Toy Store: Zen-On Electric Taishogoto

Tested, working fine and sounding great. Complete with hard case. The pickup output is on a minijack so you’ll need an adaptor/cable to interface with guitar pedals etc.

The Taishogoto or Nagoya Harp is a Japanese stringed instrument dating back to the early 20th century. To enable ‘quiet’ practice with headphones,  an electric pick up was added which of course means you can now plug this into your pedal/effects chains, guitar amps, echoes etc. Played by strumming or plucking the strings with a plectrum while  ‘fretting’ the notes using the keys, this could be viewed as an electric guitar for keyboard players. It’s very similar to India’s Bulbul Tarang, though happily not in build quality: I bought a Bulbul Tarang direct from India some years ago and it arrived with multiple issues caused by a combination of poor manufacturing and shoddy packaging. This is a delight to play and quick to get pleasing results.

I’ve been enjoying investigating these for a while now and have created some astonishingly huge electric guitar style walls of sound. I’m particularly fond of using it with a treble boost, germanium fuzz and tape echo. Traditionally the strings are all tuned to G, but it’s worth experimenting with alternative open tunings (try slide, folk or lap steel tunings) as this can really open up the possibilities. If you have a few guitar pedals to hand you can very quickly create a massive sound from this humble little instrument. I’ve recently read that Harmonia apparently used one, which goes some way to explaining why I’m so smitten with them.