Kokyū

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Kokyū is the only traditional Japanese string instrument played with a bow. In Okinawa there is a variant called kūchō. The kokyū came to Okinawa from Asia and is related to the Chinese huqin, but it reached Okinawa via the rebab from Indonesia and Malaysia. It looks like a small shamisen: in Okinawa the body is round, while in mainland Japan it is square. It usually has three strings (sometimes four) and is played upright with a horsehair bow drawn across the strings. It is typically tuned the same as a shamisen but one octave higher.

In central Japan, the kokyū used to be part of the sankyoku trio with koto and shamisen, but in the 20th century the shakuhachi began to take that role. A four-string version was popularized by Shinei Matayoshi to expand its range, making the instrument more popular.

There is a kokyū society in Japan. The instrument has also appeared in jazz and blues; American musician Eric Golub helped bring it into these styles, recording solo and with John Kaizan Neptune’s cross-cultural jazz group.

The kokyū is related to two Chinese bowed lutes, the leiqin and zhuihu. The term kokyū can refer to bowed Asian string instruments in general; sometimes the erhu is described as a kokyū in Japan, though its Japanese name is niko.