The is a simple

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...

, consisting of two pieces of

hardwood Hardwood is wood from Flowering plant, angiosperm trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostl ...

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

often connected by a thin ornamental rope. The clappers are played together or on the floor to create a cracking sound. Sometimes they are struck slowly at first, then faster and faster.

Theater

''Hyōshigi'' are used in traditional Japanese

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communi ...

s, such as

Kabuki is a classical form of Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with Japanese traditional dance, traditional dance. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily stylised performances, its glamorous, highly decorated costumes ...

and

Bunraku is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theatre, founded in Osaka in the beginning of the 17th century, which is still performed in the modern day. Three kinds of performers take part in a performance: the or (puppeteers), the (chanters) ...

theater, to announce the beginning of a performance. The kyogen-kata usually plays the hyoshigi at the start of comedic plays. It can be used to attract the attention of the audience by conductors for theater and even athletic and juggling performances. ''Hyōshigi'' are also used to stress confusion, and other dramatic moments, in the play.

Religion

It is also often used to signal the starting or the end of parts of festivals, especially in the directing of the mikoshi. ''Hyōshigi'' is combined with other traditional Japanese instruments in ''mikagura-uta'', or cycle of songs, which is characteristic of the Tenrikyo

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

Other uses

The clapping instrument was also used in ''

Kamishibai is a form of Japanese street theater and storytelling that was popular during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the postwar period in Japan until the advent of television during the mid-20th century. were performed by a (" narrator") who ...

'' to gather children so that the ''Kamishibai'' man could sell candy and entertain them with his story. The wooden percussion instrument was also used by night-watchmen when patrolling the streets. Volunteer Fire Corps ('' Shōbōdan'') patrols use the Hyoshigi during their night-patrols (''yomawari'') warning people about the danger of fire.

References

Japanese musical instruments Asian percussion instruments Concussion idiophones {{Japan-music-stub