Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company. 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 (). 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. Reflecting its history as an instrument for samurai, its music is often described as dynamic and heroic. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. 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. The main part of the music is vocal and the biwa part mostly plays short interludes. The Met Fifth Avenue 1000 Fifth Avenue Through the next several centuries, players of both traditions intersected frequently and developed new music styles and new instruments. The 14- or 16-fret pipa had frets arranged in approximately equivalent to the western tone and semitone, starting at the nut, the intervals were T-S-S-S-T-S-S-S-T-T-3/4-3/4-T-T-3/4-3/4, (some frets produced a 3/4 tone or "neutral tone"). Nation: Japan.
Archlute - Wikipedia In spite of its popularity, the nin War and subsequent Warring States Period disrupted biwa teaching and decreased the number of proficient users. 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. Each type has different and unique tones, techniques, and musical styles. The excerpt is performed by the ensemble Reigakusha. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute ", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. 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. 2. Of the remaining post-war biwa traditions, only higo-biwa remains a style almost solely performed by blind persons. 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 . Pipa has been played solo, or as part of a large ensemble or small group since the early times.
Yoko Hiraoka, a Lecture/Recital of Japanese Biwa Music 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 (). A distinctive sound of pipa is the tremolo produced by the lunzhi () technique which involves all the fingers and thumb of the right hand. Seeing its relative convenience and portability, the monks combined these features with their large and heavy gaku-biwa to create the heike-biwa, which, as indicated by its namesake, was used primarily for recitations of The Tale of the Heike.
Ms Biwa () | Japanese | The Metropolitan Museum of Art Clara H. Rose (d. 1914) Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments: Asia, Gallery 27. The Koto came from the Chinese zither "Gu Zheng" during the Nara period in Japan. 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). Region: East Asia. The strings are tuned in fourths, and the melody is played almost exclusively on the highest pitched string. [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. 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]. 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. [2] Pear-shaped lutes have been depicted in Kusana sculptures from the 1st century AD. It is not used to accompany singing. Figure 5 shows examples of harmonic structures of, 2, 3, and 4 pitches in Ichikotsu-ch. Famous solo pieces now performed include: Most of the above are traditional compositions dating to the Qing dynasty or early 20th century, new pieces however are constantly being composed, and most of them follow a more Western structure. During the Qing dynasty, scores for pipa were collected in Thirteen Pieces for Strings.
the fingers and thumb flick outward, unlike the guitar where the fingers and thumb normally pluck inward towards the palm of the hand. With the abolition of Todo in the Meiji period, biwa players lost their patronage. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Taiko Center Online Shop - String Instruments - Tagged "Biwa" The peg box is angled about 90 degrees from the neck, and the back of the body is flat, unlike the western lute.
Traditional instruments in japanese and chinese music - SlideShare Other noted players of the early 20th century include Liu Tianhua, a student of Shen Zhaozhou of the Chongming school and who increased the number of frets on the pipa and changed to an equal-tempered tuning, and the blind player Abing from Wuxi. Example 4 also shows the biwa's standard one-measure motive. [1] An English translation was published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961. The gogen-biwa (, lit. 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 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. the finger and thumb separate in one action), it is called fen (), the reverse motion is called zhi (). Like the heike-biwa, it is played held on its side, similar to a guitar, with the player sitting cross-legged. Shamisen 5. Ms Biwa (), Dimensions:
Another. In the 20th century, two of the most prominent pipa players were Sun Yude (; 19041981) and Li Tingsong (; 19061976). 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.
[16], While many styles of biwa flourished in the early 1900s (such as kindai-biwa between 1900 and the 1930s), the cycle of tutelage was broken yet again by the war. 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 instrument is tuned to match the key of the singer.
Hornbostel-Sachs Instrument Classification System.pdf While the modern satsuma-biwa and chikuzen-biwa both originated from the ms-biwa, the satsuma-biwa was used for moral and mental training by samurai of the Satsuma Domain during the Warring States period, and later for general performances. 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. [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). At the beginning of the 13th century, Heike biwa players began telling of tales of the rise and fall of the Taira . [40] Through time, the neck was raised and by the Qing dynasty the instrument was mostly played upright. 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. 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. 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 biwa strings are plucked with large wooden pick called bachi (, The basic technique is to pluck down and up with the sharp corner. to the present. 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. From these styles also emerged the two principal survivors of the biwa tradition: satsuma-biwa and chikuzen-biwa. In this case, the left hand fourth finger taps the string so that the un-attacked pitch or pitches can be somewhat heard. He premiered the oldest Dunhuang Pipa Manuscript (the first interpretation made by Ye Dong) in Shanghai in the early 1980s. It was originally used by traveling biwa minstrels, and its small size lent it to indoor play and improved portability. The strings are numbered from the lowest (first string) to the highest (fourth string). The biwa is a relative of Western lutes and guitars, as well as of the Chinese pipa. 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. It is an instrument in Japan, that is a two-stringed fiddle (violin). Bodmin, Cornwall, Great Britain: MPG Books, pp. The biwa is a pear-shaped instrument with four or five strings. 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. The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. When two strings are plucked at the same time with the index finger and thumb (i.e. [2][29] Wang Zhaojun in particular is frequently referenced with pipa in later literary works and lyrics, for example Ma Zhiyuan's play Autumn in the Palace of Han (), especially since the Song dynasty (although her story is often conflated with other women including Liu Xijun),[30][29] as well as in music pieces such as Zhaojun's Lament (, also the title of a poem), and in paintings where she is often depicted holding a pipa. 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. Apart from the four-stringed pipa, other pear-shaped instruments introduced include the five-stringed, straight-necked, wuxian pipa (, also known as Kuchean pipa ()),[20] a six-stringed version, as well as the two-stringed hulei (). 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. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Malm, William P. 1959. [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. 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. Lin Shicheng (; 19222006), born in Shanghai, began learning music under his father and was taught by Shen Haochu (; 18991953), a leading player in the Pudong school style of pipa playing.
Acoustical classification of woods for string instruments 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. 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. Most ms biwas have tear-shaped bodies, but this rustic fish-shaped example was probably used by a wandering Buddhist monk. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Hornbostel-Sachs or Sachs-Hornbostel is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the Zeitschrift fr Ethnologie in 1914. Examples of popular modern works composed after the 1950s are "Dance of the Yi People" and "Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland" (). These works present a radical departure from the compositional languages usually employed for such an instrument. However, another variant of the biwa known as the ms-biwa or the kjin-biwa also found its way to Japan, first appearing in the Kyushu region. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tokyo:Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai. Bodmin, Cornwall, Great Britain: MPG Books, pp.
chikuzen biwa Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection Typically, the lowest notes of the arpeggios are open strings, while the highest ones can either be fingered pitches or an open string. The artist Yang Jing plays pipa with a variety of groups. ________. 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. Biwa players no longer enjoyed special privileges and were forced to support themselves. Instruments are classified using 5 different categories depending on the manner in which the instrument creates the sound: Idiophones, Membranophones, Chordophones, Aerophones, & Electrophones. Typically 60 centimetres (24 in) to 106 centimetres (42 in) in length, the instrument is . The basic technique is to pluck down and up with the sharp corner. Chordophone-Lute-plucked-fretted, Credit Line:
The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. to the present. 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.
What is the hornbostelsachs classification of biwa instrument - Brainly [9] When singing in a chorus, biwa singers often stagger their entry and often sing through non-synchronized, heterophony accompaniment. [3][4][5], The earliest mention of pipa in Chinese texts appeared late in the Han dynasty around the 2nd century AD. Interest in the biwa was revived during the Edo period (16001868), when Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan and established the Tokugawa shogunate. [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. 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. [14], Biwa usage in Japan has declined greatly since the Heian period. [22] Some delicately carved pipas with beautiful inlaid patterns date from this period, with particularly fine examples preserved in the Shosoin Museum in Japan. [14][15][16], The pear-shaped pipa is likely to have been introduced to China from Central Asia, Gandhara, and/or India. All rights reserved. Further, the frets and the nut are wide, which provides a surface, not a point, for a string to touch. A. Biwa B. Koto C. Shakuhachi D. Shamisen 3. In gagaku, it is known as the gaku-biwa (). The transmission parameter (product of propagation speed and Q value of the longitudinal wave along the wood grain . Japanese lute with 4-5 strings and frets. As a result, younger musicians turned to other instruments and interest in biwa music decreased. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. 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. 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. [61][33], During the Song dynasty, players mentioned in literary texts include Du Bin (). 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. It has the largest body and relatively short neck among biwas. 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). 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. 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. In the performers right hand the bachi (plectrum) is held, its upward-pointing tip used to pluck the strings near the string holder. It is a lute with a round, hollow soundboard, a short fretted neck, and usually four strings. [citation needed]. 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 biwa sounds as written, and it is tuned to an A-430Hz. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. It is an instrument in China, its mouth-blown free reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes. 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. Japanese Musical Instruments. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. 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. 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. [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. Sanshin 4. 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.
Musical Instruments of East Asia Flashcards | Quizlet 77-103. 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. As a point of clarification, the highest and last pitch of the biwa's arpeggio is considered as its melodic pitch. The biwas shallow body is a bouncing board that sharply projects its sound forward. The first and second strings are generally tuned to the same note, with the 4th (or doubled 4th) string is tuned one octave higher. Kakubachi: This is the performance of arpeggio with a downward motion of the plectrum, and it is always loud. 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. Another often-used technique is rubbing the long side of the bachi on the strings to get wind-like sounds. Influenced by the recitations of blind priests, the music of the heike biwa reflects the mood of the text. Traditionally they are lashed with heavier rope, though some modern instruments are tightened with large screws. He also qualified as a doctor of Chinese medicine. And thanks to the low tension of the strings, it is easy to bend the strings by adding pressure. Figure 4 introduces the biwas six traditional tunings. The biwa's Chinese predecessor was the pipa (), which arrived in Japan in two forms;[further explanation needed] following its introduction to Japan, varieties of the biwa quadrupled. A player holds it horizontally, and mostly plays rhythmic arpeggios in orchestra or ensemble. 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. Few pieces for pipa survived from the early periods, some, however, are preserved in Japan as part of togaku (Tang music) tradition. Though its origins are unclear, this thinner variant of the biwa was used in ceremonies and religious rites. Catalogue of the Crosby Brown . Recently, this instrument, much like the konghou harp, has been revived for historically informed performances and historical reconstructions. [24] However, it continued to be played as a folk instrument that also gained the interest of the literati. Chikuzen biwa music is narrative music much beholding to narrative shamisen music. 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 Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889, Accession Number:
It is the most widely used system for classifying musical . 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.