Traditional music, which has become synonymous with classical Japanese music in contemporary Japan, encompasses a vast and varied array of music that varies in origin and development. It includes imperial court music (gagaku) and the chanting of Buddhist hymns (shomyo) that developed in ancient times; the music of the koto and shamisen, which flowered during the Edo period; and Ryukyu classical music featuring the sanshin, a three-stringed instrument, that developed in Okinawa during the Ryukyu Kingdom era. However, these instruments are recognized as being part of Japanese traditional music not simply because they were physically imported or borrowed by Japan, but because they were improved and new musical forms created according to a distinctively Japanese aesthetic sense. Professional artists have carried on these cultural traditions, passing down the inner spirit as well as the outer form of the music via their bodies, from hand to hand and mouth to mouth. These art forms not only exist as music in their own right, but also play an important role in underpinning such classical performing arts as noh, kabuki, and bunraku puppet theater.
  Traditional music is distinguished by the fact that each genre embraces different instruments, vocalization, musical scale, rhythm, musical form, musical notation, performers, audiences, repertoires, performance locations, and performance styles. Ancient court music (gagaku), which was concerned with ceremonies at the imperial court, shrines, and temples; chanted Buddhist hymns (shomyo), consisting of solemn ceremonies voiced by Buddhist priests; and the heike-biwa, which was used to musically portray the "Tale of the Heike", all served as forerunners of performing arts that combined recited narratives with music. It was as an extension of these trends that music played on the biwa (an instrument including such variants as the satsuma-biwa and the chikuzen-biwa) subsequently developed in Kyushu.
  The introduction of the shamisen, another three-stringed instrument, at the end of the Muromachi period added momentum to the flowering of Edo's flamboyant music culture, giving rise to numerous shamisen song styles such as regional music (jiuta), long epic songs (nagauta), short folk songs (hauta), and ornamented vocal accompaniments (utazawa), not to mention a variety of dramatic narrative styles called joruri (including gidayu, katobushi, icchubushi, tokiwazu, kiyomoto, shinnai, and miyazono). In particular, it would be impossible to discuss either the recited dramatic narratives (gidayubushi) used in puppet theater (bunraku) or the long epic songs (nagauta) used in kabuki independently of the shamisen.
  On the other hand, the koto, instrument that was used to perform court music (gagaku) during ancient times, underwent a transformation into a new form of music at the hands of blind musicians during the Edo period, by way of the tradition of ancient court music as performed at Buddhist temples. This evolution led to the development of a delicate form of expression that incorporated elements of shamisen music known as jiuta, or regional folk music. The shakuhachi, a woodwind instrument made of bamboo, influenced Zen music by way of spiritual hermits during the medieval period and has since gained new musicians and markets. Precisely because they had no relationship with drama or dance, the koto and shakuhachi widened their appeal as tools of musical expression beginning in the Meiji period, when music from Europe and the United States was introduced to Japan. Today, they continue to encourage the creation of new musical forms as distinctly Japanese instruments.