Gottan

The gottan (Japanese: ごったん, also known as the hako ["box"] or ita ["board"] shamisen/jamisen) is a traditional Japanese three-stringed plucked instrument, often considered either a relative or derivative of the sanshin, itself a relative of the shamisen.

Differences

The major difference between a sanshin and a gottan is that the body of a sanshin tends to be made of a hollowed wooden cavity covered with a type of membrane, whereas the whole of a gottan – body, neck, and all – is made up of solid wood, usually of a single type, often Japanese cedar.

The gottan's musical repertoire is often light and cheerful, including many folk songs. Like the shamisen, it was used for door-to-door musical busking, known as kadozuke.

Often the gottan is compared to the kankara, an Okinawan instrument related to the sanshin, due to its relative inexpensiveness (made from a used metal can) and ease of construction. The equivalent all-wood Okinawan instrument is the ita sanshin.