Between Buddhist Drums & Jazz Clubs: Playing Koto on Her Own Terms [INTERVIEW]

katarzyna-karpowicz-koto-9.jpg, default, Katarzyna Karpowicz playing koto, photo: Julita Delbar

Japanese-studies specialist and Japanese language teacher Katarzyna Karpowicz tells us about playing the koto and the Japanese musical avant-garde.

Filip Lech: How did you end up in Japan?

Katarzyna Karpowicz: In elementary school, I stumbled upon Alex Kerr’s book Lost Japan, then I started to explore Japanese literature: Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima and Kenzaburō Ōe. I read them when I was 15 – I was definitely too young. These readings ignited my interest in Japanese aesthetics. I was already somewhat curious about music, but internet access wasn’t very widespread, and it was difficult to find sources on Japanese music any other way. The few works that were available concerned traditional music, which I didn’t understand at all at the time. It seemed profoundly bizarre and exotic to me – I simply didn’t feel it.

FL: Then you pursued a degree in Japanese studies.

KK: I first travelled to Japan during my university years, for a short tourist visit. I returned for a year on a scholarship. I lived in a dorm away from the centre of Tokyo. It was quite cheap, thanks to which I had a lot of money left over to attend concerts. I spent a lot of time in Shinjuku Pit Inn, a very well-known jazz club.

FL: What does Japan sound like?

KK: Talking on the phone on public transportation isn’t allowed. Everyone is really quiet, but announcements are being made all the time at stations, loud tunes are playing in the background. Music is always playing on the streets of Tokyo, and music videos are being screened on billboards. Cars with loudspeakers transmitting advertisements are driving around. Paradoxically, it’s very loud, but you have to be very quiet. I tried to escape all that. I would get up at 5am to record the singing of cicadas. It’s the only time when you can hear them clearly. They can be as loud as an electric saw, but the city drowns them out a bit…

Thumbnail — Japanese carp, photo: Katarzyna Karpowicz

FL: When did you start learning to play the koto?

KK: Contrary to appearances, it’s not so simple to begin learning. I could do it because I was a university student. You have to join one of the student societies, which are called sākuru or kurabu. They work differently than the ones in Poland do because they require deep commitment, often even more so than classes themselves. Thanks to the fact that I ended up joining a society, I could find a teacher, a master at that school. I also had senpais – students at the same school who were my seniors. They would teach me the basics, such as how to tune the instrument. That’s why it’s not so easy to start the learning process: it’s not enough to find an announcement in a newspaper and take your first lessons. Lessons outside the university are expensive, with prices as high as $200 for each meeting.

I also had a place where I could practice. Universities fortunately have rooms for playing and practising. Students sometimes play in corridors. When the weather gets warmer, some play outside. In Japan, it’s not allowed to play instruments in residential buildings. Walls are very thin, and you can hear everything, so it’s simply not possible. It’s often a tough challenge to find a suitable space.

FL: What exactly is koto?

KK: It’s an instrument often compared to the zither, but it’s actually a slightly different group of instruments. Similar ones are common in all Asian countries. A basic koto has thirteen strings. It’s quite simple in its construction: the wooden body features two sound holes, strings are stretched along the body, and under the strings there’s a moveable fingerboard. In the 20th century, the seventeen-string bass koto was invented, which I started to learn to play during my last stay in Japan.

FL: How old is the tradition of playing the koto?

KK: It’s hard to say. It’s generally believed that the koto is a descendant of the gaku-so, one of the instruments in the gagaku orchestra, which came to Japan from China in the 6th century. However, researchers have excavated an even earlier instrument resembling the koto. The music that’s performed to this day was first composed at the beginning of the 17th century. I like to play these classical pieces very much. To be honest, they’re very difficult to engage with. When I started playing them, I didn’t understand them myself; they seemed really odd to me. They lack what we know from Western music: there’s neither a melody nor a concrete and catchy rhythm; there are many weird sounds, such as rustling, shuffling noises. That all sounds peculiar to a listener raised in the Western tradition, who’s used to everything being neatly and precisely tuned.

Much more contemporary music for the koto is also written. Japan was isolated for a very long time. In the Meiji era, after the country opened up to the world, traditional Japanese music started to be combined with Western music. The first one to do so was Michio Miyagi, a blind musician, the same one who invented the bass koto. Another one who did a lot for koto music was Tadao Sawai.

FL: How is music that’s composed for the koto written down?

KK: There isn’t always notation. Great emphasis is placed on the oral tradition, on learning directly from your master. This system is called iemoto. There’s a division into schools, and there’s a master in charge of each school. He’s the one who dictates the way classical Japanese music is performed. Every master tunes the instrument slightly differently, too. For a very long time, there was no notation at all; you had to play everything from memory and by ear, which was quite difficult. Nowadays we do have notation, but it doesn’t preserve the tradition in its entirety. Much still depends on the master’s interpretations. Rests, for example. Pauses between sounds are different depending on which master performs the piece, and sometimes they’re dragged out quite a bit; this can’t really be formally transcribed in the form of notation. Technically, it could be done with a fermata, but in reality, it simply has to be learned from a master.

The transcription is done in kanji. These are Chinese characters used in Japan. Every string has a name: when we write ‘1’, we have to pluck the first string. The sound being played depends on how the instrument has been tuned, so, additionally, the tuning is marked at the beginning of the notation. There are a few versions of the transcription, all of which resemble something between a Japanese text and tablature.

FL: What exactly did the learning process look like? I’m guessing it was slightly more difficult for you, since you weren’t used to this kind of music.

KK: Not all Japanese people are familiar with traditional Japanese culture. I was approached a few times after concerts in Poland by Japanese people for whom it was the first time ever attending a koto concert. It actually happens quite often. Some are raised on popular culture. Generally, I didn’t feel that I was too far behind. It’s only recently, since 2011, that Japanese schools included traditional music as a mandatory part of their curriculum.

FL: You studied in two koto schools.

KK: There are two currents in contemporary koto music: Yamada-ryū and Ikuta-ryū. You usually learn in only one school, and the two techniques differ slightly. I changed teachers at one point, which was quite difficult – I had to learn some things starting from scratch. My first sensei was Shūmihō Ozaki, then I met Michiyo Yagi. When she came to Europe, I helped her in organising concert tours. She took me under her wing, and that’s how I switched to an Ikuta school.

FL: Michiyo Yagi is a very interesting figure. She’s a respected improviser.

KK: Yes, and she’s very good when it comes to traditional music. She works with a lot of musicians worldwide, giving performances almost everywhere. She’s recently released the album Into the Forest, focused on vocal music. Koto serves as the base layer, of course, but it’s very often accompanied by singing. These are so-called juita songs.

FL: What’s the life of avant-garde and improvised music like in Japan?

KK: When it comes to creativity in music, Japan is incredible. If you live in Tokyo, not a day goes by without some interesting concert taking place. On the other hand, Japan has been going through an economic recession in the past few years. It’s much more difficult to make a living as a musician. There are fewer young musicians, and it’s really not easy for them. For a certain period of time, I worked in a club called SuperDeluxe – it was closed about a year ago. All those who worked there were musicians from the young generation; they couldn’t support themselves financially only by playing music. Clubs are great, but they’re very small, with a capacity often limited to twenty, maybe thirty people. Institutional support is sorely lacking, and it’s difficult to facilitate an event on a larger scale. Festivals are very rare in Japan.

Fun fact: I was at a Merzbow concert a few times. Every time, I was the only woman in the audience. The vast majority of concertgoers are generally men.

FL: What concerts did you find the most memorable?

KK: For some time now, I’ve been fascinated by sutras sang by Buddhist monks. I first encountered those when I was in Kioto. Very early in the morning, an event called asa-no-otsutome takes place in temples there; it’s a kind of morning service, although that’s probably not the most suitable term. Monks do it for years, so they’re really good at it. The singing is often accompanied by taiko drums, which are beat in a totally bizarre way rhythmically. It’s not straightforward banging, but everything somehow fits well together. If one of your readers ever visits Kioto, that’s what I recommend doing. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience.

The subject of religion in Japan is in general interesting. Besides Buddhism, there’s Shintoism, Japan’s traditional religion. I wonder how it’s possible that in a country with such a high level of civilisational development, there’s a religion that’s so primal: indeterminate, regionalised. It’s strongly present in Japanese culture, and there’s a huge number of temples. It involves the belief than objects and plants have souls. There are usually no sounds in these temples; there’s complete silence, isolation from the hustle and bustle of the city. One begins to wonder: maybe there really is some kind of god in this stone?

Additionally, what made a huge impression on me were Keiji Haino’s concerts, and I worked as his translator for a time. It’s a very, very intense kind of music, everything is in very high gear. At the same time, it’s highly diverse – you never know what to expect, what instrument he’ll play or what sort of atmosphere will be maintained throughout his performance. They’re usually very loud, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. Sometimes he even performs pieces he wrote himself. Sometimes he records covers, but he’s usually the only one who knows what the cover is of…

I don’t listen to his recordings, but it’s not because I don’t like them. It’s just that once you experience his live concerts, the recordings are very underwhelming. The performance aspect is missing. Before each concert, he performs his rituals. Maybe this influences the reception of his music?

FL: What’s Keiji Haino’s status in Japan? In many circles in Europe and the USA, he’s considered an authentically cult artist.

KK: Avant-garde musicians aren’t that respected within society – they’re outsiders. I feel that in Japan, all non-mainstream musicians are pushed to the margins. Very few people come to their concerts.

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Katarzyna Karpowicz, photo: artist’s materials

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FL: Did you play Polish music for him?

KK: Haino really likes to buy records; the first thing he does when he travels abroad is go to a record shop. In Poland, he really enjoyed the folk music released by Andrzej and Małgorzata Bieńkowski in Muzyka Odnaleziona [Found Music]. He also likes Ewa Demarczyk, Anna German and Jacek Kaczmarski. Curious, isn’t it?

FL: They actually do share an artistic expression…

KK: Many people think that Haino listens to highly experimental music, but he’s interested in either songs or in traditional music, such as folk. He also likes contemporary and early music.

FL: From traditional music you moved on to improvised music.

KK: Actually, it was the other way round. I wanted to start playing a Japanese instrument because I was interested in contemporary music – Tōru Takemitsu, for example. He worked in the tradition of Western contemporary music but drew heavily from Japanese aesthetics and traditional music, though often indirectly, sometimes by expressing certain aesthetic ideas through his music. For example, ma – a concept present in all artistic disciplines that refers to the significance of space. What it means for music is that sound is just as important as the silence between sounds. Another aesthetic value is sawari, which refers to all noise, the less pleasant sounds. These only appeared in European culture in the 20th century, but they have always been present in Japanese culture. What piqued my interest were Takemitsu’s writings on Japanese aesthetics – that’s what gave rise to my need to play a Japanese instrument.

FL: Did Michiyo Yagi teach you how to improvise?

KK: When I attended her school, there was a lot of emphasis on playing in a band composed of many koto instruments. Improvisation was a part of these lessons sometimes, but it wasn’t the most important element.

Improvisation is something you have to arrive at yourself; it can’t be simply taught. It’s based on exploration, working with the instrument, inventing new techniques. It’s important to listen to and play music, preferably many different kinds. Reaching for other instruments is also worthwhile. I played the piano when I was in elementary school, and I continue to play it sometimes to expand my range of different ideas and rhythms. It’s not something a teacher can do for you.

FL: What kind of possibilities of improvising does koto offer?

KK: There’s a wide range of possibilities when it comes to preparing the instrument. You can do pretty much anything with it: pluck the strings, strike them, touch them delicately, play with a bow. The sonic possibilities are highly diverse. What makes improvisation easier is the tuning, most often pentatonic. This helps with finding scales, which are pretty much ready. However, tuning poses a problem when playing together with another person. It’s difficult to change the key because you’d have to retune the whole instrument, which is sometimes impossible.

The koto goes out of tune easily. That’s inconvenient, because, even on an unconscious level, we’re used to all sounds being impeccably clear and perfectly even. That’s not particularly important when playing the koto. In Japanese aesthetics, there’s the category of iki, which describes the kind of elegance that results from something being imperfect. This occurs, for instance, when we shift the tone up by ¼ instead of ½, which produces a kind of sophisticated incompleteness.

The easiest option is to combine the koto with percussion instruments. Then we don’t have to worry about tuning.

FL: You play together with the drummer Piotr Dąbrowski.

KK: We have a similar approach to sound itself; we like noise music and all the imperfections of sound. Thanks to that, we fit well together.

Music Connects – Momotaro, a Japanese fairytale told and illustrated through traditional and classical Japanese music.

Among less bizarre things, I’ve recently been taking part in a children’s project, Muzyka łączy [Music Connects]. We even recorded an album titled Momotarō, which involves my improvising on the koto to the reading of a Japanese tale. There are also pieces for the koto, violin and piano. Lately I’ve also been playing in Lavia Hart’s band. We perform songs composed by Lavia, but the arrangement and our concerts leave us a lot of space for improvising.

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Katarzyna Karpowicz, photo: artist’s materials.

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FL: What posed the greatest problem for you in Japan?

KK: If you only go to Japan for a short period of time, you’ll be able to list 50 such things. I lived there for 3 years, and every day there was something to surprise me, but I eventually stopped paying attention to that. What inconvenienced me most was the climate. Tokyo lies further south than Athens. The weather is very hot and humid from May to September, and being outside is very uncomfortable since there’s little greenery in cities. Nature is very important in Japanese culture, but there’s no awareness when it comes to environmental protection. I recently went shopping in Poland with Otomo Yoshihide. He was delighted when he had to pay for a plastic bag because everything in Japan is wrapped in multiple layers of plastic, then paper and a plastic bag.

Other than that, I’m a vegetarian, which is quite difficult in Japan.

Katarzyna Karpowicz’s Facebook page

Translated from Polish by Anna Potoczny

Language English