biwa instrument classification

[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. 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. Among ethnomusicologists, it is the most widely used system for classifying musical instruments. From the Dingjiazha Tomb No. Its plectrum is small and thin, often rounded, and made from a hard material such as boxwood or ivory. The plectrum also contributes to the texture of biwa music. The biwa may be used to accompany various types of narrative, as part of a gagaku (court music) ensemble, or as a solo instrument. 77-103. The strings are struck with a hand-held wooden plectrum. 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]. In modern biwa, particularly in Satsuma-biwa, one sometimes strikes the soundboard sharply to get percussive effects. Shakuhachi 2. 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. By the Song dynasty, the word pipa was used to refer exclusively to the four-stringed pear-shaped instrument. 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. 5. [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. are crucial techniques to create the biwas subtle in-between notes that are unique for fretted instruments. The exception for these methods is for when hazusu or tataku are performed on the 4th string. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The biwa, originally an instrument of high society, gradually spread among wandering blind monks who used this instrument to tell stories. A. Biwa B. Koto C. Shakuhachi D. Shamisen 3. Pipa is also an important component of regional chamber ensemble traditions such as Jiangnan sizhu, Teochew string music and Nanguan ensemble. Koto. In the present day, there are no direct means of studying the biwa in many biwa traditions. Australian dark rock band The Eternal use the pipa in their song "Blood" as played by singer/guitarist Mark Kelson on their album Kartika. Region: East Asia. [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. 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. 592 AD, Sui dynasty. This next instrument seems to have some spiritual meaning behind it. Pipa has been played solo, or as part of a large ensemble or small group since the early times. Players hold the instrument vertically. Hornbostel-Sach Classification of instruments is a means of sorting out instruments according to how it produces sound. Also known as mouth organ. The biwa strings are plucked with large wooden pick called bachi (, The basic technique is to pluck down and up with the sharp corner. 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. 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 (). Exploiting the sound of the open strings increases the overall sounds volume. The pear-shaped biwa lute has enchanted listeners in Japan for centuries. Of the remaining post-war biwa traditions, only higo-biwa remains a style almost solely performed by blind persons. A Sound Classification Musical instruments can be classified by the Western orchestral system into brass, percussion, strings, and woodwinds; but the S-H system allows non-western instruments to be classified as well. Note however that the frets on all Chinese lutes are high so that the fingers and strings never touch the fingerboard in between the frets, this is different from many Western fretted instruments and allows for dramatic vibrato and other pitch changing effects. Techniques that produce vibrato, portamento, glissando, pizzicato, harmonics or artificial harmonics found in violin or guitar are also found in pipa. A new way to classify the acoustical properties of woods and clearly separate these two groups is proposed in this paper. In 1956, after working for some years in Shanghai, Lin accepted a position at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. 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. Its size and construction influences the sound of the instrument as the curved body is often struck percussively with the plectrum during play. [21] During this time, Persian and Kuchan performers and teachers were in demand in the capital, Chang'an (which had a large Persian community). The biwa ( Japanese: ) is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. Popular Japanese three-stringed lute. [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. [54][55] (The heptatonic scale was used for a time afterwards in the imperial court due to Sujiva's influence until it was later abandoned). greatest depth of resonator This causes a sustained, buzzing noise called sawari () which adds a unique flavor to the biwa sound. [49] In Nanguan music, the pipa is still held in the near-horizontal position or guitar-fashion in the ancient manner instead of the vertical position normally used for solo playing in the present day. 2008. 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. [66] Some other notable pipa players in China include Yu Jia (), Wu Yu Xia (), Fang Jinlong () and Zhao Cong (). https://japanese-music.com/profile/nobuko-fukatsu/. 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. 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. This seeming shortcoming is compensated for by the frets height and the low tension of the strings. 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. The biwa is a stringed instrument used in Japan as a sort of story telling method. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription. 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 . used to strike the hard soundboard sharply to create percussive effects, adding a more dynamic flavor to the music. The biwa, originally an instrument of high society, gradually spread among wandering blind monks who used this instrument to tell stories. In gagaku, it is known as the gaku-biwa (). The performer sings while playing the biwa, and the instrumental part is modular in structure in that there are dozens of named or numbered phrases that the player must internalize and that are used as the building blocks of the instrument part that supports the vocal part. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 681. [12] The plectrum is also critical to creating the sawari sound, which is particularly utilized with satsuma-biwa. In Japan the loquat is known as biwa (, ) and has been grown for over . 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. ) In the early 1950s, he founded the traditional instruments department at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The artist Yang Jing plays pipa with a variety of groups. They recorded the critically acclaimed CD "Eagle Seizing Swan" together. [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. 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. However, the biwas cultural significance is due to its evolution during the medieval era into a narrative musical instrument. 2000. Reflecting its history as an instrument for samurai, its music is often described as dynamic and heroic. On the plectrum, figure of a golden phoenix with flowers in its beak, In spite of its popularity, the nin War and subsequent Warring States Period disrupted biwa teaching and decreased the number of proficient users. 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. The chikuzen biwa is played with the performer in the seiza position (on the knees, legs folded under) on the floor. 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. [42] During the Qing dynasty there originally two major schools of pipathe Northern and Southern schools, and music scores for these two traditions were collected and published in the first mass-produced edition of solo pieces for pipa, now commonly known as the Hua Collection (). Ieyasu favored biwa music and became a major patron, helping to strengthen biwa guilds (called Todo) by financing them and allowing them special privileges. In the 13th century, the story The Tale of Heike ()was created and told by them. From these styles also emerged the two principal survivors of the biwa tradition: satsuma-biwa and chikuzen-biwa. [56], Texts from Tang dynasty mentioned many renowned pipa players such as He Huaizhi (), Lei Haiqing (), Li Guaner (), and Pei Xingnu (). If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The open strings are shown in the first measures, and the pitches assigned the left-hand fingered notes in the following four measures. Written by Nobuko Fukatsu [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. This music was cherished and protected by the authorities and particularly flourished in the 14th-15th centuries. There are some confusions and disagreements about the origin of pipa. Idiophones African Thumb Pianos [1][2] Modern researchers such as Laurence Picken, Shigeo Kishibe, and John Myers suggested a non-Chinese origin. By the Ming dynasty, fingers replaced plectrum as the popular technique for playing pipa, although finger-playing techniques existed as early as Tang. 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. 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. 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. [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. 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. greatest width of plectrum Wei Zhongle (; 19031997) played many instruments, including the guqin. This type of biwa music has been preserved until now in gagaku (), or the court orchestra. In modern biwa, particularly in Satsuma-biwa, one sometimes strikes the soundboard sharply to get percussive effects. Koizumi, Fumio. 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. The fish is an auspicious symbol of Buddhism signifying wakeful attention since most fish lack eyelids and remain alert. 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. The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. Its tuning is A, c, e, a or A, c-sharp, e, a. The biwa is a four stringed lute and it is approximately 106 cm long (42 inches). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Japanese Music and Musical Instruments. 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 . The biwa sounds as written, and it is tuned to an A-430Hz. 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. 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). Guilds supporting biwa players, particularly the biwa hshi, helped proliferate biwa musical development for hundreds of years. greatest depth of resonator, multiple (by pressure stopping against fretted fingerboard). [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 (). Biwa 6. Biwa players no longer enjoyed special privileges and were forced to support themselves. They included Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, and Su Shi. Chikuzen was an historic northern province on Kyushu, the southern-most main island of Japan. 2.2 in. greatest width of resonator The biwa is related to the Chinese pipa, an instrument that was introduced to Japan in the late 7th century. 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. As in shamisen music, vocal and instrumental parts are sometimes combined and played at the same time. The six fret type is tuned to B, E, B and b. In this case, the left hand fourth finger taps the string so that the un-attacked pitch or pitches can be somewhat heard. 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). 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.) Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded. The . In biwa, tuning is not fixed. Yamashika, born in the late Meiji period, continued the biwa hshi tradition until his death in 1996. 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. There is also evidence that other biwa instruments came from the Indian lute tradition. [18], As biwa music declined in post-Pacific War Japan, many Japanese composers and musicians found ways to revitalize interest in it. Songs are not always metered, although more modern collaborations are metered. 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. 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. [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). Played with a large wooden plectrum, the instrument has four or five strings of twisted silk stretched over four or more . We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. [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. This instrument was also used many times as an accompanying instrument in larger ensembles. Its classification is a type of a Chordophone. [40] Through time, the neck was raised and by the Qing dynasty the instrument was mostly played upright. 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]. The typical 5-stringed Satsuma-biwa classical tuning is: CGCG, from first string to fourth/fifth string, respectively. 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. When two strings are plucked at the same time with the index finger and thumb (i.e. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The biwa strings are plucked with large wooden pick called bachi () that requires a full-handed grip. The instrument is plucked with a pick made out of animal horn. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Biwa playing has a long history on Kyushu, and for centuries the art was practiced within the institution of ms, blind Buddhist priests who performed sacred and secular texts for agrarian and other rituals. In the 1920s and 1930s, the number of frets was increased to 24, based on the 12 tone equal temperament scale, with all the intervals being semitones. Because of this bending technique oshikan (), one can make two or three notes for each fret and also in-between notes. 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. The instrument is tuned to match the key of the singer. 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. Japanese lute with 4-5 strings and frets. What is the hornbostelsachs classification of biwa instrument - 9005546 The strings are numbered from the lowest (first string) to the highest (fourth string). L 31 1/2 W. 11 13/16 D. 1 5/16 in. de Ferranti, Hugh. Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute ", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. [67] It is very much the same as the modern pipa in construction save for being a bit wider to allow for the extra string and the reintroduction of the soundholes at the front. Of particular fame were the family of pipa players founded by Cao Poluomen () and who were active for many generations from the Northern Wei to Tang dynasty. Not to be confused with the five-stringed variants of modern biwa, such as chikuzen-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 fingers normally strike the strings of pipa in the opposite direction to the way a guitar is usually played, i.e. Taiko Related Articles on Traditional Japanese Instruments 1. It is similar in shape to the chikuzen-biwa, but with a much more narrow body. Bodmin, Cornwall, Great Britain: MPG Books, pp. It had a pear-shaped wooden body with two crescent-shaped sound holes, a curved neck, four strings, and four frets. Chikuzen Biwa. Dunhuang, Mogao Caves. New York, 1903, vol. biwa, Japanese short-necked lute, distinguished by its graceful, pear-shaped body. The fourth and fifth strings, if 5-stringed, are tuned to the same note. At the beginning of the 13th century, Heike biwa players began telling of tales of the rise and fall of the Taira . 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. In more recent times, many pipa players, especially the younger ones, no longer identify themselves with any specific school.

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