Auto Koto (Listen)
Back home there's a guy who plays hurdy-gurdy at the local folk club. I wanted to create my own drone maker in the mould of strings activated by a rotating pick (not havin the skill to make the rotating rosin covered 'bow' of the hurdy gurdy). I'd recently discovered that small electric motors could be bought cheaply in the form of hand held fans from £1 shops. The auto-koto is so called due to it's timbre and look which is much like what I thought was a koto, but is actually a shamisen. I decided not to change the name of it though.
The Auto-Koto's main use is to provide an uneven continous drone, a bit like a tambura I suppose. It works particularly well if electrified using a acoustic guitar pickup and then put through effects.