guitarist Takeshi Yamaguchi, who was based in Hikone city in the same prefecture at the time.
But she felt frustrated when she joined jam sessions with her koto while others played Western instruments that follow a different musical scale.
And when she gave a performance in Europe in 2000 to introduce traditional Japanese culture, she had a hard time traveling with the 180-centimeter long instrument.
It was then when it occurred to her to make some alterations.
After considerable trial and error, Naito came up with a koto that was 120 centimeters long and had 17 strings corresponding to the do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do scale.
Read more: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool_japan/culture/AJ201212150030
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