Japnese Music

Traditional japnese music::There are several types of traditional, Japanese music (hogaku). Some of the most important ones are listed below:

• Gagaku:
  Ancient court music from China and Korea. It is the oldest type of Japanese, traditional music.
• Biwagaku:
  Music played with the Biwa, a kind of guitar with four strings.
• Nohgaku:
  Music played during Noh performances. It basically consists of a chorus, the Hayashi flute, the Tsuzumi drum, and other instruments.
• Sokyoku:
  Music played with the Koto, a type of zither with 13 strings. Later also accompanied by Shamisen and Shakuhachi.
• Shakuhachi:
  Music played with the Shakuhachi, a bamboo flute that is about 55 cm long. The name of the flute is its length expressed in shaku an old Japanese unit of length.
• Shamisenongaku:
  Music played with the Shamisen, a kind of guitar with only three strings. Kabuki and Bunraku performances are accompanied by the shamisen.
• Minyo:
  Japanese folk songs.
• The earliest forms of music were drums and flute music accompanying the kagura shrine dances. From the 6th century on, music came from Korean and Chinese courts and monasteries and was performed at the Japanese court under the generic name gagaku (court music). The 8th-century court established a music bureau (gagakuryo) to be in charge of musical duties, both ritual and entertainment. The standard full-range gagaku ensemble has about 16 musicians on percussion, string, and reed instruments, the most distinctive being the free-reed mouth organ (sho), cyndrical oboe (hichiriki), the biwa lute, and the koto zither.
  
  Meanwhile with the introduction of Buddhism to Japan in the 6th century, Buddhist rites and liturgical chants gave rise to the development of a great variety of bells, gongs, wooden clappers, plaques, percussion tubes, and rattles, many of which found their way also into kabuki music of the Edo period (1600-1868).
  
  As Japan changed from a court to a military-dominated culture in the 12th century, theatrical genres of music started to develop. From this time Buddhist evangelists and chanters reciting long historical tales (notably the Heike monogatari) went around the country singing or chanting, accompanying themselves on the biwa lute, while noh became the official entertainment of the new warrior class. Its music was provided by hayashi (an ensemble of drums and flutes) plus chanters.
  
  From the 17th century, the shamisen (three-stringed plucked lute) came to the fore, providing the lively rhythm that dominated the sounds of the popular kabuki and bunraku theaters. In the bunraku puppet theater, a skilled chanter was accompanied by a shamisen, while in kabuki, shamisen solos or choruses were combined with flutes and drums and an eclectic assortment of folk and religious instruments.
  
  Japanese musical instruments are dominated by plucked string, flute and percussion instruments. Among the string instruments, special mention must be made of the koto (13-stringed zither). Formerly part of the gagaku ensemble, the koto was developed as a solo instrument from the 17th century, having its repertoire considerably enhanced by the Ikuta school in the 17th century and the Yamada school in the 18th century. Their solo and chamber music are considered by most Japanese to be the "classical" music of Japan. In percussion, the taiko nailed drum has taken off in popularity in recent years. Concerts of drum music provide popular entertainment at festivals and events, and drum groups such as Kodo have achieved spectacular success overseas. The end-blown bamboo flute, the shakuhachi, is another noteworthy solo instrument. It first developed under the influence of Zen priests, with new schools of performance growing up from the 16th to 19th centuries.
  
  In addition to religious and festival music, every region of Japan has its own folksongs - minyo - which, depending on daily activities of the traditional community, may be rice-planting songs, boatman's songs, sake-making songs, or grass-cutting songs, plus a variety of songs sung at parties. Among folk music styles, Okinawan music (from which the shamisen originally derived) is experiencing a strong revival. Enka, Japan's equivalent of American Country and Western music, commonly sung at karaoke bars, has some of its origins in older, traditional Japanese popular music