Here’s a bizarre instrument for you – the Waraku MIDI koto (ebay link).

Here are the details from the ebay auction:

WARAKU was very expensive and made very limited quantities those days it was made for the very small circle of the people who seriously studying japanese traditional music and never sold at ordinary musical instruments market so i’ts very hard to find even in Japan these days this is your first and last chance to get this bizzare exotic gem!

first of all it’s very beautifully designed, built in classy exotic wood case in classic taisho koto(japanese peacock harp)shape with strange shape 27 key keyboard(same key as classic japanese peacock harp) with 5 string bridge and 4 assignable drum pads it has 16 sounds(all exotic japanese traditional instruments like koto,shamisen,shakuhachi,weird voice etc) and in percussion mode you can play many exotic percussions by keyboard or assignable drum pad there are pitch bend lever and vibrate switch,OUTPUT JACK and HEADPHONE OUT and surprisingly it has MIDI OUT!, so you can play external MIDI module by WARAKU’s unique 5 strings or keyboard size is approx W89cm D17cm H10cm

you can play WARAKU by keyboards(polyphonic) or 5 string bridge and 4 assignable drum pads(

this unique 5 string brdge can play by usual guitar pick hold one key of the keyboards and play each 5 string bridge by pick like guitar 5 string brdge is sumilate japanese traditinal instruments like taisho koto(japanese peacock harp) etc.. japanese harp musician often uses fast trill play so it has above 3 strings with same sounds 4th string is -1 octave from first 3 strings(in the case you choose taisho koto,other case same as above 3 strings) 5th strings is bass string (you can set it favorite tone) string is touch sensible with verocity and totally electronic device, it’s not just simply electrical amplified like usual electric guitar, complete electronic! WARAKU has MIDI OUT so you can play another MIDI synth by this unique 5 string brdge this 5 strings are very effective for guitar,bass kind of string instruments it’s feeling like guitar synthesizer

4 drum pad is also touch sensitive and can easily playing by your fingers assign drum sounds to pad is very easy,just hold one key and hit the one pad in percussion mode drum sounds consists of many exotic japanese traditional percussions of course in drum mode you can play all of them on keybord

WARAKU’s sounds are very hi quality,exotic and strange!,very unique original sounds and playing by 5 string bridge wiyh pick is very funny experience

Any readers seen anything like this before?

via Sonic State