KOKYŪ: Japanese musical instrument
http://worldhitz4u.blogspot.com/2014/03/kokyu-japanese-musical-instrument.html
The Kokyū is a traditional string musical instrument from Japan. This musical instrument is played with the use of a bow. Although the instrument was introduced to this country by China, together with the shamisen, the material used on the instrument, the shape and the sound of the instrument are distinctive to Japan. The musical instrument also can be found in an Okinawan version known as kūchō in the Okinawan language.
The Kokyū is analogous in construction to the shamisen,
appearing like a smaller version of that instrument. The musical instrument is
70 cm long, having its neck manufactured of ebony and a hollow body that is
manufactured of coconut or styrax japonica wood, coated on both ends with the
skin of a cat. The musical instrument has three or four strings and can be
played upright, with a horsetail-strung bow rubbing against the instrument’s
strings. In Japan, the musical instrument was formerly used as an integral part
of the sankyoku group, together with the koto and the shamisen, but at the starting
part of the 20th century, the shakuhachi normally performs the
function formerly filled by this musical instrument.
Since Shinei Matavoshi, a kokyu and sanshin musician and
sanshin producers, fabricated and popularized a four stringed version of the
musical instrument in order to expand the range of the musical instrument, the
instrument became much more prominent.
The musical instrument has also been used in jazz and blues,
with the American multi-instrumentalist Eric Golub, engineering the use of the
Kokyū in these non-traditional contexts.
