page_title: Music of Japan
section_title: Biwa hōshi, Heike biwa, mōsō and goze
hierarchical_section_title: Music of Japan / Traditional and folk music / Biwa hōshi, Heike biwa, mōsō and goze
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 岐阜城資料館にて
context_page_description: The music of Japan includes a wide array of performers in distinct styles, both traditional and modern. The word for "music" in Japanese is 音楽, combining the kanji 音 on with the kanji 楽 gaku. Japan is the largest physical music market in the world, worth US$2 billion in sales in physical formats in 2014, and the second-largest overall music market, worth a total retail value of 2.6 billion dollars in 2014 – dominated by Japanese artists, with 37 of the top 50 best-selling albums and 49 of the top 50 best-selling singles in 2014.
  Local music often appears at karaoke venues, which is on lease from the record labels. Traditional Japanese music differs markedly from Western music, as it is often based on the intervals of human breathing rather than on mathematical timing.‹See TfM›
context_section_description: The biwa (琵琶 - Chinese: pipa), a form of short-necked lute, was played by a group of itinerant performers (biwa hōshi) (琵琶法師) who used it to accompany stories.  The most famous of these stories is The Tale of the Heike, a 12th-century history of the triumph of the Minamoto clan over the Taira.  Biwa hōshi began organizing themselves into a guild-like association (tōdō) for visually-impaired men as early as the thirteenth century.  This guild eventually controlled a large portion of the musical culture of Japan. The biwa is Japan's traditional instrument.
  In addition, numerous smaller groups of itinerant blind musicians formed, especially in the Kyushu area. These musicians, known as mōsō (盲僧 blind monk) toured their local areas and performed a variety of religious and semi-religious texts to purify households and to bring about good health and good luck.  They also maintained a repertory of secular genres. The biwa that they played was considerably smaller than the Heike biwa (平家琵琶) played by the biwa hōshi.
  Lafcadio Hearn related in his book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903)  "Mimi-nashi Hoichi" (Hoichi the Earless), a Japanese ghost story about a blind biwa hōshi who performs "The Tale of the Heike"
  Blind women, known as goze (瞽女), also toured the land from the medieval era, singing songs and playing accompanying music on a lap drum.  From the seventeenth century they often played the koto or the shamisen.  Goze organizations sprung up throughout the land, and existed until recently in present-day Niigata Prefecture.
caption: Biwa.
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