Wu Man is probably the best known pipa player internationally, received the first-ever master's degree in pipa and won China's first National Academic Competition for Chinese Instruments. The biwas sound at the attack (top) at one second later (bottom). She now performs with Red Chamber and the Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble. Biwa - Wikipedia The biwa is a plucked string instrument that first gained popularity in China before spreading throughout East Asia, eventually reaching Japan sometime during the Nara period (710794). Sun performed in the United States, Asia, and Europe, and in 1956 became deputy director of the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra. The Koto came from the Chinese zither "Gu Zheng" during the Nara period in Japan. [31] Celebrated performers of the Tang dynasty included three generations of the Cao familyCao Bao (), Cao Shancai () and Cao Gang (),[59][60] whose performances were noted in literary works. https://japanese-music.com/profile/nobuko-fukatsu/. Traditionally, the 2nd pitch either acts as a lower neighboring tone or a descending passing tone. Generally speaking, biwa have four strings, though modern satsuma- and chikuzen-biwa may have five strings. 36 1/2 7 7/8 5 in. The most eminent 20th century satsuma-biwa performer was Tsuruta Kinshi, who developed her own version of the instrument, which she called the tsuruta-biwa. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Played with a large wooden plectrum, the instrument has four or five strings of twisted silk stretched over four or more . The biwa (Japanese: ) is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. Brian Grimm placed the contact mic pickup on the face of the pipa and wedged under the bridge so he is able to plug into pedalboards, live computer performance rigs, and direct input (DI) to an audio interface for studio tracking. Further, the frets and the nut are wide, which provides a surface, not a point, for a string to touch. Several types of biwa, each with its own social setting and repertoire, have evolved in Japan over the past 1300 years, the specimens pictured here being called most accurately the chikuzen biwa. Noted contemporary pipa players who work internationally include Min Xiao-Fen, Yang Jin(), Zhou Yi, Qiu Xia He, Liu Fang, Cheng Yu, Jie Ma, Yang Jing(, Yang Wei (),[64] Guan Yadong (), Jiang Ting (), Tang Liangxing (),[65] and Lui Pui-Yuen (, brother of Lui Tsun-Yuen). The electric pipa was first developed in the late 20th century by adding electric guitarstyle magnetic pickups to a regular acoustic pipa, allowing the instrument to be amplified through an instrument amplifier or PA system. 1. Influenced by the shamisen, its music is rather soft, attracting more female players. It was originally used by traveling biwa minstrels, and its small size lent it to indoor play and improved portability. As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. There is also evidence that other biwa instruments came from the Indian lute tradition. The full vibrating lengths of the strings, the distance between their bend over the nut and the knots that secure their lower ends to the string holder, are all 27.7 inches. Instruments are classified using 5 different categories depending on the manner in which the instrument creates the sound: Idiophones, Membranophones, Chordophones, Aerophones, & Electrophones. The musical narrative of The Tale of Heike, in The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music, edited by Alison McQueen Tokita and David W. Hughes. [72] He was also the first musician to add a strap to the instrument, as he did for the zhongruan, allowing him to play the pipa and the zhongruan like a guitar. 36 in. [18], As biwa music declined in post-Pacific War Japan, many Japanese composers and musicians found ways to revitalize interest in it. Satsuma Biwa () | Japanese | The Metropolitan Museum of Art length However, following the collapse of the Ritsury state, biwa hshi employed at the court were faced with the court's reconstruction and sought asylum in Buddhist temples. During the 1950s, the use of metal strings in place of the traditional silk ones also resulted in a change in the sound of the pipa which became brighter and stronger. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. Even though the system has been criticized and revised over the years, it is the most widely accepted system of musical instrument classification used by organologists and . Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API. Player - Instrument Interface and Sound Production. However, another variant of the biwa known as the ms-biwa or the kjin-biwa also found its way to Japan, first appearing in the Kyushu region. Japanese Musical Instruments. These tunings are relative, the actual pitches a given biwa is tuned to being determined by the vocal range of the singer/player. Liu Dehai (19372020), also born in Shanghai, was a student of Lin Shicheng and in 1961 graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She lives in San Diego, California and works extensively with Chinese, cross-cultural, new music, and jazz groups. There are some confusions and disagreements about the origin of pipa. [21] For example, masses of pipa-playing Buddhist semi-deities are depicted in the wall paintings of the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang. The typical 5-stringed Satsuma-biwa classical tuning is: CGCG, from first string to fourth/fifth string, respectively. With the abolition of Todo in the Meiji period, biwa players lost their patronage. The biwa developed into five different types in its long history: . Over 100 years after its development, the H-S system is still in use in most museums and in large inventory projects. It has the largest body and relatively short neck among biwas. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Upon its arrival, the biwa was used in purely instrumental music in the court culture the instrument appears in various works of literature and art in the 10th -12th centuries, depicting nobles enjoying it in rituals as well as in their private lives. Chikuzen was an historic northern province on Kyushu, the southern-most main island of Japan. Kakubachi: This is the performance of arpeggio with a downward motion of the plectrum, and it is always loud. The wu style was associated more with the Northern school while the wen style was more the Southern school. 13 in. The instrument itself resembles gaku-biwa but is slightly smaller, and is held horizontally. It is assumed that the performance traditions died out by the 10th or 11th century (William P. Malm). [45] Other collections from the Qing dynasty were compiled by Li Fangyuan () and Ju Shilin (), each representing different schools, and many of the pieces currently popular were described in these Qing collections. For the left hand, as mentioned above under the Construction section, bending of the strings (oshikan ) and delicate control of it to create a vibrato effect (yuri ) are crucial techniques to create the biwas subtle in-between notes that are unique for fretted instruments. A distinctive sound of pipa is the tremolo produced by the lunzhi () technique which involves all the fingers and thumb of the right hand. [62] From the Ming dynasty, famous pipa players include Zhong Xiuzhi (), Zhang Xiong (, known for his playing of "Eagle Seizing Swan"), the blind Li Jinlou (), and Tang Yingzeng () who was known to have played a piece that may be an early version of "Ambushed from Ten Sides".[63]. [17][18] The pear-shaped pipa may have been introduced during the Han dynasty and was referred to as Han pipa. For other uses, see, Illustrations from the 15th century Korean work, Xiansuo Shisan Tao (, later incorporated into Complete String Music ), Note that some people claimed Pei Xingnu to be the female player described in the poem, History of lute-family instruments Short-necked lutes, "The pipa: How a barbarian lute became a national symbol", "Avaye Shayda - Kishibe's diffusionism theory on the Iranian Barbat and Chino-Japanese Pi' Pa', "Chapter 1: A General history of the Pipa", "Bracket with two musicians 100s, Pakistan, Gandhara, probably Butkara in Swat, Kushan Period (1st century-320)", The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'ang Exotics, "Pipa - A Chinese lute or guitar, its brief history, photos and music samples", A report on Chinese research into the Dunhuang music manuscripts, "Chapter 3 Musical structure in the Hua Collection", "Comparison of Three Chinese Traditional Pipa Music Schools with the Aid of Sound Analysis", "Lui Pui-yuen, master of Chinese music, returns to perform once again", "Incubus - Mike Einziger Guitar Gear Rig and Equipment", "[search page, albums featuring Yang Jing]", "La scne musicale alternative pkinoise vue par Jean Sbastien Hry (Djang San)", "BC GRIMM Experimental Acoustic-Electric Music EPK", "Experimental Electric Pipa - , by Zhang Si'an (Djang San )", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pipa&oldid=1138787889, Articles with dead external links from January 2018, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles containing Chinese-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2019, Articles with MusicBrainz instrument identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Flute and Drum at Sunset / Flowery Moonlit River in Spring, This page was last edited on 11 February 2023, at 16:35. The biwa is a four stringed lute and it is approximately 106 cm long (42 inches). Modern notation systems, new compositions as well as recordings are now widely available and it is no longer crucial for a pipa players to learn from the master of any particular school to know how to play a score. Ueda Junko and Tanaka Yukio, two of Tsuruta's students, continue the tradition of the modern satsuma-biwa. The . These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. This biwa often has five strings (although it is essentially a 4-string instrument as the 5th string is a doubled 4th that are always played together) and five or more frets, and the construction of the tuning head and frets vary slightly. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. In performance it was held sideways and played with a plectrum. Samurai ethics and battles were selected as the main themes for this style, called Satsuma-biwa (), and more dynamic techniques were developed. In Satsuma-biwa classical pieces, the thickest string (the first) is in principle. The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. About: Biwa Famous solo pieces now performed include: Most of the above are traditional compositions dating to the Qing dynasty or early 20th century, new pieces however are constantly being composed, and most of them follow a more Western structure. However, the playing of the biwa nearly became extinct during the Meiji period following the introduction of Western music and instruments, until players such as Tsuruta Kinshi and others revitalized the genre with modern playing styles and collaborations with Western composers. It always starts from the 4th string and stops on either the 3rd, 2nd, or 1st string depending if the arpeggio contains 2, 3, or 4 pitches, respectively. He premiered the oldest Dunhuang Pipa Manuscript (the first interpretation made by Ye Dong) in Shanghai in the early 1980s. 105-126. A rapid strum is called sao (), and strumming in the reverse direction is called fu (). The strings are numbered from the lowest (first string) to the highest (fourth string). It is however possible to produce the tremolo with just one or more fingers. It is one of the more popular Chinese folk music, often paired with singing. Another. Traditional Chinese narrative prefers the story of the Han Chinese Princess Liu Xijun sent to marry a barbarian Wusun king during the Han dynasty, with the pipa being invented so she could play music on horseback to soothe her longings. Several schools of biwa playing evolved from the ms tradition, one of which, founded in the 1890s by Tachibana Chij and others and called the Asahi-kai, was based on the style of the Chikuzen region of Kyushu. Exploiting the sound of the open strings increases the overall sounds volume. In the early 1950s, he founded the traditional instruments department at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Classification of Musical Instruments: Sachs-Hornbostel - LiveAbout Biwa Four frets Figure 1 NAKAMURA Kahoru Biwa's back is flat Biwa's plectrum Figure 2 Although shaped like a Western lute, the Biwa 's back is flat and it has a shallower body. Traditionally, the duration of each pitch subdivides the measure into two equal durations. Reflecting its history as an instrument for samurai, its music is often described as dynamic and heroic. In Japan the loquat is known as biwa (, ) and has been grown for over . There are some types of traditional string instrument. For the left hand, as mentioned above under the Construction section, bending of the strings (oshikan, ) and delicate control of it to create a vibrato effect (yuri. ) However, depictions of the pear-shaped pipas in China only appeared after the Han dynasty during the Jin dynasty in the late 4th to early 5th century. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Classification (Sachs-Von Hornbostel revised by MIMO) 321.312 chordophone--spike box lute or spike guitar: the resonator is built up from wood, the body of the instrument is in the form of a box through which the handle/neck passes Chordophone-Lute-plucked-fretted, Credit Line: A player holds it horizontally, and mostly plays rhythmic arpeggios in orchestra or ensemble. OnMusic Dictionary - Term later versions were played by the blind Japanese lute priests of the Heian period and it was also played as background music for story-telling The narrative biwa music adopts a relative tuning; the pitch is decided to match with the players range of voice. 592 AD, Sui dynasty. The origin of the Japanese biwa as a generic type of instrument dates back to around the year 700 CE when the pipa was first introduced to Japan from China as part of ensembles gifted to the Japanese Emperor. A player holds it horizontally, and mostly plays rhythmic arpeggios in orchestra or ensemble. From the 3rd century onwards, through the Sui and Tang dynasty, the pear-shaped pipas became increasingly popular in China. This singing style is complemented by the biwa, which biwa players use to produce short glissandi throughout the performance. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute ", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. This is the original form of biwa that came to Japan in the 8th century. In the early 20th century, twenty-five pieces were found amongst 10th-century manuscripts in the Mogao caves near Dunhuang, most of these pieces however may have originated from the Tang dynasty. Another often-used technique is rubbing the long side of the bachi on the strings to get wind-like sounds. Its classification is a type of a Chordophone. Resonator design, chordophone: bowl with wood soundboard, Vibrational length: tension bridge to ridge-nut, Pitches per string course: multiple (by pressure stopping against fretted fingerboard), 4-string biwa (gallery #1): [17][14] Starting about the 10th century, players began to hold the instrument "more upright", as the fingernail style became more important. HornbostelSachs 1 Hornbostel - Sachs Hornbostel - Sachs (or Sachs - Hornbostel) is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the Zeitschrift fr Ethnologie in 1914. The instrument is tuned to match the key of the singer. 3 in. The encounter also inspired a poem by Yuan Zhen, Song of Pipa (). 89.4.123.
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