The first work (dated 1829) represents clothes being beaten on a kinuta, or wooden washing block. The shamisen is a three-stringed guitar-like instrument. Shika no tone, a duet expresses the calling and response of stags and hinds. The shakuhachi is a vertical bamboo flute. Isuzugawa was composed one New Year's Day, when the Japanese traditionally pray for good fortune and worship at their shrines: the River Isuzu flows before the Grand Shrine, at Ise. The koto (a form of harp) is played in this recording by the composer, the blind Dr. Michio Miyagi; who died in 1956.