biwa instrument classification
2000. The satsuma-biwa is traditionally made from Japanese mulberry, although other hard woods such as Japanese zelkova are sometimes used in its construction. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Because of this bending technique oshikan (. Several related instruments are derived from the pipa, including the Japanese biwa and Korean bipa in East Asia, and the Vietnamese n t b in Southeast Asia. Shanghai-born Liu Guilian graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music and became the director of the Shanghai Pipa Society, and a member of the Chinese Musicians Association and Chinese National Orchestral Society, before immigrating to Canada. Biwa Description The biwa is a four stringed lute and it is approximately 106 cm long (42 inches). [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. The instrument itself resembles gaku-biwa but is slightly smaller, and is held horizontally. [17][18] The pear-shaped pipa may have been introduced during the Han dynasty and was referred to as Han pipa. Tataku: This is similar to hazusu, except that this time, two non-struck pitches follow the struck one. 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]. Shamisen players and other musicians found it financially beneficial to switch to the biwa, bringing new styles of biwa music with them. NAKAMURA Kahoru, the biwa player with whom we worked, mentioned that for a concert including pieces in two different modes, she tunes two biwas before the concert. [6] The strings were played using a large plectrum in the Tang dynasty, a technique still used now for the Japanese biwa. Omissions? By the middle of the Meiji period, improvements had been made to the instruments and easily understandable songs were composed in quantity. Komoda Haruko. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Shamisen 5. This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen. 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. Heike-biwa is an accompaniment instrument specifically used to chant the Tale of Heike stories () in the traditional way dating from the medieval era. Kaeshibachi: The performance of arpeggio with an up-ward motion of the plectrum, and it is always soft. It is similar in shape to the chikuzen-biwa, but with a much more narrow body. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The ms-biwa (), a biwa with four strings, is used to play Buddhist mantras and songs. Northern Wei dynasty (386534 AD). Continent: Asia. Among ethnomusicologists, it is the most widely used system for classifying musical instruments. This type of biwa is used for court music called gagaku (), which has been protected by the government until today. [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. 1. Further, the frets and the nut are wide, which provides a surface, not a point, for a string to touch. He also qualified as a doctor of Chinese medicine. Gao Hong graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music and was the first to do a joint tour with Lin Shicheng in North America. 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 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 left hand techniques are important for the expressiveness of pipa music. 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. 89.4.123. 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. [2] Pear-shaped lutes have been depicted in Kusana sculptures from the 1st century AD. With the abolition of Todo in the Meiji period, biwa players lost their patronage. The loquat is in the family Rosaceae, and is native to the cooler hill regions of south-central China. 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. Of the remaining post-war biwa traditions, only higo-biwa remains a style almost solely performed by blind persons. II, p. 30. This music was cherished and protected by the authorities and particularly flourished in the 14th-15th centuries. L 31 1/2 W. 11 13/16 D. 1 5/16 in. Ieyasu favored biwa music and became a major patron, helping to strengthen biwa guilds (called Todo) by financing them and allowing them special privileges. On the plectrum, figure of a golden phoenix with flowers in its beak, The sole stroke motion used in this example is kakubachi, but it also includes examples of hazusu and tataku. It is however possible to produce the tremolo with just one or more fingers. 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 Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889, Accession Number: A distinctive sound of pipa is the tremolo produced by the lunzhi () technique which involves all the fingers and thumb of the right hand. 3 (Winter, 19771978). Different sized plectrums produced different textures; for example, the plectrum used on a ms-biwa was much larger than that used on a gaku-biwa, producing a harsher, more vigorous sound. The tuning of the strings changes according to the pieces mode. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Lingering, filling the palace hall, spring snow flew. Clara H. Rose (d. 1914) Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments: Asia, Gallery 27. Interest in the biwa was revived during the Edo period (16001868), when Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan and established the Tokugawa shogunate. Samurai ethics and battles were selected as the main themes for this style, called Satsuma-biwa (), and more dynamic techniques were developed. The first and second strings are generally tuned to the same note, with the 4th (or doubled 4th) string is tuned one octave higher. https://japanese-music.com/profile/nobuko-fukatsu/. greatest width of plectrum 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. [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. Another often-used technique is rubbing the long side of the bachi on the strings to get wind-like sounds. Kakisukashi: This is a three or four-note arpeggio with two strings in unison. The scores were written in tablature form with no information on tuning given, there are therefore uncertainties in the reconstruction of the music as well as deciphering other symbols in the score. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2.2 in. The Kyushu biwa traditions, in The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music, edited by Alison McQueen Tokita and David W. Hughes. 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. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments. 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). 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). Its tuning is C, G, c, g, g. Gaku-biwa, chikuzen-biwa, heike-biwa, ms-biwa, satsuma-biwa and their plectra. From the 3rd century onwards, through the Sui and Tang dynasty, the pear-shaped pipas became increasingly popular in China. A pipa player playing with the pipa behind his back. Biwa. NGDMI v.1: 234-237. During the Yuan dynasty, the playwright Gao Ming wrote a play for nanxi opera called Pipa ji (, or "Story of the Pipa"), a tale about an abandoned wife who set out to find her husband, surviving by playing the pipa. Figure 6 shows a spectral analysis of the arpeggio read at the attack and one second later. 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. 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. Koizumi, Fumio. This causes a sustained, buzzing noise called, which adds a unique flavor to the biwa sound. Blind priests would play them in order to tell stories and tales of ancient war. 4. 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. In the early 1950s, he founded the traditional instruments department at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. In Satsuma-biwa classical pieces, the thickest string (the first) is in principle. 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. [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 Edo period proved to be one of the most prolific and artistically creative periods for the biwa in its long history in Japan. The instrument is played with a large wedge-shaped plectrum called a bachi. Australian dark rock band The Eternal use the pipa in their song "Blood" as played by singer/guitarist Mark Kelson on their album Kartika. Example 4 shows the basic melody of Etenraku's section B and C, and its rhythmic accompaniment. [citation needed]. This singing style is complemented by the biwa, which biwa players use to produce short glissandi throughout the performance. The . [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 (). Liu Dehai (19372020), also born in Shanghai, was a student of Lin Shicheng and in 1961 graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. [10] In solo performances, a biwa performer sings monophonically, with melismatic emphasis throughout the performance. The instrument initially used for this practice was the four-stringed chikuzen biwa (gallery #1), which was produced and sold cheaply--a fact attested to by the numbers of such instruments taken overseas by working-class emigrants. (de Ferranti, p. 122) [The instrument pictured in gallery #1 is very likely one of those many biwas taken overseas--it was purchased in a Honolulu shop specializing in Japanese antiques many of which were brought to Hawaii by Japanese immigrants in the early 20th century.] All rights reserved. In both cases, the sound of the non-struck pitches is not hearable when performed with the orchestra, but the gesture itself might help the biwa player keep time. 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. Its classification is a type of a Chordophone. The da and xiao categories refer to the size of the piece xiao pieces are small pieces normally containing only one section, while da pieces are large and usually contain multiple sections. 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. [40] Through time, the neck was raised and by the Qing dynasty the instrument was mostly played upright. We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. 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). greatest width of resonator Instruments are classified using 5 different categories depending on the manner in which the instrument creates the sound: Idiophones, Membranophones, Chordophones, Aerophones, & Electrophones. The Traditional Music of Japan. 11.7 in. This instrument was also used many times as an accompanying instrument in larger ensembles. de Ferranti, Hugh. Yoko Hiraoka, a member of the Yamato Komyoji ryu, presents a lecture/recital of Japanese Biwa music. 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. 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]. [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. 2. In the present day, there are no direct means of studying the biwa in many biwa traditions. One of these, the new chikuzen biwa tradition, became popular amongst many thousands of amateurs between c.1900 and 1920. Koto 3. Biwa is a 4-stringed lute played with a large spectrum. The fourth/fifth string G is an octave higher than the second string G. Again, note this is relative tuning; it could be AEAE, GDGD, etc, depending on the players range of voice. The open strings are shown in the first measures, and the pitches assigned the left-hand fingered notes in the following four measures. Since the biwas pegs do not move smoothly, tuning the instrument to a different mode requires time. sanxian, (Chinese: "three strings") Wade Giles romanization san-hsien also called xianzi, any of a group of long-necked, fretless Chinese lutes. They recorded the critically acclaimed CD "Eagle Seizing Swan" together. 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. In the narrative traditions where the pipa is used as an accompaniment to narrative singing, there are the Suzhou tanci (), Sichuan qingyin (), and Northern quyi () genres. Its purpose is to show in context how the biwa uses its various patterns to color some melodic tones. The stroking motion always starts from the 1st string, sequentially sweeping toward the others until it reaches the arpeggios last string. Ueda Junko and Tanaka Yukio, two of Tsuruta's students, continue the tradition of the modern satsuma-biwa. 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. 36 1/2 7 7/8 5 in. Over 100 years after its development, the H-S system is still in use in most museums and in large inventory projects. In spite of its popularity, the nin War and subsequent Warring States Period disrupted biwa teaching and decreased the number of proficient users. 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. Biwa traditions began with blind priests who traveled from village to village singing sutras. The short neck of the Tang pipa also became more elongated. The wu style was associated more with the Northern school while the wen style was more the Southern school. 3 in. 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. This may be due to the fact that the word pipa was used in ancient texts to describe a variety of plucked chordophones of the period from the Qin to the Tang dynasty, including the long-necked spiked lute and the short-necked lute, as well as the differing accounts given in these ancient texts. Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item, Title: The biwas shallow body is a bouncing board that sharply projects its sound forward. 36 in. The biwa strings are plucked with large wooden pick called bachi (, The basic technique is to pluck down and up with the sharp corner. the fingers and thumb flick outward, unlike the guitar where the fingers and thumb normally pluck inward towards the palm of the hand. 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). The instrument was invented in China in the 3rd to 5th centuries AD, during the Jin dynasty. Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded. Chikuzen-biwa is another major type of biwa that is widely played today. An example tuning of the four string version is B, e, f and b, and the five string instrument can be tuned to C, G, C, d and g. For the five string version, the first and third strings are tuned the same note, the second string three steps down, the fifth string an octave higher than the second string, and the fourth string a step down from the fifth. Life in post-war Japan was difficult, and many musicians abandoned their music in favor of more sustainable livelihoods. [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. The biwa has a shallow, rounded back and silk strings (usually four or five) attached to slender lateral pegs. 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 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. 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. 36 1/2 7 7/8 5 in. However, false nails made of horn existed as early as the Ming period when finger-picking became the popular technique for playing pipa.[24]. [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 (). As part of, Metalwork by Goto Teijo, 9th generation Goto master, Japan (16031673). Modern biwa used for contemporary compositions often have five or more frets, and some have a doubled fourth string. Shakuhachi 2. 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. This is the original form of biwa that came to Japan in the 8. century. The higo-biwa is closely related to the heike-biwa and, similarly, relies on an oral narrative tradition focusing on wars and legends. The biwa developed into five different types in its long history: Gaku, Heike, Ms, Satsuma, and Chikuzen. The musical narrative of The Tale of Heike, in The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music, edited by Alison McQueen Tokita and David W. Hughes. Like with the shamisen, a distinctive raspy tone quality called sawari is associated with the chikuzen biwa. [18], As biwa music declined in post-Pacific War Japan, many Japanese composers and musicians found ways to revitalize interest in it. 5-string: biwa (gallery #2): Examples of popular modern works composed after the 1950s are "Dance of the Yi People" and "Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland" (). This seeming shortcoming is compensated for by the frets height and the low tension of the strings. The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889, Accession Number: The strings are usually tuned to A2 D3 E3 A3 , although there are various other ways of tuning. It is assumed that the performance traditions died out by the 10th or 11th century (William P. Malm). Clattering and murmuring, meshing jumbled sounds, 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. A player holds it horizontally, and mostly plays rhythmic arpeggios in orchestra or ensemble. The biwa, originally an instrument of high society, gradually spread among wandering blind monks who used this instrument to tell stories. 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). [66] Some other notable pipa players in China include Yu Jia (), Wu Yu Xia (), Fang Jinlong () and Zhao Cong (). As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. The 5-string specimen is larger (the vibrating length of its strings is 30.3 inches) and heavier than the 4-string specimen and also has some delicate decorative detail added that is carved out of mother-of-pearl (detail #8 and #9). Influenced by the recitations of blind priests, the music of the heike biwa reflects the mood of the text. A string instrument which is made of Paulownia wood that is used in an ensemble in gagaku or a solo instrument. Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection - Chikuzen Biwa. The heike-biwa, smaller than the ms-biwa, was used for similar purposes. 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. 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 Museum's collection of musical instruments includes approximately 5,000 examples from six continents and the Pacific Islands, dating from about 300 B.C. Most contemporary performers use the five string version. The main part of the music is vocal and the biwa part mostly plays short interludes. Few pieces for pipa survived from the early periods, some, however, are preserved in Japan as part of togaku (Tang music) tradition. 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. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. It was originally used by traveling biwa minstrels, and its small size lent it to indoor play and improved portability. 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. 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. There is little space between the strings on the first three frets, causing obstruction when attacking an upper string whose immediate lower string is fingered in one of the first three frets. 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. Sun performed in the United States, Asia, and Europe, and in 1956 became deputy director of the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra. [44] The first volume contains 13 pieces from the Northern school, the second and third volumes contain 54 pieces from the Southern school. 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, The narrative biwa music adopts a relative tuning; the pitch is decided to match with the players range of voice. Finally, it is not customary to finger more than one pitch within a harmonic structure, so if a fingered pitch were to be included among the grace-notes, then the last pitch would need to be an open string. Players hold the instrument vertically. Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item, Title: The biwa sounds as written, and it is tuned to an A-430Hz. Dunhuang, Mogao Caves. [69] The instrument is also played by musician Min Xiaofen in "I See Who You Are", a song from Bjrk's album Volta. The instrument is also held vertically while playing. Another. 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 Traditionally, the duration of each pitch subdivides the measure into two equal durations. By the Ming dynasty, fingers replaced plectrum as the popular technique for playing pipa, although finger-playing techniques existed as early as Tang. Chikuzen was an historic northern province on Kyushu, the southern-most main island of Japan. This is due to the fact that the space between the strings on the first three frets is so short that a fingered 1st fret on the 3rd string, for example, would damp the following 4th string, as shown on Figure 7. [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).
Shaw Builders Columbia, Tn,
Peter Livanos Aston Martin,
Oasis Recertification Scheduling Calendar 2022,
Articles B
