The artist Yang Jing plays pipa with a variety of groups. The strings are struck with a hand-held wooden plectrum. Player - Instrument Interface and Sound Production. 36 1/2 7 7/8 5 in. [17][18] The pear-shaped pipa may have been introduced during the Han dynasty and was referred to as Han pipa. It was originally used by traveling biwa minstrels, and its small size lent it to indoor play and improved portability. These tunings are relative, the actual pitches a given biwa is tuned to being determined by the vocal range of the singer/player. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is a lute with a round, hollow soundboard, a short fretted neck, and usually four strings. Since the revolutions in Chinese instrument-making during the 20thcentury, the softer twisted silk strings of earlier times have been exchanged for nylon-wound steel strings, which are far too strong for human fingernails, so false nails are now used, constructed of plastic or tortoise-shell, and affixed to the fingertips with the player's choice of elastic tape. Fine strings murmur like whispered words, Popular Japanese three-stringed lute. The frets of the satsuma-biwa are raised 4 centimetres (1.6in) from the neck allowing notes to be bent several steps higher, each one producing the instrument's characteristic sawari, or buzzing drone. The typical 5-stringed Satsuma-biwa classical tuning is: CGCG, from first string to fourth/fifth string, respectively. The four fret type is tuned to E, B, E and A, and the five fret type is tuned to B, e, f and f. Played with a large wooden plectrum, the instrument has four or five strings of twisted silk stretched over four or more . Typically, the duration of each group subdivides the measure into two equal durations. Generally speaking, biwa have four strings, though modern satsuma- and chikuzen-biwa may have five strings. Since the biwas pegs do not move smoothly, tuning the instrument to a different mode requires time. The biwa became known as an instrument commonly played at the Japanese Imperial court, where biwa players, known as biwa hshi, found employment and patronage. This is due to the fact that the space between the strings on the first three frets is so short that a fingered 1st fret on the 3rd string, for example, would damp the following 4th string, as shown on Figure 7. The gagaku biwa (), a large and heavy biwa with four strings and four frets, is used exclusively for gagaku. The excerpt is performed by the ensemble Reigakusha. [31] The pipa is mentioned frequently in the Tang dynasty poetry, where it is often praised for its expressiveness, refinement and delicacy of tone, with poems dedicated to well-known players describing their performances. Taiko Related Articles on Traditional Japanese Instruments 1. Shamisen players and other musicians found it financially beneficial to switch to the biwa, bringing new styles of biwa music with them. Ms Biwa () Japanese. Biwa 6. Another new style called Chikuzen-biwa () was created in the 19th century in northern Kyushu Island, based off of the blind monks biwa music, and adopting shamisen, Satsuma-biwa, and other contemporary musical styles. It is made out of wood, with a teardrop-shaped body and a long neck with four or five high frets, and is stringed with four or five silk strings that are plucked by a big pick called bachi. 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. [22] Some delicately carved pipas with beautiful inlaid patterns date from this period, with particularly fine examples preserved in the Shosoin Museum in Japan. Updates? [49] In Nanguan music, the pipa is still held in the near-horizontal position or guitar-fashion in the ancient manner instead of the vertical position normally used for solo playing in the present day. The Pipa | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline Koizumi, Fumio. [24], In the subsequent periods, the number of frets gradually increased,[26] from around 10 to 14 or 16 during the Qing dynasty, then to 19, 24, 29, and 30 in the 20th century. The tuning of the strings changes according to the pieces mode. This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen. The peg box is angled about 90 degrees from the neck, and the back of the body is flat, unlike the western lute. Biwa hshi performances overlapped with performances by other biwa players many years before heikyoku (, The Tale of the Heike),[further explanation needed] and continues to this day. In the present day, there are no direct means of studying the biwa in many biwa traditions. Different schools however can have sections added or removed, and may differ in the number of sections with free meter. [69] The instrument is also played by musician Min Xiaofen in "I See Who You Are", a song from Bjrk's album Volta. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. [29], There are many references to pipa in Tang literary works, for example, in A Music Conservatory Miscellany Duan Anjie related many anecdotes associated with pipa. The heike-biwa (), a biwa with four strings and five frets, is used to play The Tale of the Heike. Because of this tradition as a narrative music, the biwa is mostly played solo and is less commonly played with other types of instruments, except in gagaku () or the court orchestra where it is used in its original instrumental role, and in modern instrumental repertoire. The instrument is plucked with a pick made out of animal horn. Kakubachi: This is the performance of arpeggio with a downward motion of the plectrum, and it is always loud. This causes a sustained, buzzing noise called sawari () which adds a unique flavor to the biwa sound. It is one of the more popular Chinese folk music, often paired with singing. The encounter also inspired a poem by Yuan Zhen, Song of Pipa (). Example 4 shows that the biwa's melodic pitch doubles the basic melodic tone on the downbeat of almost every measure, except in measure 4 where the melodic tone 'E' is supported with a 'D' in the biwa's part. The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. 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 (710-794). An example tuning of the four string version is B, e, f and b, and the five string instrument can be tuned to C, G, C, d and g. For the five string version, the first and third strings are tuned the same note, the second string three steps down, the fifth string an octave higher than the second string, and the fourth string a step down from the fifth. And thanks to the low tension of the strings, it is easy to bend the strings by adding pressure. 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. Traditional Musical Instruments of Japan | TOKYO RESTAURANTS GUIDE The higo-biwa is closely related to the heike-biwa and, similarly, relies on an oral narrative tradition focusing on wars and legends. The traditional Satsuma-biwa has 4 strings and 4 frets (Sei-ha and Kinshin-ryu schools), and newer styles have 5 strings and 5 frets (Nishiki and Tsuruta-ryu schools). Ye Xuran (), a student of Lin Shicheng and Wei Zhongle, was the Pipa Professor at the first Musical Conservatory of China, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. In the 9th century the Ms (blind monks') biwa began to be used by blind musicians as an accompaniment to chanted religious texts and sutras. About Biwa - Japanese Traditional Music Although typically it is used to play short standardized phrases between lines of vocal text, it may be used for longer programmatic pieces depicting battles, storms, or other dramatic events. During the 1910s a five-string model was developed that, since the 1920s, has been the most common form of the instrument (gallery #2). Hazusu: This is a sequence of two pitches, where the first one is attacked, and leades to a second one which is not attacked. Ieyasu favored biwa music and became a major patron, helping to strengthen biwa guilds (called Todo) by financing them and allowing them special privileges. Although shaped like a Western lute, the Biwa's back is flat and it has a shallower body. The satsuma-biwa is traditionally made from Japanese mulberry, although other hard woods such as Japanese zelkova are sometimes used in its construction. Exploiting the sound of the open strings increases the overall sounds volume. Further, the frets and the nut are wide, which provides a surface, not a point, for a string to touch. chikuzen biwa Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection Biwa - Stanford University In all biwa styles, except for Gaku-biwa (: please refer to the section Types of Biwa), fingers are positioned between the frets, not on the frets. This seeming shortcoming is compensated for by the frets height and the low tension of the strings. 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. We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. 38.5 in. [2][29] Wang Zhaojun in particular is frequently referenced with pipa in later literary works and lyrics, for example Ma Zhiyuan's play Autumn in the Palace of Han (), especially since the Song dynasty (although her story is often conflated with other women including Liu Xijun),[30][29] as well as in music pieces such as Zhaojun's Lament (, also the title of a poem), and in paintings where she is often depicted holding a pipa. Another excerpt of figurative descriptions of a pipa music may be found in a eulogy for a pipa player, Lament for Shancai by Li Shen:[33]. 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. From these styles also emerged the two principal survivors of the biwa tradition: satsuma-biwa and chikuzen-biwa. Finally, measure 5 shows a rare instance where a melodic tone (F# in this case) is doubled on the second beat of the biwa's pattern. Traditionally, the 2nd pitch either acts as a lower neighboring tone or a descending passing tone. Biwa | musical instrument | Britannica 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. Instruments are classified using 5 different categories depending on the manner in which the instrument creates the sound: Idiophones, Membranophones, Chordophones, Aerophones, & Electrophones. These players had considerable influence on the development of pipa playing in China. Each type has different and unique tones, techniques, and musical styles. The loquat is in the family Rosaceae, and is native to the cooler hill regions of south-central China. (92.7 20 12.7 cm), Classification: Shamisen 5. Credit Line: The Crosby Brown Collection . In gagaku, it is known as the gaku-biwa (). The surface of the frets is constantly shaved down by the strings, and one of the most important points in the maintenance of the biwa is to keep the surfaces as flat as possible to get goodsawari. The instrument's rounded rectangular resonator has a snakeskin front and back, and the curved-back pegbox at the end of the neck has lateral, or side, tuning pegs that adjust three silk or nylon strings. Like pearls, big and small, falling on a platter of jade. [24] However, it continued to be played as a folk instrument that also gained the interest of the literati. [8][9] Liu Xi also stated that the instrument called pipa, though written differently (; pp or ; pb) in the earliest texts, originated from amongst the Hu people (a general term for non-Han people living to the north and west of ancient China). The exception for these methods is for when hazusu or tataku are performed on the 4th string. Its pick or bachi () is the largest among all types of biwa it sometimes. 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. The biwa has a shallow, rounded back and silk strings (usually four or five) attached to slender lateral pegs. By the Ming dynasty, fingers replaced plectrum as the popular technique for playing pipa, although finger-playing techniques existed as early as Tang. de Ferranti, Hugh. It may be played as a solo instrument or as part of the imperial orchestra for use in productions such as daqu (, grand suites), an elaborate music and dance performance. Kakisukashi: This is a three or four-note arpeggio with two strings in unison. 2. 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. The biwa, originally an instrument of high society, gradually spread among wandering blind monks who used this instrument to tell stories. This music was cherished and protected by the authorities and particularly flourished in the 14th-15th centuries. In the 13th century, the story The Tale of Heike ()was created and told by them. 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. Players hold the instrument vertically. With the rounded edge of the resonator resting in the players lap and the peg box end of the instrument tilted to the left at about a 45-degree angle from vertical, the biwas soundboard faces forward. [21] During this time, Persian and Kuchan performers and teachers were in demand in the capital, Chang'an (which had a large Persian community). During the Yuan dynasty, the playwright Gao Ming wrote a play for nanxi opera called Pipa ji (, or "Story of the Pipa"), a tale about an abandoned wife who set out to find her husband, surviving by playing the pipa. greatest depth of resonator, multiple (by pressure stopping against fretted fingerboard). https://japanese-music.com/profile/nobuko-fukatsu/. While the modern satsuma-biwa and chikuzen-biwa both originated from the ms-biwa, the satsuma-biwa was used for moral and mental training by samurai of the Satsuma Domain during the Warring States period, and later for general performances. At first the chikuzen biwa, like the one pictured in gallery #1, had four strings and five frets, but by the 1910s Tachibana and his sons had developed a five-string model (gallery #2) that, since the 1920s, has been the most common form of the instrument. The chikuzen-biwa was used by Buddhist monks visiting private residences to perform memorial services, not only for Buddhist rites, but also to accompany the telling of stories and news. [34][57][58] Duan Anjie described the duel between the famous pipa player Kang Kunlun and the monk Duan Shanben () who was disguised as a girl, and told the story of Yang Zhi () who learned how to play the pipa secretly by listening to his aunt playing at night. The five-stringed pipa however had fallen from use by the Song dynasty, although attempts have been made to revive this instrument in the early 21st century with a modernized five-string pipa modeled on the Tang dynasty instrument. 2. [8] The varying string thickness creates different timbres when stroked from different directions. The 5 String Pipa is tuned like a Standard Pipa with the addition of an Extra Bass String tuned to an E2 (Same as the Guitar) which broadens the range (Tuning is E2, A2, D3, E3, A3). It is not used to accompany singing. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Players from the Wang and Pudong schools were the most active in performance and recording during the 20th century, less active was the Pinghu school whose players include Fan Boyan (). [citation needed]. She now performs with Red Chamber and the Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble. It produces distinctive ichikotsuch () and hyj (). The body is often made of stretched snakeskin, and come in varying sizes. Recently, this instrument, much like the konghou harp, has been revived for historically informed performances and historical reconstructions. 1969. Players hold the instrument vertically. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company. It is made out of wood, with a teardrop-shaped body and a long neck with four or five high frets, and is stringed with four or five silk strings that are plucked by a big pick called bachi (). The Met Fifth Avenue 1000 Fifth Avenue Even the biwa hshi transitioned to other instruments such as the shamisen (a three-stringed lute).[15]. His well-received compositions, such as November Steps, which incorporated biwa heikyoku with Western orchestral performance, revitalized interest in the biwa and sparked a series of collaborative efforts by other musician in genres ranging from J-Pop and enka to shin-hougaku and gendaigaku. Biwa is a 4-stringed lute played with a large spectrum. are crucial techniques to create the biwas subtle in-between notes that are unique for fretted instruments. Another. 2.2 in. The typical 5-stringed Satsuma-biwa classical tuning is: CGCG, from first string to fourth/fifth string, respectively. Taiko Center Online Shop - String Instruments - Tagged "Biwa" The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889, Accession Number: Telling stories and holding religious practices with biwa accompaniment became a profession for blind monks, and it was these wandering blind monks who carried on the tradition. After almost dying out post-World War II, the tradition was revived in part due to interest shown in the instrument by the internationally known contemporary composer Tru Takemitsu, who wrote instrumental compositions for the instrument. 89.4.2088. As the biwa does not play in tempered tuning, pitches are approximated to the nearest note. L 31 1/2 W. 11 13/16 D. 1 5/16 in. This scale sometimes includes supplementary notes, but the core remains pentatonic. All rights reserved. [19], Other musicians, such as Yamashika Yoshiyuki, considered by most ethnomusicologists to be the last of the biwa hshi, preserved scores of songs that were almost lost forever. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription. Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each type has different and unique tones, techniques, and musical styles. The instrument is also held vertically while playing. The pipa is held in a vertical or near-vertical position during performance, although in the early periods the instrument was held in the horizontal position or near-horizontal with the neck pointing slightly downwards, or upside down. These styles emphasized biwa-uta () vocalisation with biwa accompaniment and formed the foundation for edo-uta () styles of playing, such as shinnai and kota.[2]. 'Ghost of Tsushima' composer reveals the instrument behind the game's Omissions? The biwa is a four stringed lute and it is approximately 106 cm long (42 inches). It is a big percussion instrument of Japanese that plays integral part of many Japanese Matsuri (festival). Ueda Junko and Tanaka Yukio, two of Tsuruta's students, continue the tradition of the modern satsuma-biwa. [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]. This next instrument seems to have some spiritual meaning behind it. Of the remaining post-war biwa traditions, only higo-biwa remains a style almost solely performed by blind persons. 36 1/2 7 7/8 5 in. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Biwa performers also vary the volume of their voice between barely audible to very loud. One of these, the new chikuzen biwa tradition, became popular amongst many thousands of amateurs between c.1900 and 1920. biwa, Japanese short-necked lute, distinguished by its graceful, pear-shaped body. 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. Gao Hong graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music and was the first to do a joint tour with Lin Shicheng in North America. Reflecting its history as an instrument for samurai, its music is often described as dynamic and heroic. In the 1920s and 1930s, the number of frets was increased to 24, based on the 12 tone equal temperament scale, with all the intervals being semitones. Biwa music is based on a pentatonic scale (sometimes referred to as a five-tone or five-note scale), meaning that each octave contains five notes. The design and construction of the 5-string Chikuzen biwa pictured in gallery #2 is basically the same as for the 4-string model described above except accommodations need to be made to the pegbox (detail #7) and bridge (detail #8) for the additional string. In 1956, after working for some years in Shanghai, Lin accepted a position at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. As part of, Metalwork by Goto Teijo, 9th generation Goto master, Japan (16031673). [68] The Shanghai progressive/folk-rock band Cold Fairyland, which was formed in 2001, also use pipa (played by Lin Di), sometimes multi-tracking it in their recordings.
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