Jap fiddle
{{Short description|Musical instrument}}
{{for|the traditional Japanese bowed instrument|Kokyū}}
The Jap fiddle or Japanese fiddle was a one-stringed bowed instrument used by street performers, music hall performers, and vaudevillians{{cite book|title=Experimental Musical Instruments|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xAkwAQAAIAAJ|accessdate=1 April 2012|year=1994|publisher=Experimental Musical Instruments|page=13}} around the start of the 20th century, particularly in the United Kingdom and United States. The instrument was particularly associated with Cockney blackface performer G. H. Chirgwin.{{cite book|author1=Rachel Cowgill|author2=Julian Rushton|author2-link=Julian Rushton|title=Europe, Empire, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-century British Music|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gFWVWesJcTIC&pg=PA273|accessdate=1 April 2012|date=December 2006|publisher=Ashgate Publishing|isbn=978-0-7546-5208-3|pages=273–}} A variant was later produced with a vibrating membrane and horn for amplification,{{cite book|author=Christine Hunt|title=I'm ninety-five – any objection?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y8IhAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=1 April 2012|year=1985|publisher=Reed Methuen|isbn=978-0-474-00040-9|page=36}} as a one-stringed phonofiddle.{{cite book|title=English Dance and Song|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ilVLAAAAYAAJ|accessdate=1 April 2012|year=1983|publisher=The English Folk Dance and Song Society|page=10}}
The instrument was likely named for its vague similarity to the Japanese kokyū, as in the late 1800s interest in East Asia had been piqued by the opening of Japan to foreign trade.{{cite book|title=Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i1UJAQAAMAAJ|accessdate=1 April 2012|year=2000|publisher=American Musical Instrument Society|page=201}}