I found this “Rare Japanese Vintage Silk Hanging Scroll” of a shamisen on ebay and was wondering if anyone might have insight as to what the text is saying and what the scroll was made for. It looks instructional and I really like the design of it. I’m thinking of picking it up as birthday gift for myself, but it seems a bit pricy and (obviously) I can’t read it so I’d like to know more about it before purchasing. Has anyone seen anything like this before? Thanks and have a Happy New Year.
Happy New Year!
Seems to be a kind of educational/research scheme (or copy of?) of the Kineya Kangorou (杵屋勘五郎 [1]) nagauta players family (dunno? maybe a word dynasty fits better). Title is Japanese shamisen distinctions/similarities? scheme (大倭三絃甲乙図 [1]), note that on the scroll it’s written right-to-left which probably fits the 19th century era [2] of the scheme.
As to the text there are captions for parts like sao and head, each note has some text right to it, can’t actually read anything (though can confirm it’s in Japanese), reading needs better pics and time or a better trained/experienced person.
Haven’t heard of schemes put on hanging scrolls so that’s quite interesting. Probably woodblock printing (on silk?), text may or may not be handwritten, as to how rare and/or valuable it is I have no idea, but it does look like a nice gift 
Not likely to learn much from the text I guess, more of an aesthetic thing.
[1] 杵屋勘五郎 - Wikipedia
[2] Can Japanese be written right to left?
It’s really nice either way!