Players hold the instrument vertically. Painted panel of the sarcophagus of Y Hung, depicts one of the Persian or Sogdian figures playing pipa. All rights reserved. Description. Although this instrument is quite large and a very substantial plectrum is used to excite its strings, its sound is surprisingly soft and meant more for intimate settings rather than concert halls. 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. ________. The pipa pieces in the common repertoire can be categorized as wen (, civil) or wu (, martial), and da (, large or suite) or xiao (, small). 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. This type of biwa music has been preserved until now in gagaku (), or the court orchestra. Taiko | musical instrument | Britannica Pieces in the Wu style are generally more rhythmic and faster, and often depict scenes of battles and are played in a vigorous fashion employing a variety of techniques and sound effects. 592 AD, Sui dynasty. [17] Even higo-biwa players, who were quite popular in the early 20th century, may no longer have a direct means of studying oral composition, as the bearers of the tradition have either died or are no longer able to play. The same piece of music can therefore differ significantly when performed by students of different schools, with striking differences in interpretation, phrasing, tempo, dynamics, playing techniques, and ornamentations. It is a lute with a round, hollow soundboard, a short fretted neck, and usually four strings. [66] Some other notable pipa players in China include Yu Jia (), Wu Yu Xia (), Fang Jinlong () and Zhao Cong (). The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889, Accession Number: [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 biwas shallow body is a bouncing board that sharply projects its sound forward. Figure 5 shows examples of harmonic structures of, 2, 3, and 4 pitches in Ichikotsu-ch. 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. Northern Wei dynasty (386534 AD). 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. Depictions of the pear-shaped pipas appeared in abundance from the Southern and Northern dynasties onwards, and pipas from this time to the Tang dynasty were given various names, such as Hu pipa (), bent-neck pipa (, quxiang pipa), some of these terms however may refer to the same pipa. The biwa is related to the Chinese pipa, an instrument that was introduced to Japan in the late 7th century. Kakubachi: This is the performance of arpeggio with a downward motion of the plectrum, and it is always loud. Different sized plectrums produced different textures; for example, the plectrum used on a ms-biwa was much larger than that used on a gaku-biwa, producing a harsher, more vigorous sound. [24] However, it continued to be played as a folk instrument that also gained the interest of the literati. L 31 1/2 W. 11 13/16 D. 1 5/16 in. 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. In the Meiji period (1868-1912), sighted musicians created new styles of secular biwa narrative singing inspired by Kyushu ms traditions and introduced them to Tokyo. The biwa is a relative of Western lutes and guitars, as well as of the Chinese pipa. In Japan the loquat is known as biwa (, ) and has been grown for over . From the Dingjiazha Tomb No. Type. (92.7 20 12.7 cm), The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889. 5-string: biwa (gallery #2): Sanxian ("Three strings") or Xianzi (Spike lute) - University of Edinburgh Mural from Kizil, estimated Five Dynasties to Yuan dynasty, 10th to 13th century. Ueda Junko and Tanaka Yukio, two of Tsuruta's students, continue the tradition of the modern satsuma-biwa. Of the remaining post-war biwa traditions, only higo-biwa remains a style almost solely performed by blind persons. Traditional instruments in japanese and chinese music - SlideShare Yo-sen has 2 tones regarded as auxiliary tones. Reflecting its history as an instrument for samurai, its music is often described as dynamic and heroic. [51] The music collections from the 19th century also used the gongche notation which provides only a skeletal melody and approximate rhythms sometimes with the occasional playing instructions given (such as tremolo or string-bending), and how this basic framework can become fully fleshed out during a performance may only be learnt by the students from the master. 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. 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): Though formerly popular, little was written about the performance and practice of the biwa from roughly the 16th century to the mid-19th century. Played with a large wooden plectrum, the instrument has four or five strings of twisted silk stretched over four or more . Pipa has been played solo, or as part of a large ensemble or small group since the early times. Due to the slow growth of the Japanese mulberry, the wood must be taken from a tree at least 120 years old and dried for 10 years before construction can begin. An early depiction of pipa player in a group of musicians. The gogen-biwa (, lit. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Though its origins are unclear, this thinner variant of the biwa was used in ceremonies and religious rites. It is assumed that the performance traditions died out by the 10th or 11th century (William P. Malm). [20], Garfias, Gradual Modifications of the Gagaku Tradition 16, Garfias, Gradual Modifications of the Gagaku Tradition 18, Ferranti, Relations between Music and Text in "Higo Biwa", The "Nagashi" Pattern as a Text-MusicSystem 150, Learn how and when to remove this template message, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Biwa&oldid=1097578427, This page was last edited on 11 July 2022, at 14:28. [32][33][34] A famous poem by Bai Juyi, "Pipa xing" (), contains a description of a pipa performance during a chance encounter with a female pipa player on the Yangtze River:[35]. the fingers and thumb flick outward, unlike the guitar where the fingers and thumb normally pluck inward towards the palm of the hand. 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 gagaku biwa (), a large and heavy biwa with four strings and four frets, is used exclusively for gagaku. Most contemporary performers use the five string version. Title: Satsuma Biwa () Date: ca. 89.4.2088. Different schools however can have sections added or removed, and may differ in the number of sections with free meter. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. [3][4][5], The earliest mention of pipa in Chinese texts appeared late in the Han dynasty around the 2nd century AD. Updates? Koto. [9] When singing in a chorus, biwa singers often stagger their entry and often sing through non-synchronized, heterophony accompaniment. Further important collections were published in the 20th century. This type of biwa, known as the gaku-biwa, was later used in gagaku ensembles and became the most commonly known type. Typically, the lowest notes of the arpeggios are open strings, while the highest ones can either be fingered pitches or an open string. [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. 1. Most prominent among these are Minoru Miki, Thring Brm, YANG Jing, Terry Riley, Donald Reid Womack, Philip Glass, Lou Harrison, Tan Dun, Bright Sheng, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Bun-Ching Lam, and Carl Stone. https://japanese-music.com/profile/nobuko-fukatsu/. The biwa is a four stringed lute and it is approximately 106 cm long (42 inches). 'five-stringed biwa'), a Tang variant of biwa, can be seen in paintings of court orchestras and was used in the context of gagaku; however, it was removed with the reforms and standardization made to the court orchestra during the late 10th century. https://japanese-music.com/profile/nobuko-fukatsu/. [23], During the Song dynasty, pipa fell from favour at the imperial court, perhaps a result of the influence of neo-Confucian nativism as pipa had foreign associations. 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. [12] The plectrum is also critical to creating the sawari sound, which is particularly utilized with satsuma-biwa. (80 30 3.4 cm), The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889, "Musical Instruments in the Metropolitan Museum": The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 35, no. The stroking motion always starts from the 1st string, sequentially sweeping toward the others until it reaches the arpeggios last string. The instrument is played with a large wedge-shaped plectrum called a bachi. [21] For example, masses of pipa-playing Buddhist semi-deities are depicted in the wall paintings of the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang. Heike-biwa is an accompaniment instrument specifically used to chant the Tale of Heike stories () in the traditional way dating from the medieval era. Another often-used technique is rubbing the long side of the bachi on the strings to get wind-like sounds. The instrument initially used for this practice was the four-stringed chikuzen biwa (gallery #1), which was produced and sold cheaply--a fact attested to by the numbers of such instruments taken overseas by working-class emigrants. (de Ferranti, p. 122) [The instrument pictured in gallery #1 is very likely one of those many biwas taken overseas--it was purchased in a Honolulu shop specializing in Japanese antiques many of which were brought to Hawaii by Japanese immigrants in the early 20th century.] These tunings are relative, the actual pitches a given biwa is tuned to being determined by the vocal range of the singer/player. It had a pear-shaped wooden body with two crescent-shaped sound holes, a curved neck, four strings, and four frets. These two modern styles came to Tokyo with the local reformists who led the Meiji Restoration, and became the center of the contemporary music scene in the late 19th to early 20th century. With the end of the wars, unsurprisingly, the biwa music became less popular, and the number of biwa musicians dropped significantly. These cookies do not store any personal information. The body of the instrument is never struck with the plectrum during play, and the five string instrument is played upright, while the four string is played held on its side. 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. The four and five-stringed pipas were especially popular during the Tang dynasty, and these instruments were introduced into Japan during the Tang dynasty as well as into other regions such as Korea and Vietnam. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The six fret type is tuned to B, E, B and b. [1] The texture of biwa singing is often described as "sparse". 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]. Like the heike-biwa, it is played held on its side, similar to a guitar, with the player sitting cross-legged. Continent: Asia. Figure 6 shows a spectral analysis of the arpeggio read at the attack and one second later. The peg box is angled about 90 degrees from the neck, and the back of the body is flat, unlike the western lute. 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). [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 pipa, pp, or p'i-p'a (Chinese: ) is a traditional Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Ms Biwa (), Dimensions: This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Komoda Haruko. Outside influence, internal pressures, and socio-political turmoil redefined biwa patronage and the image of the biwa; for example, the nin War of the Muromachi period (13381573) and the subsequent Warring States period (15th17th centuries) disrupted the cycle of tutelage for heikyoku[citation needed][a] performers. 2008. 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. Ms Biwa () Japanese. 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. to the present. [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. Non-traditional themes may be used in these new compositions and some may reflect the political landscape and demands at the time of composition, for example "Dance of the Yi People" which is based on traditional melodies of the Yi people, may be seen as part of the drive for national unity, while "Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland" extols the virtue of those who served as model of exemplary behaviour in the People's commune.[48]. 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. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 681. Sanshin 4. Tokyo:Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai. 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. 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. 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. Shamisen players and other musicians found it financially beneficial to switch to the biwa, bringing new styles of biwa music with them. [17][18] The pear-shaped pipa may have been introduced during the Han dynasty and was referred to as Han pipa. de Ferranti, Hugh. The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. 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. 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. Once assembled, four wound silk strings of varying thicknesses are at one of their ends tied to the string holder bridge (detail #4) and the other to the tuning pegs. There is little space between the strings on the first three frets, causing obstruction when attacking an upper string whose immediate lower string is fingered in one of the first three frets. What is the hornbostelsachs classification of biwa instrument - Brainly 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. [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. greatest width of resonator 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. [3] From roughly the Meiji period (18681912) until the Pacific War, the satsuma-biwa and chikuzen-biwa were popular across Japan, and, at the beginning of the Shwa period (19251989), the nishiki-biwa was created and gained popularity. 77-103. biwa, Japanese short-necked lute, distinguished by its graceful, pear-shaped body. the finger and thumb separate in one action), it is called fen (), the reverse motion is called zhi (). The wu style was associated more with the Northern school while the wen style was more the Southern school. [38] It has however been suggested that the long plectrum depicted in ancient paintings may have been used as a friction stick like a bow. And thanks to the low tension of the strings, it is easy to bend the strings by adding pressure. [12][13] Yet another term used in ancient text was Qinhanzi (), perhaps similar to Qin pipa with a straight neck and a round body, but modern opinions differ on its precise form. greatest width of plectrum [13] What the plectrum is made of also changes the texture, with ivory and plastic plectrums creating a more resilient texture to the wooden plectrum's twangy hum. The biwa is a relative of Western lutes and guitars, as well as of the Chinese pipa. The main part of the music is vocal and the biwa part mostly plays short interludes. There are seven main types of Biwa, each distinguished by the number of strings, sound produced, and use. This overlap resulted in a rapid evolution of the biwa and its usage and made it one of the most popular instruments in Japan. Koto 3. An apsara (feitian) playing pipa, using fingers with the pipa held in near upright position. Archlute - Wikipedia Also known as mouth organ. [11] The style of singing accompanying biwa tends to be nasal, particularly when singing vowels, the consonant , and syllables beginning with "g", such as ga () and gi (). [2], Early literary tradition in China, for example in a 3rd-century description by Fu Xuan, Ode to Pipa,[1][28] associates the Han pipa with the northern frontier, Wang Zhaojun and other princesses who were married to nomad rulers of the Wusun and Xiongnu peoples in what is now Mongolia, northern Xinjiang and Kazakhstan. For a long time, the biwa tradition was carried on by wandering blind monks who used the instrument to tell stories such as the Tale of Heike (). The fourth and fifth strings, if 5-stringed, are tuned to the same note. This type of biwa is used for court music called gagaku (), which has been protected by the government until today. 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. The short neck has four raised frets, each one specifically assigned to one of the left hand fingers. February 20, 2008. 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. 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. He also qualified as a doctor of Chinese medicine. The archlute ( Spanish: archilad, Italian: arciliuto, German: Erzlaute) is a European plucked string instrument developed around 1600 as a compromise between the very large theorbo, the size and re-entrant tuning of which made for difficulties in the performance of solo music, and the Renaissance tenor lute, which lacked the bass range of the An English translation was published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961. However, false nails made of horn existed as early as the Ming period when finger-picking became the popular technique for playing pipa.[24]. 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. These parts can be seen in detail #1: peg box (hanju) with lobster tail-shaped finial (kairbi) [upper left]; four laterally mounted friction tuning pegs (tenju) [lower left]; neck (shikakubi) [right] with a tenon cut at each end (one fitting into a mortise cut into the peg box, the other into a mortise in the narrow end of the resonator) and five high frets (j); and a resonator made of a shallow, teardrop-shaped hollowed out wood shell (k) covered with a flat, thinly-shaven wood soundboard (fukuban) to which is glued a string holder tension bridge (fukuju) just above its rounded end [center]. Its tuning is C, G, c, g, g. Gaku-biwa, chikuzen-biwa, heike-biwa, ms-biwa, satsuma-biwa and their plectra. [6][7] According to Liu Xi's Eastern Han dynasty Dictionary of Names, the word pipa may have an onomatopoeic origin (the word being similar to the sounds the instrument makes),[6] although modern scholarship suggests a possible derivation from the Persian word "barbat", the two theories however are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Plucking in the opposite direction to tan and tiao are called mo () and gou () respectively. The sole stroke motion used in this example is kakubachi, but it also includes examples of hazusu and tataku. 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. Jiaju Shen from The Either also plays an Electric 5 String Pipa/Guitar hybrid that has the Hardware from an Electric Guitar combined with the Pipa, built by an instrument maker named Tim Sway called "Electric Pipa 2.0". The method of holding the plectrum is different when performing kaeshibachi or kakubachi, and consequently composers need to allow a few seconds for the repositioning of the hand when using the two techniques in sequence. Even the biwa hshi transitioned to other instruments such as the shamisen (a three-stringed lute).[15]. [10] An instrument called xiantao (), made by stretching strings over a small drum with handle, was said to have been played by labourers who constructed the Great Wall of China during the late Qin dynasty. 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. ) Over 100 years after its development, the H-S system is still in use in most museums and in large inventory projects. In the 20th century, two of the most prominent pipa players were Sun Yude (; 19041981) and Li Tingsong (; 19061976). Japanese Music and Musical Instruments. This type of instrument was introduced to Korea (the bipa ), to Japan (the biwa ), and to Vietnam (the tyba ). The strings are numbered from the lowest (first string) to the highest (fourth string). The chikuzen-biwa (), a biwa with four strings and four frets or five strings and five frets, was popularised in the Meiji period by Tachibana Satosada. Sanxian | musical instrument | Britannica Kishibe, Shigeo. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa. 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. greatest depth of resonator, multiple (by pressure stopping against fretted fingerboard). It is one of the more popular Chinese folk music, often paired with singing. 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. [71][self-published source] In 2014, French zhongruan player and composer Djang San, created his own electric pipa and recorded an experimental album that puts the electric pipa at the center of music. As one of the modern types of biwa that flourished in the late 19, centuries, Satsuma-biwa is widely played today in various settings, including popular media. There are some types of traditional string instrument. Player - Instrument Interface and Sound Production. OnMusic Dictionary - Term 2000. Since the biwas pegs do not move smoothly, tuning the instrument to a different mode requires time. . The number of frets is considerably fewer than other fretted instruments. The . 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. (88.9 30.8 29.2 cm) Classification: Chordophone-Lute-plucked-fretted Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1968 Accession Number: 68.62.1 Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings Options are limited when considering that a fingered string between two open strings must be fingered on the 4th fret to avoid damping. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Thick strings clatter like splattering rain, Moreover, it always starts from the 1st string and stops on either the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th string depending if the arpeggio contains 2, 3, or 4 pitches, respectively.