A Private Koto Lesson in a Tatami Room in Nagoya

The koto is nearly two metres of paulownia wood with thirteen silk strings stretched over movable bridges, and it is the instrument most people have heard in Japan without ever seeing. It arrived from China in the eighth century, became a court instrument, and by the Edo period was the thing an accomplished person was expected to be able to play.

This is a private lesson with a professional player, capped at two people, which means you actually play rather than watch. You wear picks on the thumb and first two fingers of the right hand and pluck the strings; the left hand presses behind the bridges to bend the pitch, which is where the koto's characteristic sliding tone comes from and where the difficulty lies.

The fundamentals are what ninety minutes gets you — posture, the picks, the plucking motion, how the movable bridges tune each string individually, and enough of a simple melody to feel the instrument working. It is a physical thing to sit behind: the body is large, the sound is bigger than you expect at close range, and the resonance comes up through the floor.

The room is a traditional Japanese classroom, tatami and quiet, and the setting is a real part of the experience — koto music was written for exactly this kind of space and sounds thin anywhere else.

The instrument and all accessories are provided. One practical note the operator is firm about: bring socks. Bare feet are not acceptable in a Japanese-style room, and this is the sort of detail that is awkward to discover on arrival.