Kumiko Shuto, Japanese Biwa, where and how came the Biwa to Japen.AVI

[sonoNEKO]

Interesting that in addition to singing about Atsumori, she opens the song with a variant of the opening lines to Heike Monogatari.

[pianobel]

thank you ve.......ry much, I think shamisen is only related to the Chinese sanxian and vitnamese dan tam, banjo self is possible related to some of African instruments, sorry, I don't know those African instruments name.

[gwilli24]

I really enjoyed this informative and beautiful video. Thank you for sharing this information. It is fascinating to learn about the biwa's origins from the oud. I was curious do you know if the shamisen is related to the banjo at all?

[Hikikomori013]

@gwilli24 Both are descended from a Mesopotamian skin faced lute with three strings which spread along the trade routes to Central Asia and North Africa. The banjo was developed in America by redesigning the African gourd lute and adding an extra bass string.

From Central Asia the skin faced lute spread to China, then became the Okinawan sanshin. This was imported into Osaka in the 16th century and became the shamisen.

[Hikikomori013]

@gwilli24 A second development which ties everything neatly together is the development of a thin wooden soundboard which allowed the resonating chamber to be made much larger than a skin face could support. This developed into the Persian oud, which again spread through North Africa and Central Asia to become the European lute and the Chinese pipa.