All Kyoto-made Decomposable Urushi Contrabass
One-and-only instrument born from innovative collaborations
Kyoto is a city where the origins of all kinds of Japanese crafts and arts still live and breathe, and where world-renowned techniques and beauty are produced every day. At the same time, Kyoto is a city where new products and ideas that are not bound by tradition or precedent are born. One such example is the “decomposable lacquered contrabass.” What is the background behind the creation of this one-of-a-kind instrument and who are involved?
The contrabass (also called wood bass) is a stringed instrument that plays the lowest sound in an orchestra. It is similar in shape to a violin or cello, but its overall length is approximately 180 to 200 cm; exceeding the height of an adult, and its body is 50 to 60 cm thick.
Founded in 1979, Higashi String Instrument Factory in Uji City is the only factory in Japan that handcrafts contrabass, cello, viola da gamba, and other instrument using Japanese carpentry tools such as Japanese planes. Higashi, the representative of the company, had been hearing comments from contrabass performers that the size of the contrabass was always a difficult issue for the players. Meanwhile, Higashi started to try to find a way to make the neck of the instrument decomposable, but it wasn’t easy to do on his own.
It was at this time that Higashi met Nango, a metalwork specialist company also located in Uji, at DESIGN WEEK KYOTO, an event held once a year in Kyoto that features crafts and manufacturing. When Higashi talked about his problem to Nango, they were willing to help and immediately took action although they had had no connection to musical instruments.
It was the first time for Nango to produce parts for a musical instrument which were made of wood, in general. It took a long time to design the parts with metal; they took numerous iterations of fine-tuning that required an extremely high degree of precision to ensure that the two small parts fit together properly. It was not until September 2020 that satisfactory metal parts were finally completed using reverse engineering technology, one of Nango’s strengths.
Photo: Connecting parts made of metal for the contrabass neck produced by Nango
The following year, the circle of collaboration expanded even further. Obata of Nao Urushi Studio was a certified traditional craftsman in Kyoto and who was also participating in DESIGN WEEK KYOTO, joined the project. He and his studio members took part in applying urushi lacquer on the contrabass to make it truly a one-of-a-kind instrument.
However, there was a serious concern. A certain degree of humidity is required for the lacquer to set on the surface of the object. He was worried if applying the lacquer and exposing the instrument body to humidity would damage the function of the instrument to produce a beautiful sound.
However, they didn’t stop and took on the challenge. Finally, the collaboration between the three companies achieved the world’s only “lacquer-coated contrabass that can be decomposable.” The sound quality, which had been their concern, was not greatly affected, and there were no problems with performance.
The three companies, whose products, machines and tools, and business fields were completely different from each other, were able to demonstrate their individual strengths. Their enthusiasm to create something new accomplished such a big project that no one had ever done before. The spirit of taking on new challenges without preconceptions, without regard to differences in industry or lack of precedent, is one of the things Kyoto can be proud of in the world.
Higashi String Instrument Factory has been making contrabass, viola da gamba, and cello. The artisans make instruments carefully with traditional Japanese carpentry tools. Their instruments produce stately and extensive sounds and their balanced sounds make each one distinctive.
Nango produces the hard machine elements including low demand metal parts by combining cutting-edge technology and programming. Nango has invented a new 3D printing technology which can be applied for all textures. “Nango printing” has obtained a patent.
Involved in the refurbishing and restoration of Buddhist altars and equipment as well as the creation of original interiors, Nao Urushi Studio expands the possibilities of lacquer expression with natural lacquer painting and polishing techniques using a variety of brushes and spray guns.