All rights reserved. (92.7 20 12.7 cm), The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889. The two-headed tacked drum hung in an elaborate circular frame in court music is a gaku-daiko or tsuri-daiko. Played with a large wooden plectrum, the instrument has four or five strings of twisted silk stretched over four or more . Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection - Chikuzen Biwa. Liu also studied with other musicians and has developed a style that combines elements from several different schools. Each school is associated with one or more collections of pipa music and named after its place of origin: These schools of the solo tradition emerged by students learning playing the pipa from a master, and each school has its own style, performance aesthetics, notation system, and may differ in their playing techniques. 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). Japanese Music and Musical Instruments. A number of Western pipa players have experimented with amplified pipa. [24] However, it continued to be played as a folk instrument that also gained the interest of the literati. Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item, Title: Carlo Forlivesi's compositions Boethius () and Nuove Musiche per Biwa () were both written for performance on the satsuma-biwa designed by Tsuruta and Tanaka. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. 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. The . 2008. [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. Shamisen players and other musicians found it financially beneficial to switch to the biwa, bringing new styles of biwa music with them. 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. The biwa is a four stringed lute and it is approximately 106 cm long (42 inches). We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API. The pear-shaped instrument may have existed in China as early as the Han dynasty, and although historically the term pipa was once used to refer to a variety of plucked chordophones, its usage since the Song dynasty refers exclusively to the pear-shaped instrument. The narrative biwa music adopts a relative tuning; the pitch is decided to match with the players range of voice. Further, the frets and the nut are wide, which provides a surface, not a point, for a string to touch. It had a pear-shaped wooden body with two crescent-shaped sound holes, a curved neck, four strings, and four frets. The biwa is related to the Chinese pipa, an instrument that was introduced to Japan in the late 7th century. Clara H. Rose (d. 1914) Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments: Asia, Gallery 27. Techniques that produce vibrato, portamento, glissando, pizzicato, harmonics or artificial harmonics found in violin or guitar are also found in pipa. [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. It was those blind monks who fell outside of governmental protection who, during the 17. century, creatively modified the biwa to introduce a shamisen flavor, such as making frets higher to play in-between notes. (80 30 3.4 cm), Classification: There are seven main types of Biwa, each distinguished by the number of strings, sound produced, and use. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Waribachi: This is a downward sweeping of the four strings, dividing the motion into two groups of two notes. What is known is that three main streams of biwa practice emerged during this time: zato (the lowest level of the state-controlled guild of blind biwa players), shifu (samurai style), and chofu (urban style). It has the largest body and relatively short neck among biwas. The strings are sounded with a large, thick, fan-shaped plectrum called a bachi (detail #6), traditionally made of wood (the practice bachi pictured here is made from resin). [citation needed]. 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 Chordophone-Lute-plucked-fretted, Credit Line: 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. The pipa, pp, or p'i-p'a ( Chinese: ) is a traditional Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. (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. [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. This overlap resulted in a rapid evolution of the biwa and its usage and made it one of the most popular instruments in Japan. 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. 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 fourth and fifth strings, if 5-stringed, are tuned to the same note. Other prominent students of Lin Shicheng at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing include Liu Guilian (, born 1961), Gao Hong and Wu Man. The biwa may be used to accompany various types of narrative, as part of a gagaku (court music) ensemble, or as a solo instrument. 1984. [8] The varying string thickness creates different timbres when stroked from different directions. to the present. 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. 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. Ms Biwa (), Dimensions: During the Song dynasty, many of the literati and poets wrote ci verses, a form of poetry meant to be sung and accompanied by instruments such as pipa. 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. The texture of biwa singing is often described as "sparse". The Museum's collection of musical instruments includes approximately 5,000 examples from six continents and the Pacific Islands, dating from about 300 B.C. Even though the system has been criticized and revised over the years, it is the most widely accepted system of musical instrument classification used by organologists and . It is the most widely used system for classifying musical instruments by ethnomusicologists and organologists . It is an important instrument in the Peking opera orchestra, often taking the role of main melodic instrument in lieu of the bowed string section. Its plectrum is small and thin, often rounded, and made from a hard material such as boxwood or ivory. 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. 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. [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. It is an arpeggio that is always starting from the first string (the lowest) and swepping upwards to either the second, third or fourth string. Yoko Hiraoka, a member of the Yamato Komyoji ryu, presents a lecture/recital of Japanese Biwa music. Omissions? The strings are struck with a hand-held wooden plectrum. One of these, the new chikuzen biwa tradition, became popular amongst many thousands of amateurs between c.1900 and 1920. The biwa, originally an instrument of high society, gradually spread among wandering blind monks who used this instrument to tell stories. Taiko Related Articles on Traditional Japanese Instruments 1. Wood, leather, Dimensions: Title: Satsuma Biwa () Date: ca. 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. 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. 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. And thanks to the low tension of the strings, it is easy to bend the strings by adding pressure. Its classification is a type of a Chordophone. [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 (). In the 13th century, the story The Tale of Heike ()was created and told by them. Its tuning is A, c, e, a or A, c-sharp, e, a. Detail #2 shows the backside of the instrument; detail #3 is a side view revealing both the shallowness of the bowl-shaped resonator and the height of the frets that are glued onto the neck. It has the largest body and relatively short neck among biwas. There is also evidence that other biwa instruments came from the Indian lute tradition. The 4 wedge-shaped frets on the neck became 6 during the 20th century. Chikuzen biwa music is narrative music much beholding to narrative shamisen music. So the previously mentioned tuning can be tuned down to B, F, B, c, d. Asahikai and Tachibanakai are the two major schools of chikuzen-biwa. [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]. This type of biwa is used for court music called gagaku (), which has been protected by the government until today. The biwa player with whom we worked, NAKAMURA Kahoru, improvised ten different versions of this rhythm. are crucial techniques to create the biwas subtle in-between notes that are unique for fretted instruments. This instrument was also used many times as an accompanying instrument in larger ensembles. Kaeshibachi: The performance of arpeggio with an up-ward motion of the plectrum, and it is always soft. [22] Some delicately carved pipas with beautiful inlaid patterns date from this period, with particularly fine examples preserved in the Shosoin Museum in Japan. Player - Instrument Interface and Sound Production. The short neck of the Tang pipa also became more elongated. The number of frets is considerably fewer than other fretted instruments. Thick strings clatter like splattering rain, 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 nishiki-biwa (), a modern biwa with five strings and five frets, was popularised by the 20th-century biwa player and composer Suit Kinj (, 19111973). [53] The introduction of pipa from Central Asia also brought with it virtuoso performers from that region, for example Sujiva (, Sujipo) from the Kingdom of Kucha during the Northern Zhou dynasty, Kang Kunlun () from Kangju, and Pei Luoer () from Shule. The body is often made of stretched snakeskin, and come in varying sizes. 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. Reflecting its history as an instrument for samurai, its music is often described as dynamic and heroic. The biwa strings are plucked with large wooden pick called bachi () that requires a full-handed grip. The plectrum is usually made from rosewood with boxwood or ivory tips for plucking the strings. [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. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. 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. 4. The pipa reached a height of popularity during the Tang dynasty, and was a principal musical instrument in the imperial court. [1] An English translation was published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961. One of the biwa's most famous uses is for reciting The Tale of the Heike, a war chronicle from the Kamakura period (11851333). The Museum's collection of musical instruments includes approximately 5,000 examples from six continents and the Pacific Islands, dating from about 300 B.C. 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 main part of the music is vocal and the biwa part mostly plays short interludes. During the 1950s, the use of metal strings in place of the traditional silk ones also resulted in a change in the sound of the pipa which became brighter and stronger. 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 . A pipa player playing with the pipa behind his back. Players hold the instrument vertically. 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. 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. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 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. A. Odaiko B. Taiko C. Tsuridaiko D. Tsuzumi 2. 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. Examples of popular modern works composed after the 1950s are "Dance of the Yi People" and "Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland" (). Typically, the three-note rhythm is either short-short-long or long-short-short. The number of frets is considerably fewer than other fretted instruments. 1800 Geography: Japan Culture: Japanese Medium: Wood, mother-of-pearl and ivory Dimensions: 35 12 1/8 11 1/2 in. The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. Guilds supporting biwa players, particularly the biwa hshi, helped proliferate biwa musical development for hundreds of years. With turned wrist, he gathered the strings to pluck and strum faster. The biwa (Japanese: ) is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. Bodmin, Cornwall, Great Britain: MPG Books, pp. 2. This 5-stringed lute with a powerful. Sandstone carving, showing the typical way a pipa was held when played with plectrum in the early period. Kindai-biwa still retains a significant number of professional and amateur practitioners, but the zato, heike, and moso-biwa styles have all but died out. These works present a radical departure from the compositional languages usually employed for such an instrument. 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. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute ", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. However, the biwas cultural significance is due to its evolution during the medieval era into a narrative musical instrument. [39] The plectrum has now been largely replaced by the fingernails of the right hand. Example 4 also shows the biwa's standard one-measure motive. As well as being one of the leading pipa players of his generation, Li held many academic positions and also carried out research on pipa scales and temperament. The phrase structure is of four measures of four beats, and each section is composed of two phrases. There, they assumed the role of Buddhist monks and encountered the ms-biwa. 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. 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. [27] The traditional 16-fret pipa became less common, although it is still used in some regional styles such as the pipa in the southern genre of nanguan/nanyin. In 1956, after working for some years in Shanghai, Lin accepted a position at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Pei Luoer was known for pioneering finger-playing techniques,[25] while Sujiva was noted for the "Seven modes and seven tones", a musical modal theory from India. [6] Another Han dynasty text, Fengsu Tongyi, also indicates that, at that time, pipa was a recent arrival,[7] although later 3rd-century texts from the Jin dynasty suggest that pipa existed in China as early as the Qin dynasty (221206 BC). Typically, the lowest notes of the arpeggios are open strings, while the highest ones can either be fingered pitches or an open string. The name "pipa" is made up of two Chinese syllables, "p" () and "p" (). It is a big percussion instrument of Japanese that plays integral part of many Japanese Matsuri (festival). When two strings are plucked at the same time with the index finger and thumb (i.e. Its size and construction influences the sound of the instrument as the curved body is often struck percussively with the plectrum during play. 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. 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. As one of the modern types of biwa that flourished in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, Satsuma-biwa is widely played today in various settings, including popular media. 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. 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. 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]. greatest depth of resonator, multiple (by pressure stopping against fretted fingerboard). General tones and pitches can fluctuate up or down entire steps or microtones. Influenced by the recitations of blind priests, the music of the heike biwa reflects the mood of the text. 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). 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. Sheng. Since biwa pieces were generally performed for small groups, singers did not need to project their voices as opera singers did in Western music tradition. The Koto came from the Chinese zither "Gu Zheng" during the Nara period in Japan. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company. She now performs with Red Chamber and the Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble. The instrument is played with a large wedge-shaped plectrum called a bachi. 13 in. 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. The pear-shaped biwa lute has enchanted listeners in Japan for centuries. 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.