You can hear a wide variety of koto music on this channel and in live concerts. When koto players perform in front of audiences, they get full attention and applause for the beautiful sounds of their instruments. A tremendous amount of work goes on behind the scenes though, and without the skills of talented professionals such performances would not be possible.
Here, we'd like to appreciate the work of Hiroshi Gomi, a master koto builder and technician. He traveled to Oregon in August of 2022 to restring over 50 kotos belonging to OKK members and other players from around the Pacific Northwest.
The techniques for restringing require a sharp intuition and strong sense of sound and pitch, along with an enormous amount of experience and physical strength. It's a beautiful art that most people never get to see. We hope you find it 'utsukushii' as well.
You can visit Gomi-san's website to see the variety of instruments he builds and sells at:
okoto-gomi.com/