Three instruments, three characters
Japanese traditional music uses many instruments, including drums, gongs, mouth organs and lutes. Three of them are especially familiar: the shamisen, a plucked lute; the koto, a long zither; and the shakuhachi, an end-blown bamboo flute. Each has a distinct voice, history and set of settings. Together they give a good first impression of how Japanese music has often favored clear individual tones, expressive attack and decay, and silence between notes. The instruments sit within a long history of Japanese music, but here the focus is on the instruments themselves.
The shamisen
The shamisen has a long, slim neck with no frets, a small body, and three strings. The body is covered with skin on the front and the back, which gives the instrument its percussive, slightly buzzing sound. The player strikes the strings with a large plectrum called a bachi, which often hits the skin as well, producing a sharp attack. The sound can be bright and rhythmic, or soft and melancholy, depending on the style.
It is generally believed that the shamisen descends from instruments of continental origin that reached the Ryukyu Islands, where a related instrument developed. From there it came to the main islands in the sixteenth century and was adapted by musicians. It spread quickly in the cities of the Edo period, where it became a favorite of townspeople.
The shamisen appears in many settings:
- Theatre. It accompanies the chanting of bunraku and is part of kabuki music.
- Narrative song. Several chanted genres use it as the sole accompaniment.
- Entertainment districts. It is associated with the performance arts of the geisha tradition, where players accompany songs and dances.
- Folk music. In some regions, such as the north, a vigorous, improvisational solo style grew up that uses a larger instrument and a heavy plectrum.
Different schools of shamisen use different sizes of neck and plectrum. Players and listeners often compare the instrument’s sound qualities by genre.
The koto
The koto is a long wooden zither, typically with thirteen strings stretched over a hollow body, which sits on the floor in front of a seated player. Each string has a movable bridge. The player adjusts the bridges to tune the instrument to a chosen scale, and plucks with picks worn on three fingers of the right hand while the left hand presses strings behind the bridges to bend pitch, creating the characteristic wavering sounds.
The koto is related to Chinese zithers and arrived in Japan in ancient times, associated with court music. In the Heian period, it was played by members of the nobility, and it appears in literature of that time, including the Tale of Genji, where characters play it. Later, in the Edo period, a repertoire developed that was taught to townspeople as well as to those who played professionally, and the instrument gained a new body of solo and ensemble music. Many players in earlier times were visually impaired musicians who held formal guild positions in the period, a detail often mentioned in histories of the music.
In the modern era, the koto has been used in new compositions, in ensembles with Western instruments, and in film scores. Some modern versions have more strings, such as twenty or more, to widen the range. The koto’s elegant, ringing tone is often heard at celebrations, and it is a common sound at New Year.
The shakuhachi
The shakuhachi is an end-blown flute made from a length of bamboo, usually with four finger holes on the front and one thumb hole at the back. The name refers to a unit of length, since a standard flute was about one shaku and eight sun, which is roughly in the neighborhood of fifty-five centimeters. The mouth end is cut at an angle, and the player makes a tone by directing a stream of air across the edge. There is no reed.
Because the instrument has so few holes, players create a wide range of pitches and colors by changing the angle of the head, partly covering holes and varying breath. The sound is breathy, with a texture that listeners often describe as human and windlike. Silence between notes is as expressive as the notes. In the sense of attention to space, some listeners link this to the idea of seijaku, a quality of stillness, though such links reflect interpretation.
The shakuhachi has a connection to Zen Buddhism through the Edo-period wandering players known as komuso, “monks of nothingness,” who wore deep woven baskets over their heads and played as a spiritual practice. The instrument’s meditative image is partly tied to that history. Today it is used in solo music, in ensembles with koto and shamisen, and in many contemporary styles.
Other voices of the tradition
These three are only a portion of the picture. The court ensemble tradition called gagaku uses mouth organs, double-reed pipes and drums. The biwa, a pear-shaped lute, accompanies epic recitation. Drums of many sizes accompany festivals and theatre. Noh uses a flute and hand drums, and the sounds of those drums are part of its distinct atmosphere.
Listening and learning
Newcomers can notice a few things. The music often builds from short phrases, with ornaments that bend or swell a note. Tuning and scale systems differ from the standard Western ones, though modern composers have blended them. Learning these instruments is traditionally done with a teacher, and schools and lineages have long shaped styles of playing.
Many people encounter the instruments first in film, theatre or festivals, and then seek out recordings or live concerts. Each instrument offers a different kind of listening: the shamisen for its drive, the koto for its shimmer, and the shakuhachi for its breath.