This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. 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. 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. Life in post-war Japan was difficult, and many musicians abandoned their music in favor of more sustainable livelihoods. Japanese Music and Musical Instruments. With turned wrist, he gathered the strings to pluck and strum faster. 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. Formation: Japanese. 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. Koto. Another excerpt of figurative descriptions of a pipa music may be found in a eulogy for a pipa player, Lament for Shancai by Li Shen:[33]. The name "pipa" is made up of two Chinese syllables, "p" () and "p" (). Though its origins are unclear, this thinner variant of the biwa was used in ceremonies and religious rites. [12] The plectrum is also critical to creating the sawari sound, which is particularly utilized with satsuma-biwa. The biwa has a shallow, rounded back and silk strings (usually four or five) attached to slender lateral pegs. Ueda Junko and Tanaka Yukio, two of Tsuruta's students, continue the tradition of the modern satsuma-biwa. Typically, the lowest notes of the arpeggios are open strings, while the highest ones can either be fingered pitches or an open string. Generally speaking, biwa have four strings, though modern satsuma- and chikuzen-biwa may have five strings. . In the late 20th century, largely through the efforts of Wu Man (in USA), Min Xiao-Fen (in USA), composer Yang Jing (in Europe) and other performers, Chinese and Western contemporary composers began to create new works for the pipa (both solo and in combination with chamber ensembles and orchestra). The biwa may be used to accompany various types of narrative, as part of a gagaku (court music) ensemble, or as a solo instrument. [21] During this time, Persian and Kuchan performers and teachers were in demand in the capital, Chang'an (which had a large Persian community). There is also evidence that other biwa instruments came from the Indian lute tradition. However, depictions of the pear-shaped pipas in China only appeared after the Han dynasty during the Jin dynasty in the late 4th to early 5th century. Like with the shamisen, a distinctive raspy tone quality called sawari is associated with the chikuzen biwa. The biwa arrived in Japan in the 7th century, having evolved from the Chinese bent-neck pipa (; quxiang pipa),[1] while the pipa itself was derived from similar instruments in West Asia. Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API. 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. Loquat - Wikipedia The five-stringed pipa however had fallen from use by the Song dynasty, although attempts have been made to revive this instrument in the early 21st century with a modernized five-string pipa modeled on the Tang dynasty instrument. 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. 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. [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. This type of instrument was introduced to Korea (the bipa ), to Japan (the biwa ), and to Vietnam (the tyba ). Further, the frets and the nut are wide, which provides a surface, not a point, for a string to touch. The traditional Satsuma-biwa has 4 strings and 4 frets (Sei-ha and Kinshin-ryu schools), and newer styles have 5 strings and 5 frets (Nishiki and Tsuruta-ryu schools). 3 in. Ms Biwa () | Japanese | The Metropolitan Museum of Art Biwa. String-bending for example may be used to produce a glissando or portamento. 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. In more recent times, many pipa players, especially the younger ones, no longer identify themselves with any specific school. [34][57][58] Duan Anjie described the duel between the famous pipa player Kang Kunlun and the monk Duan Shanben () who was disguised as a girl, and told the story of Yang Zhi () who learned how to play the pipa secretly by listening to his aunt playing at night. It had close association with Buddhism and often appeared in mural and sculptural representations of musicians in Buddhist contexts. Chikuzen was an historic northern province on Kyushu, the southern-most main island of Japan. shamisen Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection Grinnell The chikuzen-biwa was used by Buddhist monks visiting private residences to perform memorial services, not only for Buddhist rites, but also to accompany the telling of stories and news. 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. Traditional instruments in japanese and chinese music - SlideShare 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 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. 5-string: biwa (gallery #2): 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 instrument's rounded rectangular resonator has a snakeskin front and back, and the curved-back pegbox at the end of the neck has lateral, or side, tuning pegs that adjust three silk or nylon strings. Archlute - Wikipedia The strings are made of wound silk. [21] The pipa underwent a number of changes over the centuries. L 31 1/2 W. 11 13/16 D. 1 5/16 in. [43] The collection was edited by Hua Qiuping (, 17841859) and published in 1819 in three volumes. Chikuzen biwa music is narrative music much beholding to narrative shamisen music. Wei Zhongle (; 19031997) played many instruments, including the guqin. (80 30 3.4 cm), Classification:
Sanxian ("Three strings") or Xianzi (Spike lute) - University of Edinburgh Each type has different and unique tones, techniques, and musical styles. Biwa - Wikipedia The heike-biwa, smaller than the ms-biwa, was used for similar purposes. They included Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, and Su Shi. In addition, there are a number of techniques that produce sound effects rather than musical notes, for example, striking the board of the pipa for a percussive sound, or strings-twisting while playing that produces a cymbal-like effect. In biwa, tuning is not fixed. 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. [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. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. [1][2] Modern researchers such as Laurence Picken, Shigeo Kishibe, and John Myers suggested a non-Chinese origin. The piece is in Hy-j mode (E Dorian) and the basic melody is centered on the pitches: E, B, and A, three of the four fundamental pitches of the Japanese modes. 38.5 in. This music called heikyoku () was cherished and protected by the authorities and particularly flourished in the 14-15th centuries. This is the original form of biwa that came to Japan in the 8. century. Shamisen 5. Hornbostel-Sachs Instrument Classification System.pdf About Biwa - Japanese Traditional Music 2. [14], Biwa usage in Japan has declined greatly since the Heian period. Clara H. Rose (d. 1914) Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments: Asia, Gallery 27. Beginning in the late 1960s to the late 1980s, composers and historians from all over the world visited Yamashika and recorded many of his songs; before this time, the biwa hshi tradition had been a completely oral tradition. In 1868, the Tokugawa shogunate collapsed, giving way to the Meiji period and the Meiji Restoration, during which the samurai class was abolished, and the Todo lost their patronage. Its size and construction influences the sound of the instrument as the curved body is often struck percussively with the plectrum during play. The plectrum is usually made from rosewood with boxwood or ivory tips for plucking the strings. later versions were played by the blind Japanese lute priests of the Heian period and it was also played as background music for story-telling In the 9th century the Ms (blind monks') biwa began to be used by blind musicians as an accompaniment to chanted religious texts and sutras. Not to be confused with the five-stringed variants of modern biwa, such as chikuzen-biwa. The main part of the music is vocal and the biwa part mostly plays short interludes. Performers on the instrument frequently pluck two notes simultaneously, producing a variety of intervals, especially when the singer is silent. We speculate that being half-way in the section, the purpose of this clash may be to avoid a too strong feeling of cadence on the 'tonic E,' since there is one more phrase to come before completing this section. The loquat is in the family Rosaceae, and is native to the cooler hill regions of south-central China. [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. By the middle of the Meiji period, improvements had been made to the instruments and easily understandable songs were composed in quantity. 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). Pipa has been played solo, or as part of a large ensemble or small group since the early times. Typically, the second pitch is fingered on the same string one or two frets lower than the first one, and the note is attacked and then lifted off into the second fret position. [17][18] The pear-shaped pipa may have been introduced during the Han dynasty and was referred to as Han pipa. 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. The biwa is related to the Chinese pipa, an instrument that was introduced to Japan in the late 7th century. [8] The varying string thickness creates different timbres when stroked from different directions. 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. [19] Pipa acquired a number of Chinese symbolisms during the Han dynasty - the instrument length of three feet five inches represents the three realms (heaven, earth, and man) and the five elements, while the four strings represent the four seasons.[7]. During the 1910s a five-string model was developed that, since the 1920s, has been the most common form of the instrument (gallery #2). ________. Figure 6 shows a spectral analysis of the arpeggio read at the attack and one second later. Bodmin, Cornwall, Great Britain: MPG Books, pp. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. 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. Its purpose is to show in context how the biwa uses its various patterns to color some melodic tones. An early depiction of pipa player in a group of musicians. 1. It is made out of wood, with a teardrop-shaped body and a long neck with four or five high frets, and is stringed with four or five silk strings that are plucked by a big pick called bachi (). The Edo period proved to be one of the most prolific and artistically creative periods for the biwa in its long history in Japan. to the present. The rich legacy of the biwa | The Japan Times 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. 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. Four or five frets are attached to the body, and it is played with a large wooden plectrum (bachi). Heike-biwa is an accompaniment instrument specifically used to chant the Tale of Heike stories () in the traditional way dating from the medieval era. The wen style is more lyrical and slower in tempo, with softer dynamic and subtler colour, and such pieces typically describe love, sorrow, and scenes of nature. 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. Chikuzen Biwa. And thanks to the low tension of the strings, it is easy to bend the strings by adding pressure. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Sandstone carving, showing the typical way a pipa was held when played with plectrum in the early period. Kishibe, Shigeo. This is the original form of biwa that came to Japan in the 8th century. The performers left hand is used both to steady the instrument, with the thumb hooked around the backside of the neck, and to depress the strings, the index finger doing most of the work but sometimes aided by the middle finger. It is similar in shape to the chikuzen-biwa, but with a much more narrow body. Credit Line: The Crosby Brown Collection . By the Ming dynasty, fingers replaced plectrum as the popular technique for playing pipa, although finger-playing techniques existed as early as Tang. Blind priests would play them in order to tell stories and tales of ancient war. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. A number of Western pipa players have experimented with amplified pipa. Like the heike-biwa, it is played held on its side, similar to a guitar, with the player sitting cross-legged. These players had considerable influence on the development of pipa playing in China. In the 18th century, samurai in the Satsuma area (southern part of Kyushu island) adopted the blind monks biwa music into their musical practices. https://japanese-music.com/profile/nobuko-fukatsu/. The four fret type is tuned to E, B, E and A, and the five fret type is tuned to B, e, f and f. Classification (Sachs-Von Hornbostel revised by MIMO) 321.312 chordophone--spike box lute or spike guitar: the resonator is built up from wood, the body of the instrument is in the form of a box through which the handle/neck passes Its plectrum is small and thin, often rounded, and made from a hard material such as boxwood or ivory. 2008. Instrument Classification | Mary K. Oyer African Music Archive | Goshen 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 . Few pieces for pipa survived from the early periods, some, however, are preserved in Japan as part of togaku (Tang music) tradition. The biwa is a four stringed lute and it is approximately 106 cm long (42 inches). The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. Continent: Asia. [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).