East Asian Instruments
Two traditions, seven voices. Japan’s koto and shakuhachi sit beside China’s guzheng, guqin, erhu, dizi and pipa — related, but not the same. Read about each one, then play it.
弾 Play it yourself
Seven instruments, one board
Pick an instrument and play. Play the version of each instrument right here, from recorded notes; the line under the board says exactly which recording you hear. Nothing plays until you touch it.
This is the instrument room for both gardens. The Japanese garden holds the koto (a 13-string zither) and the shakuhachi (an end-blown bamboo flute). The Chinese scholar’s garden holds the guzheng and guqin (zithers), the erhu (a two-string fiddle), the dizi (a side-blown bamboo flute) and the pipa (a lute). Every one can be played on this page.
From the 静 Garden
How they are related
Japan took several instruments from Tang-dynasty China along with its court music, then made them its own over more than a thousand years.
Zithers
The koto and the guzheng both descend from the ancient Chinese zheng. The guqin is a different zither: seven strings, no bridges.
Lutes
Japan’s biwa descends from the Tang pipa; instruments of that era survive in the Shōsōin treasure house in Nara.
Flutes
The shakuhachi’s ancestor came from China, but the modern instrument took shape in Japan, notably among the Fuke Zen monks of the Edo period. The dizi is a different flute: side-blown, with a buzzing membrane.
One character, two instruments
In Chinese, 琴 (qín) names the guqin. In Japanese the same character is often used for the koto, whose proper character is 箏 — the one Chinese uses for the guzheng.
Five notes
All seven instruments here are tuned to five-note scales. Chinese music names its five notes gong, shang, jue, zhi and yu (宮商角徵羽). Japanese music uses five-note scales too, including some with half-steps, like the koto’s hirajōshi tuning, which gives it a more wistful colour.
Five-note scales aren’t the whole story — both traditions use other scales and a great deal of nuance — but they are forgiving: with no clashing neighbours, any order of notes hangs together. That’s why you can’t play a wrong note here.
Ages. Claims like “3,000 years old” often blend legend with archaeology. Each instrument page gives the excavated evidence and says where dates are uncertain.
Routes. How instruments moved between China, Central Asia, Korea and Japan is debated, and many arrived more than once in different forms.
The sounds here. The playable versions are simplified. Real instruments have far richer tone, tunings that change from piece to piece, and techniques no screen can copy. Three of them (erhu, dizi, pipa) use stand-in sounds until free recordings of the real instruments can be found or made.
Sound credits. Đàn tranh notes (heard as the guzheng): Versilian Community Sample Library (VCSL), CC0. Guqin open strings: “Guqin-open-strings” by RafaelCaro, freesound.org/s/176266, CC BY 4.0, cut into single notes. Koto, shakuhachi, and the fiddle, flute and shamisen stand-ins: the FluidR3 GM sound bank by Frank Wen, as prepared by Benjamin Gleitzman for midi-js-soundfonts, CC BY 3.0.
Good to know
Are the koto and the guzheng the same instrument?
No, but they are cousins. Both descend from the ancient Chinese zheng. The koto reached Japan around the 7th–8th centuries and developed its own form: today it usually has 13 strings, the guzheng 21, and their tunings and music differ.
Which East Asian instruments are flutes?
Here, the shakuhachi (Japanese, blown at the end) and the dizi (Chinese, held sideways, with a buzzing membrane).
Why do the playable instruments always sound good?
They use five-note (pentatonic) scales, which are central to both Japanese and Chinese music. With no clashing neighbouring notes, any order of notes hangs together.
Are these real recordings?
Partly. The guzheng (played on its Vietnamese cousin, the đàn tranh) and the guqin use real recordings; the koto and shakuhachi use sampled sounds from a free sound bank. No free recordings of a real erhu, dizi or pipa exist yet, so a fiddle, a flute and a shamisen stand in, and each instrument says so under its board.