歌謡
かよう · kayou · JLPT N3 · noun
song
🎤 歌謡 = 歌 song + 謡 chant: sung songs and folk ballads
歌 (uta, ka) means song, and 謡 (utai, you) is the old chanted song of Noh theatre. Put them together and you get popular songs and ballads, as in 歌謡曲 (kayoukyoku), Japanese pop ballads of the Showa era.
歌 — 哥 (phonetic 'gē') + 欠 (open mouth)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The right side 欠 depicts a person with an open mouth, supplying the meaning of singing or vocalizing. The left side 哥 gives the sound 'gē'. Together they form the verb and noun for 'song' or 'to sing'.