A young girl named Biwa is the heroine of “Heike Monogatari” (The Heike Story), a Japanese anime series. In the series, based on a medieval Japanese war epic called “The Tale of the Heike,” Biwa ...

This article is part of a three-part series. To learn about a shamisen, koto and sanshin master and his music lessons, see here. To learn about a taiko master and her music lessons, see here. The biwa ...

The pear-shaped biwa lute has enchanted listeners in Japan for centuries. Played with a large wooden plectrum, the instrument has four or five strings of twisted silk stretched over four or more deep ...

Discover the relationship between music and Buddhism through ancient Japanese instruments such as the gogen-biwa and kugo from the Shosoin Repository in Nara, artifacts restored from Chinese ...