String-pressing force of Japanese Koto
Tamaki Ando, Satoshi Obata, Eriko Aiba · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2016
The koto is a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument and is similar to the zither. The koto typically has 13 strings and is played by plucking the strings using three fingers (thumb, index, and middle fingers) with picks. Each string is strung over a movable bridge, and the support point can be changed by adjusting the position of the bridge. As the distance between the support point and the right end of the string determines a pitch, the koto is tuned by adjusting the bridge position. In addition, players can change the pitch by pressing the string with their left hand. This technique is called oshide and it is important but difficult to apply accurately for koto players. The subjective difficulties of oshide change depending on the position of the strings (on the near or far side of a player’s body), string’s material (silk or polyester), condition (old or new) of the string, and so on. In order to ensure good-quality performance, expert koto players modify their string-pressing manner. However, there are no previous studies on this. In this presentation, we present our results of the string-pressing force applied by koto players using oshide under various conditions.