Harmonics: The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th harmonics of each open string can be performed by attacking the string with either the plectrum or the finger, and in both cases, the overall sonority is quite soft. Typically, the duration of each group subdivides the measure into two equal durations. They recorded the critically acclaimed CD "Eagle Seizing Swan" together. In the 20th century, two of the most prominent pipa players were Sun Yude (; 19041981) and Li Tingsong (; 19061976). The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889, Accession Number:
Its plectrum is slightly larger than that of the gagaku-biwa, but the instrument itself is much smaller, comparable to a chikuzen-biwa in size. Players hold the instrument vertically. This instrument also disappeared in the Chinese court orchestras. Biwa. Western performers of pipa include French musician Djang San, who integrated jazz and rock concepts to the instrument such as power chords and walking bass.[70]. Shakuhachi 2. [24] However, it continued to be played as a folk instrument that also gained the interest of the literati. Its plectrum is much smaller than that of the satsuma-biwa, usually about 13cm (5.1in) in width, although its size, shape, and weight depends on the sex of the player. Typically, the lower strings of the arpeggio are open, as indicated with the '0' in Example 4, while the last string hit may either be open or fingered (numbers 1 to 4 refers to the left hand's fingers from the index to the 4th finger, respectively). However, false nails made of horn existed as early as the Ming period when finger-picking became the popular technique for playing pipa.[24]. Modern biwa used for contemporary compositions often have five or more frets, and some have a doubled fourth string. 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. Clattering and murmuring, meshing jumbled sounds, Figure 6 shows a spectral analysis of the arpeggio read at the attack and one second later. Blind priests would play them in order to tell stories and tales of ancient war. 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). Because of this bending technique oshikan (), one can make two or three notes for each fret and also in-between notes. A rapid strum is called sao (), and strumming in the reverse direction is called fu (). [18], As biwa music declined in post-Pacific War Japan, many Japanese composers and musicians found ways to revitalize interest in it. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. Among the major variants are the gakubiwa (used in court music), the msbiwa (used by Buddhist monks for the chanting of sutras), the heikebiwa (used to chant stories from the Heike monogatori), the chikuzenbiwa (used for an amalgam of narrative types), and the satsumabiwa (used for samurai narratives). Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API. It is one of the most enduring work in Chinese theatre, and one that became a model for Ming dynasty drama as it was the favorite opera of the first Ming emperor. 5.5 in. [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. There are seven main types of Biwa, each distinguished by the number of strings, sound produced, and use. So, here are six traditional Japanese instruments you can listen to today! Over the centuries, several types of biwa were created, each having a certain size plectrum, a specialized purpose, a unique performance technique, and varying numbers of strings and frets. Considering that the metronome marking of this music rarely exceeds the quarter-note at 54, and that the biwa plays mostly on the 1st beat of each measure, it is the authors impression that hazusu and/or tataku may help the biwa player keep time by providing material/action that cuts the duration of a measure in two, even if it cannot be heard. Koto 3. The first and second strings are generally tuned to the same note, with the 4th (or doubled 4th) string is tuned one octave higher. It was originally used by traveling biwa minstrels, and its small size lent it to indoor play and improved portability. Yo-sen has 2 tones regarded as auxiliary tones. Players hold the instrument vertically. Written by Nobuko Fukatsu [51][52] Different schools have different repertoire in their music collection, and even though these schools share many of the same pieces in their repertoire, a same piece of music from the different schools may differ in their content.
The Birbyne and Biwa | The Other Instrument - Pennsylvania State University Taiko | musical instrument | Britannica Archlute - Wikipedia The pipa, pp, or p'i-p'a (Chinese: ) is a traditional Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. CLASSIFICATION DIAGRAM OF WOOD A fundamental structure of string instruments in the Asia and Western is a box-sound hole structure [4,5] as seen in the harpsichord, guitar, violin, and biwa . Biwa (Japanese instrument) - MIT Global Shakespeares Biwa (Japanese instrument) The Biwa is a Japanese teardrop lute, similar to the lute and the oud, with a short neck and frets. By the Ming dynasty, fingers replaced plectrum as the popular technique for playing pipa, although finger-playing techniques existed as early as Tang. The transmission parameter (product of propagation speed and Q value of the longitudinal wave along the wood grain . [21] The pipa underwent a number of changes over the centuries. to divide instruments into eight categories determined by materials. 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. [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. It is an instrument in Japan, that is a two-stringed fiddle (violin). 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. These players had considerable influence on the development of pipa playing in China. Novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties such as Jin Ping Mei showed pipa performance to be a normal aspect of life in these periods at home (where the characters in the novels may be proficient in the instrument) as well as outside on the street or in pleasure houses.[24]. 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. 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. This is a type of biwa that wandering blind monks played for religious practice as well as in narrative musical performances during the medieval era, widely seen in the Kyushu area. Title: Satsuma Biwa () Date: ca. [54][55] (The heptatonic scale was used for a time afterwards in the imperial court due to Sujiva's influence until it was later abandoned). The body is narrower and smaller than the other types of biwa. By the middle of the Meiji period, improvements had been made to the instruments and easily understandable songs were composed in quantity. In the 13th century, the story The Tale of Heike ()was created and told by them. The typical 5-stringed Satsuma-biwa classical tuning is: CGCG, from first string to fourth/fifth string, respectively. [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. It eventually became the favored instrument to accompany narrative singing, especially on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu where it was performed by blind Buddhist priests (ms). 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. It has not caught on in China but in Korea (where she also did some of her research) the bipa was revived since then and the current versions are based on Chinese pipa, including one with five-strings. Guilds supporting biwa players, particularly the biwa hshi, helped proliferate biwa musical development for hundreds of years. [1][2] Modern researchers such as Laurence Picken, Shigeo Kishibe, and John Myers suggested a non-Chinese origin. The short neck of the Tang pipa also became more elongated. Sandstone carving, showing the typical way a pipa was held when played with plectrum in the early period. Performers on the instrument frequently pluck two notes simultaneously, producing a variety of intervals, especially when the singer is silent. Chikuzen biwa music is narrative music much beholding to narrative shamisen music. There are three small soundholes on the soundboard: two visible ones (hangetsu) partially covered with moon-shaped caps made of ivory and a hidden one (ingetsu) beneath the string holder. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. Biwa Description The biwa is a four stringed lute and it is approximately 106 cm long (42 inches). 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. Its classification is a type of a Chordophone. The performer sings while playing the biwa, and the instrumental part is modular in structure in that there are dozens of named or numbered phrases that the player must internalize and that are used as the building blocks of the instrument part that supports the vocal part. 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). Its plectrum is small and thin, often rounded, and made from a hard material such as boxwood or ivory. [61][33], During the Song dynasty, players mentioned in literary texts include Du Bin (). This singing style is complemented by the biwa, which biwa players use to produce short glissandi throughout the performance. It is assumed that the performance traditions died out by the 10th or 11th century (William P. Malm). the finger and thumb separate in one action), it is called fen (), the reverse motion is called zhi (). It helps illustrate the neglible amount of resonance the biwa produces, because already after 1 second most of its sound energy is below the threshold of hearing. In modern biwa, particularly in Satsuma-biwa, one sometimes strikes the soundboard sharply to get percussive effects. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. With the end of the wars, unsurprisingly, the biwa music became less popular, and the number of biwa musicians dropped significantly. 5.
Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API. [1] An English translation was published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961. This seeming shortcoming is compensated for by the frets height and the low tension of the strings. The nishiki-biwa (), a modern biwa with five strings and five frets, was popularised by the 20th-century biwa player and composer Suit Kinj (, 19111973). The biwa has a shallow, rounded back and silk strings (usually four or five) attached to slender lateral pegs. [69] The instrument is also played by musician Min Xiaofen in "I See Who You Are", a song from Bjrk's album Volta. The earliest-known piece in the collection may be "Eagle Seizing a Crane" () which was mentioned in a Yuan dynasty text. Fine strings murmur like whispered words, 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. In Satsuma-biwa classical pieces, the thickest string (the first) is in principle used only as a drone, and usually tuned to the same note as the third string, making the second the lowest. The instrument is played with a large wedge-shaped plectrum called a bachi. When two strings are plucked at the same time with the index finger and thumb (i.e. At the beginning of the Meiji period, it was estimated that there were at least one hundred traditional court musicians in Tokyo; however, by the 1930s, this number had reduced to just 46 in Tokyo, and a quarter of these musicians later died in World War II. The pipa pieces in the common repertoire can be categorized as wen (, civil) or wu (, martial), and da (, large or suite) or xiao (, small). As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. The Biwa is a four-stringed Japanese lute with a short neck that was commonly used in Japanese court music in the seventh and eighth centuries. She now performs with Red Chamber and the Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble. This type of biwa, known as the gaku-biwa, was later used in gagaku ensembles and became the most commonly known type. Most contemporary performers use the five string version. 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 may be due to the fact that the word pipa was used in ancient texts to describe a variety of plucked chordophones of the period from the Qin to the Tang dynasty, including the long-necked spiked lute and the short-necked lute, as well as the differing accounts given in these ancient texts. [citation needed], In 2014, an industrial designer residing in the United States Xi Zheng () designed and crafted an electric pipa "E-pa" in New York. This article is about the Chinese instrument. II, p. 30. The strings are made of wound silk. The satsuma-biwa (), a biwa with four strings and four frets, was popularized during the Edo period in Satsuma Province (present-day Kagoshima) by Shimazu Tadayoshi. 38.5 in.
Sanxian | musical instrument | Britannica The biwa ( Japanese: ) is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. 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. 1. 36 in. While blind biwa singers no longer dominate the biwa, many performers continue to use the instrument in traditional and modern ways. 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 narrative biwa music adopts a relative tuning; the pitch is decided to match with the players range of voice. greatest depth of resonator Ueda Junko and Tanaka Yukio, two of Tsuruta's students, continue the tradition of the modern satsuma-biwa. 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. Hazusu: This is a sequence of two pitches, where the first one is attacked, and leades to a second one which is not attacked. 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. Japanese Music and Musical Instruments. In order to boost the volume of its sound the biwa player rarely attacks a single string, and instead arpeggios 2, 3, or 4 pitches, with one note per string.
Sanxian ("Three strings") or Xianzi (Spike lute) - University of Edinburgh It produces distinctive ichikotsuch () and hyj (). [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. The instrument is plucked with a pick made out of animal horn. In the performers right hand the bachi (plectrum) is held, its upward-pointing tip used to pluck the strings near the string holder. Other early known players of pipa include General Xie Shang from the Jin dynasty who was described to have performed it with his leg raised. [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. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company. The biwa is related to the Chinese pipa, an instrument that was introduced to Japan in the late 7th century. 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 (). Therefore the sound of the biwa is very strong at the attack but it has almost no resonance, and in that sense, its contribution to the overall sound of the orchestra is more rhythmic than harmonic. The instrument itself resembles gaku-biwa but is slightly smaller, and is held horizontally. greatest width of resonator Australian dark rock band The Eternal use the pipa in their song "Blood" as played by singer/guitarist Mark Kelson on their album Kartika. [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. This type of biwa is used for court music called gagaku (), which has been protected by the government until today.
105-126. Koizumi, Fumio. Pipa is also an important component of regional chamber ensemble traditions such as Jiangnan sizhu, Teochew string music and Nanguan ensemble. The peg box is angled about 90 degrees from the neck, and the back of the body is flat, unlike the western lute. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The name "pipa" is made up of two Chinese syllables, "p" () and "p" (). The 5-string specimen is larger (the vibrating length of its strings is 30.3 inches) and heavier than the 4-string specimen and also has some delicate decorative detail added that is carved out of mother-of-pearl (detail #8 and #9). The number of frets is considerably fewer than other fretted instruments. Figure 4 introduces the biwas six traditional tunings. 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. Typically 60 centimetres (24 in) to 106 centimetres (42 in) in length, the instrument is . Over 100 years after its development, the H-S system is still in use in most museums and in large inventory projects. Shamisen players and other musicians found it financially beneficial to switch to the biwa, bringing new styles of biwa music with them. In 2015, pipa player Jiaju Shen () released a mini album composed and produced by Li Zong (),[73] with E-pa music that has a strong Chinese flavor within a modern Western pop music mould. 1969. Gao Hong graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music and was the first to do a joint tour with Lin Shicheng in North America. A Sound Classification Musical instruments can be classified by the Western orchestral system into brass, percussion, strings, and woodwinds; but the S-H system allows non-western instruments to be classified as well. 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. [74], Modern pipa player, with the pipa held in near upright position. All rights reserved. Of the remaining post-war biwa traditions, only higo-biwa remains a style almost solely performed by blind persons. [25] Extra frets were added; the early instrument had 4 frets (, xing) on the neck, but during the early Ming dynasty extra bamboo frets (, pn) were affixed onto the soundboard, increasing the number of frets to around 10 and therefore the range of the instrument. The interval between the pitches of the open string and first fret is a major second, while the interval between pitches on two adjacent frets is a minor second. Both were pupils of Wang Yuting (18721951), and both were active in establishing and promoting Guoyue ("national music"), which is a combination of traditional regional music and Western musical practices. The biwa developed into five different types in its long history: . The ms-biwa (), a biwa with four strings, is used to play Buddhist mantras and songs. In the beginning of the Taish period (19121926), the satsuma-biwa was modified into the nishiki-biwa, which became popular among female players at the time. It is a big percussion instrument of Japanese that plays integral part of many Japanese Matsuri (festival). 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. 1984.
Musical Instruments of East Asia Flashcards | Quizlet It is possible to include a fingered pitch among the lower grace-notes but that pitch should preferably be chosen among those playable on the 4th fret. February 20, 2008. Chikuzen-biwa is another major type of biwa that is widely played today. Each type has different and unique tones, techniques, and musical styles. Instrument Information Origins. The horizontal playing position became the vertical (or near-vertical) position by the Qing dynasty, although in some regional genres such as nanguan the pipa is still held guitar fashion. Its classification is a type of an Aerophone. The four-string specimen is tuned to a shamisen tuning called honchshi (interval structure, from the lowest string upwards, of P4 - P5, with the top two strings tuned in unison): approximately B2 E3 B3 B3; a typical tuning for the 5-string instrument has the intervallic sequence of P4 (down) P4 (up) M2 (up) P4 (up), approximately E3 B2 E3 F-sharp3 B3. Its size and construction influences the sound of the instrument as the curved body is often struck percussively with the plectrum during play. In more recent times, many pipa players, especially the younger ones, no longer identify themselves with any specific school. Multiple strings are often played in one pluck like an arpeggio.
Traditional instruments in japanese and chinese music - SlideShare As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. Four or five frets are attached to the body, and it is played with a large wooden plectrum (bachi). Also, thanks to the possibility of relying on a level of virtuosity never before attempted in this specific repertory, the composer has sought the renewal of the acoustic and aesthetic profile of the biwa, bringing out the huge potential in the sound material: attacks and resonance, tempo (conceived not only in the chronometrical but also deliberately empathetical sense), chords, balance and dialogue (with the occasional use of two biwas in Nuove Musiche per Biwa), dynamics and colour.[4]. With turned wrist, he gathered the strings to pluck and strum faster. Beginning in the late 1960s, these musicians and composers began to incorporate Japanese music and Japanese instruments into their compositions; for example, one composer, Tru Takemitsu, collaborated with Western composers and compositions to include the distinctly Asian biwa. In the present day, there are no direct means of studying the biwa in many biwa traditions. 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].