Biwa

A short-necked fretted lute. There are seven types of biwa, chacterized by number of strings, sounds it could produce, type of plectrum, and their use. As the biwa does not play in tempered tuning, pitches are approximated to the nearest note.

Wandering biwa players, similar to minstrels, were known as biwa hōshi.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biwa

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