Tsugaru shamisen

Tsugaru shamisen is a virtuoso solo style of the shamisen, the three-stringed Japanese lute, developed in the Tsugaru peninsula of Aomori prefecture. Played on the largest, loudest form of the instrument with a heavy bachi, it favours driving triple-metre rhythms and long improvisatory solos built on folk-song material. Founded by the blind itinerant *Nitabō* in the late nineteenth century, the style was carried to concert halls by *Takahashi Chikuzan* and, from the 1990s, by the *Yoshida Brothers* and *Hiromitsu Agatsuma*, who joined the instrument to rock, jazz and electronic production.