Masako playing her Doremi Pop-Corn using a western scale.(at koboricho,nagahama city)

a koto musician who lives in Nagahama-City Shiga,created an unique instrument,a koto using a western scale .
The idea of playing the koto blought up to the height of a rock music is also new.

The score is written with western notation and helping to gain the acceptance of young　people and others familiar with Westernized music.　　Planning her koto class she says "I went to break down the image of the ordinary koto　and to spread the new koto".

Masako Naito,lives in kobori-cho,Nagahama-City,Shiga. The new koto is named "Doremi Pop-corn"
Masako's career is more than thirty years having started to play the koto when she was a school-child. After 15 years of playing with classical musicians,she felt a certain limit to the koto's tonalrange.The koto has a specific tonalrange a traditional Japanese tone, which is different from western countries.
Masako wanted to spread the koto to more young people.
This led to her plans for a new kind of koto.Under cooperation with a mamufacturer, she started working on it in January 2000,and finished it in October of the same year.

The Doremi Pop-corn is 120cm (48inches)long, about 70cm (28inches)shoter than the ordinary koto, which makes it easier to carry. The number of strings is 17, 4 more strings than the ordinary instru-ment. By changing the position of the bridges which support the strings, it stretches 2octaves plus one harf tone. A semitone is made by pushing down on a string.
The strings of "Do" are pinted blue while "So" are painted yellow to make it easier to distinguish the strings.
The body of the instrument is painted using primary colors to attract people's attention.

The score is indicated with western notes rather than ordinary "Kanji"(Chinese Idegram)natation.

In this way it has became easier to play together with western musical instruments. Masako has applied for a patent for her Doremi Pop-corn. Mean while, she has been touring to universities of Kyoto and Shiga, to built support for her invention.
"If there is a demand , I want to play the pop-corn at school festivals and the like" Masako commented.