Hi all. Has any of you ever seen a “futatsuori” sao (2 pieces sao) ? The old nagauta I received from my japanese family is a “real” hosozao (2,4 m) and it’s the first time I hold this kind of light shamisen in my hands. Even the dou is the thinnest I have ever seen. I have played 3 or 4 nagautas before but they were more chuuzaos (about 2,6 mm) than traditional hosozaos ! Any idea of the period when it could have been built ? Thanks to the sensei there !
That’s interesting. After a quick search, the one image of a futatsuori that I found dated back to the Edo period. They seem to still make cases for them, though I’ve never heard of people actually making the futatsuori shamisen themselves.
Well, futatsuori is a word I deduced from “mitsuori”… But do you have a link to this image ? I didn’t think it could date back to Edo…
I believe there are a few more images too.
The search I used was just 二つ折り 三味線 時代
Ah, right. I should have remembered Kameya’s sensei were talking about that in their blog. Mine is not so thin but the square form of the dou and the skin coming about 1 cm to the sides of the dou are the same. Thanks again Ian !
You’re welcome! It sounds like a fascinating shamisen.
Glad I could help! 
It sounds like a fascinating shamisen
Maybe not, but interesting anyway. Here are some pictures for anyone who could help me to identify the age and the wood. Here are the zagane, the sao and the saruo (very thin)/hatomune area. It looks like very tanny karin… And the colour is very different between the hatomune (see picture) and the middle part of the sao… Any tip for giving back their color to the zagane will be welcome. Well, I just feel like an old newbie… Thanks !
How did you get this shamisen?
Sakura, I said it in the first post !
Oh sorry