Nagauta shamisen players and singers line up in perfect rows across the kabuki stage, facing the audience while singing deeply expressive music with deadpan faces.
Noh actors follow strictly prescribed footsteps and movements across the stage, while the accompanying musicians look straight ahead, faces expressionless, singing lyrics full of pathos.
Gagaku court musicians sit cross-legged on a raised dais, all wearing identical costumes and playing highly formalized musical phrases which blend together with stunning timbres and harmonies.