Wally Fields: Experimental Music on the Koto

Wally Fields, Experimental Music

"....some amazing, fantastic stuff...."
-Justin Outlier, KFJC radio

"Coan", his Koto

ABOUT WALLY'S ALBUM, "KOTOSCAPE"

Wally Fields bought his 21 string Koto in March of 2009. Before long he plucked, banged, and scraped his way through his first music album.

He experimented with near and far miking as well as placement of the mikes up inside the resonating holes on the bottom of the instrument- thus the name of his album, "Kotoscape".

Finally, he digitally orchestrated two recordings together in Cool Edit Pro, adding minimal processing only at key points, and inserted the occasional Gong and Viola. For the most part, however, Wally tried to let the Koto speak for itself.

Here's an audio sample of Kotoscape.

KFJC LIVE MIC, EXPERIMENTAL KOTO MUSIC On June 18th, 2009, Wally Fields had the honor of performing Live on Justin Outlier's "Breaking the Code", on KFJC, Los Altos Hills, California- both on the radio at 89.7, and streaming on KFJC's website.
Hear an audio sample of the KFJC LIVE MIKE.

KFJC's own SAL 9000 accompanied Wally with her subtle and haunting Gong work. The broad, fat harmonics of the Gong added a whole new dimension to the resonance of the Koto.

Wally greatfully thanks Wadaiko Newark Taiko Group (of which he's been a proud student since '06) for the honor of the use of the Gong.

He also thanks Justin Outlier for the airtime and appreciation of his work. Finally, greatfull thanks to such KFJC personalities as Grawer and Lou Nautique for doing the Engineering on the live mic. They used four mikes for the performance- two for the Gong and two for the Koto, thus putting the listener in the middle of both instruments.

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