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Plumb Bob #572
John Wittersheim |
John Wittersheim is a Professor of Art at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan, where he teaches metalsmithing, sculpture, and ceramics. He has exhibited his metalwork nationally and internationally. One of Professor Wittersheim's passions is the careful hand-crafting of musical instruments. His portfolio includes hand-built guitars, banjos, mandolins and other traditional and non-traditional string instruments. Professor Wittersheim has also been building kotos and, since he recently spent time visiting with a koto craftsman in Japan, it looks like he is pretty serious about this endeavor.
I met Professor Wittersheim through e-mail where we have discussed kotos.
He has shown me several spectacular koto images. I asked him if he would
be willing to share his passion and have a discussion appear on
KotoNoKoto.org.
He kindly agreed.
The following is an interview from March 9, 2002.
I hope you enjoy it.
-Scott Robertson
You are a metalworker and sculptor, so how did you get interested in building musical instruments?
My formal introduction to music began at the age of seven in the form of piano lessons. After three years of lessons,
I still remember very clearly being more fascinated with
the piano as a sculptural object, than with my ability to make beautiful sounds with it. The culmination of wood, metal, line and form, spoke very clearly to me as an art object.
Shortly after abandoning my piano playing efforts, I engaged two of my earliest woodworking mentors with the task of building a string instrument. That was 40 years ago. Since that time, I have built banjos, uke-banjos, guitars, mandolins and a variety of hybrid string instruments. I also ran a restoration and repair service, for five years, until it began to interfere with my teaching responsibilities.
What materials do you use for the instruments you build?
Primarily, I prefer to use domestic woods such as hard maple, walnut and spruce. I do, however, try to apply
a certain eastern esthetic to my selection process, by searching for woods that speak of their experience through their grain patterns and irregularities as opposed to a western straight grain esthetic. Recently, because of my koto work, I have been using more exotic woods such as Wenge, Paduk and Ebony. I do not use ivory.
Koto made from Douglas Fir and Curly Maple by John Wittersheim.
How did you get interested in the koto in particular?
Initially, there was something about the size and shape of the koto that appealed to me as a sculptural object. As a metalsmith, sculptor and jewelry designer, the details in the carvings, inlays and gold gilding of the koto, all correspond to my experience. In 1980/81, I attended a summer workshop to study metalsmithing at the Gaukin School of Art and Design in Tokyo, Japan. As part of our curriculum, we had the opportunity to attend several lectures and performances by "National Treasures", artists that included an ensemble of traditional musicians. Many of the koto design ideas that I have investigated, began with those performances. Since that time, I have been encouraged in my efforts by Alice Sano of Ann Arbor Michigan. Ms. Sano is a professional musician and teacher, who has performed for us at Siena Heights University, Adrian, Michigan, several times, and has been the generous source of information regarding koto dimensions, history and protocols.
Are you interested in other Japanese instruments like the shamisen, or in
other Asian instruments in general? (if so, are you thinking of building a
shamisen any time soon?)
In the course of my koto research I found resources for many different instruments and in some cases detail descriptions of their construction. I still have other ideas that relate to my investigation of the koto. New investigations of other instruments, including the shamisen, are in a "someday" file.
Are there special challenges that make the koto different from other
musical instruments?
Size is always an issue plus the compound curvature of the soundboard. My approach to the koto is one of a western
luthier where my kotos are assembled much as a guitar is assembled, with top, back and sides. My Japanese counterpart begins with a very large block of Palonia wood that is shaped by means of a subtractive process as opposed to my additive approach. The soundboards on my instruments are formed from thin strips of Sitka spruce that are carefully pieced together to create the curved top that arches end to end and side to side, compound curve. The rest of the instrument, to my mind, is much less labor intensive than the traditional hand carving of the sound chamber.
Koto made from Sitka Spruce and Black Walnut by John Wittersheim.
You and your wife recently spent part of a sabbatical in Japan. Where did
you go and what did you do there?
We arrived at Kansai Airport on May 9th, 2001. Our first destination was Nara, the ancient Capital of Japan, where
we visited the museums, shrines and ancient burial mounds.
Our accommodations were at the Nara Hotel, which we discovered, is the choice of Japanese Royalty when they visit Nara. After three days in Nara we moved on to Kyoto
for two days where we took in the local sites including a
wonderful Raku Museum. Our next stop was Moriyama in the Lake Biwa region and the sister city of Adrian, Michigan.
We joined up with Toru and Yumiko Shimizu, whose daughter
participated in an educational exchange program through our local school system, and spent the day with them at Hikone Castle. We also visited the Lake Biwa Museum and the nearby
gardens.
The next three days where spent in Kanazawa, an art and crafts oriented community. This was the long shot of our trip or our leap of faith. During my research for the trip,
I had discovered a third generation koto maker named Masaaki Noda who was from Kanazawa and was included on the
Kanazawa web site. All attempts to contact him had failed and so we resolved to go to Kanazawa and find him. In the end our Hotel, which was booked months in advance, was only three blocks away from Mr. Noda's showroom and home. We had a delightful visit with Masaaki, his wife and his mother. They were very generous and patient with our meager language skills and we shared examples of our instrument
work. I assured Masaaki, that my interests in the koto are artistic and not entrepreneurial. I would have liked to spent more time observing the construction process, but
the time it takes to build a koto and the time we had to visit were incompatible. Perhaps in the future I will be able to return to Japan for a summer of koto building.
We spent a great amount of time walking to the sites of Kanazawa and visited the Kenrokuen Gardens, the Hakuza Gold Leaf shops, as well as crafts persons working in metal, wood and lacquer ware.
Our last stop was Osaka where we visited the local Art and Historical Museums. After three days, we met our flight at Kansai Airport and headed home.
Tell us about the various kotos that you have made. What are they made
from, where did you get the ideas for them, and how do they sound?
All of my kotos were built during my sabbatical leave that began in January 2001. My intent was to build instruments
based on traditional koto dimensions, but using western construction techniques and domestic materials. The first
koto used 80 year old, clear Douglas fir for the soundboard, and Curly Maple for the back and sides. The only exotic wood used was Wenge, for the bridges and end cap. The second koto incorporated Sitka Spruce, a more traditional soundboard material, and Black Walnut for
the back and sides. Finally,
the aluminum koto was formed from a single sheet of aluminum and anodized, or plated, with a flat black finish to simulate Ebony wood. The aluminum koto grew out of my
experience as a sculptor and metalsmith. Of the three prototype kotos, the first has the most traditional sound
qualities, the second has a fuller, rounder sound, and the
aluminum koto, with its nickel strings and metal body, sounds very zither like, more like directly plucking the strings of a piano.
Koto made from anodized aluminum with nickle strings by John Wittersheim.
What plans do you have for other kotos in the future? What are your
expectations about the materials you plan to use?
I have discovered some new materials called biocomposites that are made from compressed biomaterial such as wheat thatch and sunflower husks, into sheets of building material. The appeal is that the resulting sheet of this
material has the appearance of Japanese surface treatments
such as mokume gane, shibuichi and shakudo. The melting of tradition and nontraditional materials and construction techniques, is what drives my investigation.
Do you think that your kotos should be kept as works of art, or do you
intend for them to be used for making music (or both, of course!)?
As an artist, I see the koto as a sculptural object with a voice. As a musician, or more specifically a musical instrument builder, I know that voice can be coaxed
out of the materials I build with, and new discoveries realized through the process of my investigations.
End view of a koto made from anodized aluminum with nickle strings by John Wittersheim.