Tonkori

The tonkori (トンコリ^?) is a plucked string instrument played by the Ainu people of Hokkaidō, northern Japan and Sakhalin. It generally has five strings, which are not stopped or fretted but simply played "open". The instrument is believed to have been developed in Sakhalin. By the 1970s the instrument was practically extinct, but is experiencing a revival along with the increased interest in Ainu heritage.

The instrument is typically constructed of a single piece of Jezo spruce approximately a metre long. Its shape is traditionally said to resemble a woman's body, and the corresponding words are used for its parts. A pebble is placed within the body-cavity of the instrument, granting it a "soul". The instrument tends to measure approximately 120 cm long, 10 cm wide, and 5 cm thick.

The tonkori's strings are made of gut, deer tendon, or vegetable fiber. While five-string tonkori are the most frequently mentioned, they could have as few as two or as many as six strings. The strings are not tuned in order of pitch, but are instead in a reentrant tuning alternating between higher and lower strings, rising and falling by a fifths in a pentatonic scale, often a-d'-g'-c'-f'. A similar style of reentrant tuning a was used by the ancient Japanese version of the koto, the wagon.

The tonkori is played angled across the chest, strings outward, while both hands pluck the open strings from opposite sides. The instrument was used to accompany songs or dances, or played solo. The tonkori was traditionally played by both men and women.

One description of traditional tonkori technique noted that a player would strum across all the strings, and then pluck a single string with his opposite hand. Another description notes that "the thumbs pluck in an outward direction only."

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Wikipedia