Kinshi Tsuruta

was a Japanese musician.
Tsuruta specialized in the ancient pear-shaped plucked lute called the biwa, and also sang. She developed her own form of the Satsuma biwa, which is sometimes referred to as Tsuruta biwa. This biwa differs from the traditional Satsuma biwa in the number of frets, construction of the head, and occasionally a doubled 4th string. The additional frets allows a wider range of notes to be played which makes it possible to perform modern and western... meer