Shamisen. A number of Western pipa players have experimented with amplified pipa. 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. Today, the instrument is played in both narrative and instrumental formats, in the traditional music scene as well as in various popular media. Biwa Description The biwa is a four stringed lute and it is approximately 106 cm long (42 inches). There is also evidence that other biwa instruments came from the Indian lute tradition. 5, period of the Northern Wei (384-441 A.D.), A Song dynasty fresco depicts a female pipa player among a group of musicians, Group of female musician from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907-960 AD), A mural from a Yuan dynasty tomb found in Hengshan County, Shaanxi, showing a man playing the pipa, A group of Qing dynasty musicians from Fuzhou. Another often-used technique is rubbing the long side of the bachi on the strings to get wind-like sounds. The tuning of the strings changes according to the pieces mode. 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. Each type has different and unique tones, techniques, and musical styles. L 31 1/2 W. 11 13/16 D. 1 5/16 in. There were originally two major schools of pipa during the Qing dynastythe Northern (Zhili, ) and Southern (Zhejiang, ) schoolsand from these emerged the five main schools associated with the solo tradition. Famous pieces such as "Ambushed from Ten Sides", "The Warlord Takes Off His Armour", and "Flute and Drum at Sunset" were first described in this collection. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The typical 5-stringed Satsuma-biwa classical tuning is: CGCG, from first string to fourth/fifth string, respectively. Sort by. [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. 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. Continent: Asia. As a point of clarification, the highest and last pitch of the biwa's arpeggio is considered as its melodic pitch. [2] Pear-shaped lutes have been depicted in Kusana sculptures from the 1st century AD. The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. The biwa developed into five different types in its long history: Gaku, Heike, Ms, Satsuma, and Chikuzen. 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 (). They included Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, and Su Shi. This type of biwa is used for court music called gagaku (), which has been protected by the government until today. Table of Contents 1. Yoko Hiraoka, a member of the Yamato Komyoji ryu, presents a lecture/recital of Japanese Biwa music. [44] The first volume contains 13 pieces from the Northern school, the second and third volumes contain 54 pieces from the Southern school. The biwa is a relative of Western lutes and guitars, as well as of the Chinese pipa. Koto 3. The instrument has seen a great decline . The Traditional Music of Japan. de Ferranti, Hugh. Two basic types of wood are used to make stringed musical instruments: woods for soundboards (top plates) and those for frame boards (back and side plates). The 4 wedge-shaped frets on the neck became 6 during the 20th century. As part of, Mamoru Ohashi (Japanese, active Ogasa, Shizouka Prefecture 1953). The pipa reached a height of popularity during the Tang dynasty, and was a principal musical instrument in the imperial court. Its classification is a type of a Chordophone. 5.5 in. 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. 89.4.123. The biwas shallow body is a bouncing board that sharply projects its sound forward. The short neck has four raised frets, each one specifically assigned to one of the left hand fingers. The artist Yang Jing plays pipa with a variety of groups. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa. [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. The strings are usually tuned to A2 D3 E3 A3 , although there are various other ways of tuning. For example, a piece like "The Warlord Takes off His Armour" is made up of many sections, some of them metered and some with free meter, and greater freedom in interpretation is possible in the free meter sections. Catalogue of the Crosby Brown . 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. It has the largest body and relatively short neck among biwas. 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. The instrument is tuned to match the key of the singer. Typically, the lowest notes of the arpeggios are open strings, while the highest ones can either be fingered pitches or an open string. A rapid strum is called sao (), and strumming in the reverse direction is called fu (). Wei Zhongle (; 19031997) played many instruments, including the guqin. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Male players typically play biwa that are slightly wider and/or longer than those used by women or children. 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. The fingers normally strike the strings of pipa in the opposite direction to the way a guitar is usually played, i.e. The gogen-biwa (, lit. Ms Biwa (), Dimensions: 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. Shamisen 5. Heike-biwa is an accompaniment instrument specifically used to chant the Tale of Heike stories () in the traditional way dating from the medieval era. Koto. Each type has different and unique tones, techniques, and musical styles. Through the next several centuries, players of both traditions intersected frequently and developed new music styles and new instruments. 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. It had close association with Buddhism and often appeared in mural and sculptural representations of musicians in Buddhist contexts. 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. Classification: Chordophone-Lute-plucked-fretted. This scale sometimes includes supplementary notes, but the core remains pentatonic. The biwa (Japanese: ) is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. 1984. By the Kamakura period (11851333), the heike-biwa had emerged as a more popular instrument, a cross between both the gaku-biwa and ms-biwa, retaining the rounded shape of the gaku-biwa and played with a large plectrum like the ms-biwa. In spite of its popularity, the nin War and subsequent Warring States Period disrupted biwa teaching and decreased the number of proficient users. 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. By the late 1940s, the biwa, a thoroughly Japanese tradition, was nearly completely abandoned for Western instruments; however, thanks to collaborative efforts by Japanese musicians, interest in the biwa is being revived. The rhythm in biwa performances allows for a broad flexibility of pulse. These players had considerable influence on the development of pipa playing in China. ________. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Yamashika, born in the late Meiji period, continued the biwa hshi tradition until his death in 1996. Its plectrum is small and thin, often rounded, and made from a hard material such as boxwood or ivory. The biwa has a shallow, rounded back and silk strings (usually four or five) attached to slender lateral pegs. Although no longer as popular as it once was, several chikuzen biwa schools have survived to the present day in Japan and to a lesser extent in Japanese communities abroad (such as in Hawaii). 2. [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. The number of frets is considerably fewer than other fretted instruments. He premiered the oldest Dunhuang Pipa Manuscript (the first interpretation made by Ye Dong) in Shanghai in the early 1980s. In the performers right hand the bachi (plectrum) is held, its upward-pointing tip used to pluck the strings near the string holder. 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). The biwa's twangy plucks were most commonly accompanied by a single voice during court performances, but its popularity spread the instrument made its way into religious sermons and oral history . 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. This is a system used to classify all musical instruments.This system was created by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs.The Hornbostel-Sachs system is based on how an instrument vibrates to produce sound. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. Blind priests would play them in order to tell stories and tales of ancient war. 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 instrument was invented in China in the 3rd to 5th centuries AD, during the Jin dynasty. Biwa 6. 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. 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]. The strings are made of wound silk. Hitting the body of the instrument: The plectrum is used to hit the black protective part on the front of the instrument. 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. When two strings are plucked at the same time with the index finger and thumb (i.e. Of the remaining post-war biwa traditions, only higo-biwa remains a style almost solely performed by blind persons. Interest in the biwa was revived during the Edo period (16001868), when Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan and established the Tokugawa shogunate. The peg box is angled about 90 degrees from the neck, and the back of the body is flat, unlike the western lute. 38.5 in. Its tuning is A, E, A, B, for traditional biwa, G, G, c, g, or G, G, d, g for contemporary compositions, among other tunings, but these are only examples as the instrument is tuned to match the key of the player's voice. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments. Heike Biwa (), Medium: 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. Other prominent students of Lin Shicheng at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing include Liu Guilian (, born 1961), Gao Hong and Wu Man. Painted panel of the sarcophagus of Y Hung, depicts one of the Persian or Sogdian figures playing pipa. 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 (). Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription. From the 3rd century onwards, through the Sui and Tang dynasty, the pear-shaped pipas became increasingly popular in China. 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". Chikuzen biwa music is narrative music much beholding to narrative shamisen music. The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889, Accession Number: From the Dingjiazha Tomb No. (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. Because of its traditional association with silk strings, the pipa is classified as a silk instrument in the Chinese bayin (eight-tone) classification system, a system devised by scholars of the Zhou court (1046-256 B.C.) There are seven main types of Biwa, each distinguished by the number of strings, sound produced, and use. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Typically, the three-note rhythm is either short-short-long or long-short-short. 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. With this, the biwa entered a period of popularity, with songs reflecting not just The Tale of the Heike, but also the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, with songs such as Takeo Hirose, Hitachimaru and 203 Hill gaining popularity. The satsuma-biwa is traditionally made from Japanese mulberry, although other hard woods such as Japanese zelkova are sometimes used in its construction. [36][37] The Ming collection of supernatural tales Fengshen Yanyi tells the story of Pipa Jing, a pipa spirit, but ghost stories involving pipa existed as early as the Jin dynasty, for example in the 4th century collection of tales Soushen Ji. Sandstone carving, showing the typical way a pipa was held when played with plectrum in the early period. The Koto came from the Chinese zither "Gu Zheng" during the Nara period in Japan. 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. (80 30 3.4 cm), Classification: The biwa originated in the Middle East and was delivered to Japan via the Silk Road in the 8th century. The biwa is related to the Chinese pipa, an instrument that was introduced to Japan in the late 7th century. 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. [56], Texts from Tang dynasty mentioned many renowned pipa players such as He Huaizhi (), Lei Haiqing (), Li Guaner (), and Pei Xingnu (). In Japan, the biwa is generally played with a bachi instead of the fingers, and is often used to play gagaku. [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. Tachibana sought to create a new narrative style that would appeal to a contemporary urban audience (de Ferranti p. 120) and that would be performed by sighted musicians. '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. Ms Biwa () Japanese. The biwa, originally an instrument of high society, gradually spread among wandering blind monks who used this instrument to tell stories. With the end of the wars, unsurprisingly, the biwa music became less popular, and the number of biwa musicians dropped significantly. The heike-biwa (), a biwa with four strings and five frets, is used to play The Tale of the Heike. And thanks to the low tension of the strings, it is easy to bend the strings by adding pressure. The biwa ( Japanese: ) is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. [17][14] Starting about the 10th century, players began to hold the instrument "more upright", as the fingernail style became more important. A. Odaiko B. Taiko C. Tsuridaiko D. Tsuzumi 2.

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