Experiencing different traditional cultural instrument for the first time

Hi Hivers,
I was invited to practice how to play the koto, for those of you that doesn't know what koto means, it is a Japanese plucked half-tube zither instrument, and the Traditional instrument of Japan.

these is so different from what we have in Nigeria, I was curious to hear how it sounds like.

before commencing to the venue I was given an address to the venue unfortunately, when i got to the address , i found out that I was lost but my navi kept insisting it was where I was standing, so I decided to reach out to the organizer, it was there and then I was dazed with astonishment. I never knew the town had similar name in different location.
after explaning my situation, I was redirected to the exact place.

The session had already commenced before my arrival, I wasn't too pleased with myself because I was late despite departing from my home earlier.

luckily, while in a state of confusion, seated in front of the koto. An instructor came to my aid. he taught me the basic steps of playing the koto. After some time I began to feel some pains on my finger. when I complained, he provided me with this.

he said most players either use it or don't. After wearing it, "cool" I mumbled happily.

during the session we received the traditional koto notation, at first it was difficult but after explaining how it works. it was easy to compose it.

I never knew much about the history of the koto, I was lucky to know more as the instructor went further to explain in details.

Do you know the koto denotes parts of a dragon, I feel someone saying a dragon?

Yes, it denotes the parts of a dragon which comprises of the head, eye, mouth, legs, horn etc and each part has a meaning. I guess you never knew as well right?😊

underneath the koto, there is a hole which can be used to echo words in very low tone to another party.

At the end, we played the koto using the same notation, it was at the end I felt a satisfaction of a job well done.

it was fun, I hope you try it someday day too.