The is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese end-blown

End-blown flute

The end-blown flute or rim-blown flute is a keyless woodwind instrument played by directing an airstream against the sharp edge of the upper end of a tube. Unlike a recorder or tin whistle, there isn't a ducted flue voicing, also known as a fipple. Most rim-blown flutes are "oblique" flutes, being...

 flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

. It is traditionally made of bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

, but versions now exist in ABS

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene is a common thermoplastic. Its melting point is approximately 105 °C ....

 and hardwood

Hardwood

Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees . It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.Hardwood contrasts with softwood...

s. It was used by the monks of the Fuke school

Fuke Zen

Fuke Zen or the Hottô Ha , was a distinct and ephemeral derivative of Japanese Zen Buddhism which originated as an obscuration of the Rinzai school during the nation's feudal era, lasting from the 13th century until the late 19th century...

 of Zen

Zen

Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...

 Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 in the practice of . Its soulful sound made it popular in 1980s pop music

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 in the English-speaking world.

They are often made in the minor pentatonic scale.
The name shakuhachi means "1.8 shaku", referring to its size. It is a compound of two words:
means "shaku", an archaic unit of width equal to 30.3 centimeters (0.994 English foot) and subdivided in ten subunits.