Traditional Japanese musical instruments

Percussion Instruments

• Bin-sasara — clapper made from wooden slats connected by a rope or cord
• Hyōshigi — wooden or bamboo clappers
• Den-den daiko — pellet drum, used as a children's toy
• Ikko — small, ornately decorated hourglass-shaped drum
• Kagura suzu — hand-held bell tree with three tiers of pellet bells
• Kakko — small drum used in gagaku
• Kane — small flat gong
• Kokiriko — a pair of sticks which are beaten together slowly and rhythmically
• Shakubyoshi — clapper made from a pair of flat wooden sticks
• Mokugyo — woodblock carved in the shape of a fish, struck with a wooden stick; often used in Buddhist chanting
• Ōtsuzumi — hand drum
• San-no-tsuzumi, hourglass-shaped double-headed drum; struck only on one side
• Sasara — clapper made from wooden slats connected by a rope or cord
• Sekkin - a lithophone either bowed or struck
• Shime-daiko — small drum played with sticks
• Shōko — small bronze gong used in gagaku; struck with two horn beaters
• Taiko, literally "great drum"
• Tsuri-daiko — drum on a stand with ornately painted head, played with a padded stick
• Tsuzumi — small hand drum

  String instruments

• Biwa, a pear shaped lute
• Gottan or hako-jamisen
• Ichigenkin, monochord
• Junanagen, the 17-string koto
• Koto, a long zither
• Kugo, an angled harp used in ancient times and recently revived
• Sanshin, an Okinawan precursor of the mainland Japanese shamisen
• Shamisen, a banjo-like lute with three strings; brought to Japan from China in the 16th century. Popular in Edo's pleasure districts, the shamisen was often used in Kabuki theater. Made from red sandalwood and ranging from 1.1 to 1.4 meters long, the shamisen has ivory pegs, strings made from twisted silk, and a belly covered in cat or dog skin. The strings, which are of different thickness, are plucked or struck with a tortoise shell pick.
• Taishogoto, a zither with metal strings and keys
• Tonkori, a plucked instrument used by the Ainu of Hokkaidō
• Yamatogoto, ancient long zither; also called wagon

  Bowed

• Kokyū, a bowed lute with three strings and a skin-covered body

  Wind instruments

Flutes

• Hocchiku — vertical bamboo flute
• Nohkan — transverse bamboo flute used for noh theater
• Ryūteki — transverse bamboo flute used for gagaku
• Kagurabue — transverse bamboo flute used for mi-kagura
• Komabue — transverse bamboo flute used for komagaku; similar to the ryūteki
• Shakuhachi — vertical bamboo flute used for Zen meditation
• Shinobue — transverse folk bamboo flute
• Tsuchibue — globular flute made from claymore
• Bow flute - a flute developed by Ishida Nehito with bow hair on it to accompany the kokyū.

  Reed Instruments

• Hichiriki — double-reeded flute used in different kinds of music

  Free reed mouth organs

• Shō — 17-pipe mouth organ used for gagaku
• U — large mouth organ

  Horns

• Horagai — seashell horn; also called jinkai

  Other instruments

• Mukkuri — jaw harp used by the Ainu people
• Koukin — general name for the jaw harp, in Edo period also called Biyabon