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Dulcimer Chord Encyclopedia
by James Major

Mountain Dulcimer Relatives Worldwide

The Taishokoto in Japan

Editor's note: Author Wilfried Ulrich is a German luthier and restorer of historic instruments, with a wonderful interest in the worldwide family of “zithers.” The mountain dulcimer, the German hummel, and the Japanese Taishokoto (sometimes called a ‘typewriter zither' in the USA) are just a few members of the worldwide diatonic zither family. It's exciting to hear his explorations of how they developed independently in diverse cultures!

Among Wilfried Ulrich's many accomplishments, in 2006 he was awarded a commission from Germany's Schleswig Folk-Museum for the restoration of an old German hummel. This was the subject of his earlier DulcimerSessions.com article, http://www.dulcimersessions.com/feb05/german.html .

The German scheitholt (hummel) is not only the “grandfather” of the American mountain dulcimer, but of the Japanese Taishokoto too – in parts.

A few years ago I saw a strange instrument in a Frankfurt music shop owned by an Indian vendor. It was a painted box 2 feet long and 4 inches wide with an attached keyboard on top, looking like a sort of mechanical typewriter.

I had a closer look at it and realized that the front row of keys had the same spacing as a hummel or mountain dulcimer. The third key, colored white, had the No. 1, which means “DO” from an Ionian (Major) scale. There were 7 keys. The next 7 keys for the higher octave had a black dot above each number. The first keys from the lower octave with the No. 6 and 7 had the black dot beyond the numbers. A second row of keys gave the sharps and flats.

There were 4 strings of equal gauge above the fretboard and two strings beyond, which appeared to be drone strings.

The keys could press the strings to the frets to shorten the string length. Each key was pushed back by a spring. Quickly I tuned all the strings to pitches I would use on a hummel and began to play, strumming all the strings with a pick and pressing down the keys to get the melody.

The salesman looked at me and asked, “Hey, man, how were you able to play that instrument so quickly?” I told him that instruments like that had been in Germany (and other middle European countries) for centuries – just without the attached keyboard.

This man from India could not tell me much about the history of the instrument except that it originally came from Japan to India many years ago. The workmanship of that particular instrument was not very good, so I did not buy it. However, some days later I saw another similar instrument for sale on the internet at eBay USA. I was the only one bidding for it, so I was able to purchase it at a price that was half the cost of its shipping. With this I learned the instrument's name: Taishokoto. I still did not have good information about the instrument. One month later I was able to get another Taishokoto from eBay Germany. This instrument seems to be older. It has the No. 200 from an early manufacturing.

Eventually I got more information about the Japanese Taishokoto. In 1906 through 1908 the Japanese musician Goro Morita received a scholarship from his Prime Minister to visit the USA and Europe to study “Western” instruments and their music to open them up to the Japanese culture. The western music scale was of interest to Mr. Morita, and he probably saw instruments with keys and buttons like the hurdy gurdy and autoharp. The U.S. Patent Office shows many patents of simple instruments with buttons added. Between 1880 and 1920 other mountain dulcimer or scheitholt-like instruments with chromatic fretboards were also documented.

Back in Japan, Mr. Morita designed and built his first instrument in 1912. Time periods in Japan were documented according to who was emperor, so the first part of the instrument's name, “Taisho,” is in honor of Emperor Taisho tenno. The second part of the name came from the koto, a traditional Japanese instrument. Hence, “Taishokoto.”

At first, the Taishokoto was sold as a children's toy in toy shops and not in music shops. In the year 1926 some 255,000 Taishokotos were sold in Japan – they were very popular! These first instruments had just two strings over the fretboard, but they tried out many different string set-ups later on. An octave string was added to the fretboard. Several drone strings were attached – sometimes on both sides of the fretboard. Sympathetic strings were added to give a bright sound.

The first simple zither pins were quickly changed into guitar pegs for better tuning.

The hummel and the scheitholt have no braces under the soundboard, and the sound of their drones is more bass-like. To get a sharper tone preferred by the Japanese, the builder created a top with two square bracings and one cross-bracing under the bridge.

Most Taishokotos were black painted with ornaments on the top of they keyboard (often cherry blossoms or Mount Fuji).

Taishokotos come in a family of “Soprano,” “Alto,” “Tenor,” and “Bass” voices. The standard tuning for the Soprano Taishokoto is g'g'g'g' over the fretboard and g G as drones. The “Alto” model Taishokoto's pitch is one octave below, but there is no standard in number of strings. The Alto could have 4 or just 2 strings. The “Bass” Taishokoto could have just one string.

In 2007 I was in Japan for four weeks to have a closer look at the Taishokoto scene. I stayed for a week in the home of instrument maker Yoshio Hirano. In his workshop http://www.kikuyae.jp/ he builds very beautiful instruments with bodies of maple, cherry, rosewood, cocobolo and other hardwoods. The tops are made from good spruce. Instruments of higher value have pearl inlays. In Yoshio's workshop I learned the techniques of Taishokoto lutherie, so when I returned home I built my first Taishokoto.

Above: Ulrich Soprano Taishokoto. Below: Yoshito Hirano Alto Taishokoto

There are other Taishokotos on the Japanese market: cheap instruments made of plywood with bad sound but high gloss lacquer. Others are made from hardwoods, and some have pick-ups.

With the manufacture of these Taishokotos, European music could be played, as well as traditional Japanese and “Enka” music (the mix of Japanese and modern music). Looking at different Taishokoto playing groups, one could get the impression that their playing is limited to elderly women musicians. Some people thought that the playing of the Taishokoto might die out because most young Japanese students only learned to read classical music at school and otherwise listen to popular music. But at the Nagoya Taishokoto contest for young people, I realized that the children and youth are indeed learning Taishokoto. “Heidi,” a piano and Taishokoto teacher, told me that her piano students have to learn Taishokoto as well because they can more quickly see and hear how the music is made. She believes this gives them a better understanding of music. Furthermore, by the simplicity of the instrument, students have a chance to make music in an ensemble much earlier. (Imagine how long it would take until beginner students of piano and a violin could play together!)

82-year-old Japanese lady learning the Taishokoto.

Young Japanese students doing the same.

Nowadays there are more than one million people playing the Taishokoto in Japan. There are nearly 100 Taishokoto “schools” organized in workshops or factories. The four largest of the schools make up a country-wide organization, which received recognition by the Japanese Government <http://www.taishokoto.or.jp>. The bigger schools (Ryu's) like Kinsyu Kai at Nagoya, Kinjou Ryu at Hamamatsu, Kinsei Ryu at Ohguchi, and Kinden Ryu at Nagano have different certifications. To become a Taishokoto teacher, it's not enough to be a musician who plays the instrument well. You have to go through a system of education by a Taishokoto school (iemoto system). There are four “grades” in which you have to study techniques, teaching methods, and music theory. One class will take 15 lessons, one or two a month. This lasts about 7 months. You must pass an examination before progressing into the next grade. At the end of the fourth class you will have a practical and a theoretical written examination. At the end you get the license as a teacher, which is published by the head teacher of the school. The total cost for this is about 210.000 Yen (around $2,000).

The first folk instrument of this sort, the German scheitholt, was said to be an instrument for “rascals and other riff-raff.” The hummel later on was said to be good-for-nothing because of the lack of the sharps and flats. In 1807, Simon Molitor described the zither (hummel) as “an instrument in the hands of unmusical folks!”

The Taishokoto has had the same fight against musical snobbery. However, from being first seen as “a musical toy for children,” the instrument has evolved into one that has musical respect. In my 2003 travels in Japan I saw a new generation of Taishokotos that has been created with bigger bodies, giving the instrument a better sound with more acoustic volume onstage. Nearly 100 years ago they wrote of the Taishokoto: “Nishizawa Junko brought a new style and image in the field of real stringed instruments to the Taishokoto, which originally was only a musical tool for elderly people's use to prevent becoming senile.” (By the way, isn't it a good idea to keep older people in motion?) Nevertheless, this raises the Taishokoto's image from “toy” to musical “tool”! I will speak in high terms of the new Taishokotos - they sound really good!

Listen to the sound of Japanese Taishokotos":
Music by Bach |  Music by Mozart |  "Sakura," Japenese folk song

Would you like to play Japanese melodies on your mountain dulcimer? That's no problem. Tune your dulcimer to DAA. Play fret 3 on your dulcimer when the Japanese tablature says “No. 1” (as in the first degree of the Major scale). An octave up (dulcimer fret 10) will be the Japanese No. 1 with a dot above the number. The No. 0 in Japanese tablature is the “open” string, just as it is with dulcimer tablature. Those who have a Taishokoto and want to learn can find 200 exercises at http://miyaken.huu.cc/a1.html. A horizontal line under two notes means they are eighth notes.

Of the many instruments produced early, some were exported to India. There the keyboard was changed. It was made wider with wider keys, a good idea because the wider keys are an easier “target” for the musician. The Indians gave a beautiful name to the instrument: Bubul Tarang. This means “waves of nightingales.”

In 1919 another Taishokoto came to Beluchestan, a province without its own state between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The people must have thought, “Hey that's a nice instrument but we need it to be twice as big!” They added two keys and it now has a string length of 81 cm and it's called the Benju. The very best Benju player is Abdulraham Surizehi, who has lived in Oslo, Norway for 20 years. In September 2008 I met him there at the Sigdal folkecenter. To my delight I could hear that the Benju, unlike the Taishokoto, is played again with drones – like my old hummel!

There is another funny story about the synchronicity of inventions. At the same time Goro Morita invented his Taishokoto in Japan, the instrument maker Otto Teller built his Akkordolia in Klingenthal, Germany, the musical city next to Markneukirchen in Saxony. Many accordion makers had settled in Klingenthal. Otto Teller took a hummel and built a keyboard from parts of the diatonic accordion. The buttons press the strings on the fretboard to produce the melody, and additionally a second row of buttons can change the chords to fit the melody. This resulted in the name Akkordolia. The different parts of the instrument were built by home workers in different villages around Klingenthal. Just the final assembling of the instrument was done at Otto's workshop. The opulence of his big home in Klingenthal tells us he made good money (from selling other instruments too), while the home workers … who knows?

Akkordolias were built up until 1939. Distributors went over the countryside selling those instruments to people who had no education or little musical knowledge. The advertising was, “Inside one hour you can make music!” The buttons had numbers and a tablature was used to show the melody.

On my trip to Japan I brought as a present an Akkordolia to the Instrument Museum of Hamatsu. They could hardly believe that there was another instrument in the world so much like their Taishokoto.

The Akkordolia died out and so did the hummel in Germany too. It's really great that an instrument of this sort became so popular in a country like Japan with its very different culture! This is inspiring, just as the mountain dulcimer revival in the US since the 1970s has been. Since then I have built mountain dulcimers, scheitholts, hummels, French épinettes, and now Taishokotos.