The Jap fiddle or Japanese fiddle was a one-stringed

bowed instrument Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound. Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to ...

used by street performers, music hall performers, and

vaudevillians Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

around the start of the 20th century, particularly in the United Kingdom and United States. The instrument was particularly associated with

Cockney Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...

blackface performer

G. H. Chirgwin G. H. Chirgwin (born George Chirgwin, 13 December 1854 – 14 November 1922) was a British music hall comedian, singer and instrumentalist, billed as "the White-Eyed Kaffir", a black face minstrel act. Biography Born in the Seven Dials area of L ...

. A variant was later produced with a vibrating membrane and horn for amplification, as a one-stringed

phonofiddle A phonofiddle is a class of stringed musical instruments that are played with a bow and use a phonograph type reproducer as a voice-box. The sound producing diaphragm may be a metal cone as in the Stroh violin or a mica sheet as in the instruments ...

. The instrument was likely named for its vague similarity to the Japanese

kokyū The is a traditional Japanese string instrument, the only one played with a bow. A variant of the instrument also exists in Okinawa, called in Okinawan. The , like the , has its origins in Okinawa. Although it is similar to Chinese , it a ...

, as in the late 1800s interest in East Asia had been piqued by the opening of Japan to foreign trade.

References

{{Strings (music) Bowed monochords Vaudeville