Traditional Japanese Music - Koto - Virtual Culture

The history of traditional music in Japan is rich and varied. Many musical forms were imported from China more than a thousand years ago, but over the years, they were reshaped into distinctively Japanese styles of expression. Instruments were adapted and newly created to meet local needs, and the most important of these were the shamisen, shakuhachi, and koto. The shamisen resembles a guitar; it has a long, thin neck and a small, rectangular body covered with skin. The shakuhachi is a flute made of bamboo that's played by blowing on one end. The koto, meanwhile, is a large, wooden instrument with 13 strings. Historians think the koto was born around the fifth to third century B.C. in China. Initially, it was performed in ensembles with other stringed and wind instruments, but eventually it came to be performed by itself. Sadly, modern Japanese rarely hear these traditional instruments being played live these days.

Celtic Music Instruments From the thump of the Bodhrán to the airy rasp of the wooden flute, celtic music is known by its instruments. Here's an introduction to the main players, with links to more information, for players and afficionados. Fiddle The fiddle is the mainstay of most Scottish and Irish music. Flute Flutes of one sort or another have been played in the celtic countries for over a thousand years. Tin Whistle (pennywhistle) The simplest and cheapest of traditional instruments, yet not so simple to master. More information: Ceolas Tin Whistle guide. Bagpipes & uilleann pipes Several forms of bagpipe are used in celtic music. The Scottish highland pipes are the loudest, played standing, usually in pipe bands. Bagpipe FAQ Bagpipe Web David Daye's Bagpipe site, for Scottish and uilleann pipes. Bombarde This is a small oboe-like shawm with a penetrating sound, used widely in Breton music. Free reed instruments This family of instruments was developed in the early nineteenth century. Banjo Bouzouki Website.

Japanese Culture - Entertainment - Musical Instruments In traditional Japanese music, there are three general types of instruments - percussion instruments, stringed instruments and wind instruments, mostly flutes. There is a huge range of instruments beyond the scope of this page, ranging from bells used in Buddhist ceremonies to various kinds of drums used in gagaku (Imperial court music). In the last few years, there have been a growing number of artists who have been bringing these instruments to younger audiences. Taiko group Kodo and young shamisen duo the Yoshida Brothers are two well-known examples of artists who give the old instruments new life and energy, and have been very successful abroad. Below we look at the more commonly heard instruments. Drums The always amazing Kodo drummers There are many large Japanese drums, or taiko. The hourglass-shaped tsuzumi was introduced from the Asian continent around the 7th century and the name is derived from Sanskrit. Stringed Instruments A closeup of a koto player Flutes Related content:

Koto From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Koto may refer to: Languages[edit] Orejón language (also known as Koto language)Coixoma language (also known as Koto language) See also[edit] About Japanese Music 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).

Malinke - Introduction, Location, Language, Folklore, Religion, Major holidays, Rites of passage PRONUNCIATION: mah-LING-kay ALTERNATE NAMES: Mandinka; Maninka; Manding; Mandingo; Mandin; Mande LOCATION: Territory covering The Gambia, Senegal, Mali, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) POPULATION: 1.5 million LANGUAGE: Variations of Mande languages RELIGION: Islam Liberia's population of over 2 million steadily declined in the 1990s. The Malinke are also commonly referred to as Mandinka, Maninka, Manding, Mandingo, Mandin, and Mande. The Malinke are heirs to the great Mali Empire, a medieval merchant empire that flourished from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century and greatly influenced the history of western Africa. As early as 1444, Portuguese traders had enslaved the first Malinke people, and in the next three and a half centuries, thousands of Malinke and other peoples were transported by Portuguese, British, French, and Dutch merchants to the Caribbean and the Americas to work as slaves on plantations. Haley, Alex.

Traditional Japanese 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.

Music of Japan The music of Japan includes a wide array of performers in distinct styles, both traditional and modern. The word for "music" in Japanese is 音楽 (ongaku), combining the kanji 音 on (sound) with the kanji 楽 gaku (enjoy).[1] Japan is the largest physical music market in the world, worth US$2 billion in sales in physical formats in 2014, and the second-largest overall music market, worth a total retail value of 2.6 billion dollars in 2014[2] – dominated by Japanese artists, with 37 of the top 50 best-selling albums[3] and 49 of the top 50 best-selling singles in 2014.[4] Traditional and folk music[edit] There are two forms of music recognized to be the oldest forms of traditional Japanese music. Originating as early as the 13th century are honkyoku (本曲 "original pieces"). Biwa hōshi, Heike biwa, mōsō and goze[edit] The biwa (琵琶 - Chinese: pipa), a form of short-necked lute, was played by a group of itinerant performers (biwa hōshi) (琵琶法師) who used it to accompany stories. Taiko[edit] Orchestras

traditional musical instruments indonesia ~ AejicShare Angklung is a musical instrument multitonal (double pitched) is traditionally grown in theSundanese-speaking community in the western part of Java Island. This musical instrument made of bamboo, sounded shaken by the way (the sound caused by impactbodies of bamboo pipes) so as to produce a vibrating sound in the arrangement of tones2, 3, and 4 tones in every size, both large and small. Angklung is listed as Masterpieces ofthe Oral and Cultural Heritage of UNESCO Human Nonbendawi since November 2010. Calung is a Sundanese musical instrument which is a prototype (prototype) of theangklung. Gamelan is a musical ensemble that usually highlight metallophones, xylophone, drums, and gongs. Rebana (Java Language: Fly) is a round drum-shaped and flat. For the Malay community in the state of Pahang, rebana game is very popular, especiallyamong people living around Sungai Pahang. rebana claps accompany traditional songslike indong-indong, bird-kenek kenek, and the coney, coney.

The traditional instruments of Japanese music The shakuhachi is Japan's vertical bamboo flute with five finger holes, four in front and one at the back. It is an ancient instrument and yet, due to its versatility, it has a uniquely contemporary appeal. Related to similar flutes found in China, India and the Middle East, The shakuhachi was first introduced into Japan around the end of the 7th century AD and evolved through a series of modifiations until it reached its present form during the 17th. century. During the 17-19th centuries, the shakuhachi was played by Zen monks as a form of 'musical Zen meditation'. During this period the shakuhachi was almost uniquely a Zen instrument, and in temples all over Japan, haunting solo meditative compositions emerged as a result of the monks' 'blowing meditations'. In the modern era the shakuhachi has travelled far beyond Japan's shores. The flute itself is deceptively simple: a stalk is cut from the root end of a bamboo tree.

YIVO | Music: Traditional and Instrumental Music By the later sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries in Bohemia and then in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Jewish musicians began to form their own guilds. The formation of guilds raised the social status of Jewish musicians, and led to the abandonment of the older term leyts (scoffer, clown), applied in Central Europe to singers, instrumentalists, clowns, and dancers, in favor of the new, more respectable term klezmer (from kele zemer, musical instruments or vessels of song; pl., klezmorim), designating exclusively an instrumentalist. The term klezmer made its way to Germany only in the eighteenth century, with the influx of Jewish musicians from Bohemia and Poland. Klezmer was a more favorable term for a Jewish musician, in contrast to the derogatory muzikant. Social History of the Klezmorim In areas where Gypsies (Rom) were never very numerous, especially Poland–Lithuania, klezmorim constituted the majority of professional musicians. Kapela Żydowska (Jewish band).