The Traditional Music of Japan. We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. So, here are six traditional Japanese instruments you can listen to today!
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. 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. Typically, the duration of each group subdivides the measure into two equal durations. , one can make two or three notes for each fret and also in-between notes. [62] From the Ming dynasty, famous pipa players include Zhong Xiuzhi (), Zhang Xiong (, known for his playing of "Eagle Seizing Swan"), the blind Li Jinlou (), and Tang Yingzeng () who was known to have played a piece that may be an early version of "Ambushed from Ten Sides".[63]. [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).
The Pipa | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline Influenced by the shamisen, its music is rather soft, attracting more female players. Sheng. His well-received compositions, such as November Steps, which incorporated biwa heikyoku with Western orchestral performance, revitalized interest in the biwa and sparked a series of collaborative efforts by other musician in genres ranging from J-Pop and enka to shin-hougaku and gendaigaku. 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.] The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889, Accession Number:
Cheng Yu researched the old Tang dynasty five-stringed pipa in the early 2000s and developed a modern version of it for contemporary use. 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. 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 pipa has also been used in rock music; the California-based band Incubus featured one, borrowed from guitarist Steve Vai, in their 2001 song "Aqueous Transmission," as played by the group's guitarist, Mike Einziger. Hornbostel-Sach Classification of instruments is a means of sorting out instruments according to how it produces sound. Guilds supporting biwa players, particularly the biwa hshi, helped proliferate biwa musical development for hundreds of years. [2] Pear-shaped lutes have been depicted in Kusana sculptures from the 1st century AD. Ieyasu favored biwa music and became a major patron, helping to strengthen biwa guilds (called Todo) by financing them and allowing them special privileges. Today, the instrument is played in both narrative and instrumental formats, in the traditional music scene as well as in various popular media. 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. [14][15][16], The pear-shaped pipa is likely to have been introduced to China from Central Asia, Gandhara, and/or India. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 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. 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. Yoko Hiraoka, a member of the Yamato Komyoji ryu, presents a lecture/recital of Japanese Biwa music. Lingering, filling the palace hall, spring snow flew. Omissions? [69] The instrument is also played by musician Min Xiaofen in "I See Who You Are", a song from Bjrk's album Volta. The peg box is angled about 90 degrees from the neck, and the back of the body is flat, unlike the western lute. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. It was originally used by traveling biwa minstrels, and its small size lent it to indoor play and improved portability. Jiaju Shen from The Either also plays an Electric 5 String Pipa/Guitar hybrid that has the Hardware from an Electric Guitar combined with the Pipa, built by an instrument maker named Tim Sway called "Electric Pipa 2.0". As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. The biwa developed into five different types in its long history: . Performers on the instrument frequently pluck two notes simultaneously, producing a variety of intervals, especially when the singer is silent. The higo-biwa is closely related to the heike-biwa and, similarly, relies on an oral narrative tradition focusing on wars and legends. 4. The heike-biwa (), a biwa with four strings and five frets, is used to play The Tale of the Heike.
PDF A Comparison of String Instruments Based on Wood Properties New York, 1903, vol. There are some types of traditional string instrument. The biwa player with whom we worked, NAKAMURA Kahoru, improvised ten different versions of this rhythm. Ueda Junko and Tanaka Yukio, two of Tsuruta's students, continue the tradition of the modern satsuma-biwa. It is a big percussion instrument of Japanese that plays integral part of many Japanese Matsuri (festival). The instrument is plucked with a pick made out of animal horn. This scale sometimes includes supplementary notes, but the core remains pentatonic.
Yoko Hiraoka, a Lecture/Recital of Japanese Biwa Music Sandstone carving, showing the typical way a pipa was held when played with plectrum in the early period. The peg box is angled about 90 degrees from the neck, and the back of the body is flat, unlike the western lute. [14], Biwa usage in Japan has declined greatly since the Heian period. [8] The varying string thickness creates different timbres when stroked from different directions. 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. Few pieces for pipa survived from the early periods, some, however, are preserved in Japan as part of togaku (Tang music) tradition. 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 Chordophone-Lute-plucked-fretted, Credit Line:
[1] Koto.
About: Biwa Koizumi, Fumio. 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). 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). Therefore the sound of the biwa is very strong at the attack but it has almost no resonance, and in that sense, its contribution to the overall sound of the orchestra is more rhythmic than harmonic. The sanxian (Mandarin for 'three strings') is a type off fretless plucked Chinese lutes. Further, the frets and the nut are wide, which provides a surface, not a point, for a string to touch. In Japan the loquat is known as biwa (, ) and has been grown for over . Biwa players no longer enjoyed special privileges and were forced to support themselves. The wu style was associated more with the Northern school while the wen style was more the Southern school. 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. Its pick or bachi () is the largest among all types of biwa it sometimes. greatest depth of resonator 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 ms-biwa (), a biwa with four strings, is used to play Buddhist mantras and songs. This is a type of biwa that wandering blind monks played for religious practice as well as in narrative musical performances during the medieval era, widely seen in the Kyushu area. 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 biwa is related to the Chinese pipa, an instrument that was introduced to Japan in the late 7th century. Even the biwa hshi transitioned to other instruments such as the shamisen (a three-stringed lute).[15]. The open strings are shown in the first measures, and the pitches assigned the left-hand fingered notes in the following four measures. 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. An English translation was published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961. The traditional pieces however often have a standard metrical length of 68 measures or beat,[46] and these may be joined together to form the larger pieces dagu.[47]. 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). Catalogue of the Crosby Brown . A. Odaiko B. Taiko C. Tsuridaiko D. Tsuzumi 2. Biwa. Although typically it is used to play short standardized phrases between lines of vocal text, it may be used for longer programmatic pieces depicting battles, storms, or other dramatic events. 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.) If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form.
Instrument Classification | Mary K. Oyer African Music Archive | Goshen The biwa ( Japanese: ) is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. https://japanese-music.com/profile/nobuko-fukatsu/. 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 this case, the left hand fourth finger taps the string so that the un-attacked pitch or pitches can be somewhat heard. The biwa originated in the Middle East and was delivered to Japan via the Silk Road in the 8th century. the fingers and thumb flick outward, unlike the guitar where the fingers and thumb normally pluck inward towards the palm of the hand. The number of frets is considerably fewer than other fretted instruments. In the early 1950s, he founded the traditional instruments department at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Each type has different and unique tones, techniques, and musical styles. Hitting the body of the instrument: The plectrum is used to hit the black protective part on the front of the instrument. 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. Tataku: This is similar to hazusu, except that this time, two non-struck pitches follow the struck one. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Bodmin, Cornwall, Great Britain: MPG Books, pp. Another. [25] Extra frets were added; the early instrument had 4 frets (, xing) on the neck, but during the early Ming dynasty extra bamboo frets (, pn) were affixed onto the soundboard, increasing the number of frets to around 10 and therefore the range of the instrument. 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. There are some confusions and disagreements about the origin of pipa. We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection.
OnMusic Dictionary - Term Several types of biwa, each with its own social setting and repertoire, have evolved in Japan over the past 1300 years, the specimens pictured here being called most accurately the chikuzen biwa. The biwa'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 . [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. Wood, leather, Dimensions:
It is an instrument in China, its mouth-blown free reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes.
Acoustical classification of woods for string instruments 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. The texture of biwa singing is often described as "sparse". [32][33][34] A famous poem by Bai Juyi, "Pipa xing" (), contains a description of a pipa performance during a chance encounter with a female pipa player on the Yangtze River:[35]. 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. 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. Players hold the instrument vertically. 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. This type of biwa is used for court music called gagaku (), which has been protected by the government until today. [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. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. The interval between the pitches of the open string and first fret is a major second, while the interval between pitches on two adjacent frets is a minor second. The instrument is also held vertically while playing. ________. Like the heike-biwa, it is played held on its side, similar to a guitar, with the player sitting cross-legged. Options are limited when considering that a fingered string between two open strings must be fingered on the 4th fret to avoid damping. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2. 105-126. 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. This minute design detail gives rise to sawari, the distinctive raspy tone of a vibrating string. [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. Resonator design, chordophone: bowl with wood soundboard, Vibrational length: tension bridge to ridge-nut, Pitches per string course: multiple (by pressure stopping against fretted fingerboard), 4-string biwa (gallery #1): On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The tuning of the strings changes according to the pieces mode.
Biwa - Stanford University 3 (Winter, 19771978). 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. These, according to the Han dynasty text by Liu Xi, refer to the way the instrument is played "p" is to strike outward with the right hand, and "p" is to pluck inward towards the palm of the hand. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/502655, Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown ; Clara H. Rose (d. 1914), The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can now connect to the most up-to-date data and images for more than 470,000 artworks in The Met collection. greatest width of resonator The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments. Wei Zhongle (; 19031997) played many instruments, including the guqin. The heike-biwa, smaller than the ms-biwa, was used for similar purposes. The strings on a biwa range in thickness, with the first string being thickest and the fourth string being thinnest; on chikuzen-biwa, the second string is the thickest, with the fourth and fifth strings being the same thickness on chikuzen- and satsuma-biwa. The instrument has seen a great decline . [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 (). It is assumed that the performance traditions died out by the 10th or 11th century (William P. Malm).
6 Traditional Japanese Instruments That You Can Listen To Today Exploiting the sound of the open strings increases the overall sounds volume. the finger and thumb separate in one action), it is called fen (), the reverse motion is called zhi (). 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. General tones and pitches can fluctuate up or down entire steps or microtones. Chikuzen Biwa. 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).
Hornbostel-Sachs Instrument Classification System.pdf [19], Other musicians, such as Yamashika Yoshiyuki, considered by most ethnomusicologists to be the last of the biwa hshi, preserved scores of songs that were almost lost forever. length 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. Typically 60 centimetres (24 in) to 106 centimetres (42 in) in length, the instrument is . 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. Its classification is a type of an Aerophone. 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. Painted panel of the sarcophagus of Y Hung, depicts one of the Persian or Sogdian figures playing pipa. Ms Biwa () Japanese. Australian dark rock band The Eternal use the pipa in their song "Blood" as played by singer/guitarist Mark Kelson on their album Kartika. Sort by. 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"). Waribachi: This is a downward sweeping of the four strings, dividing the motion into two groups of two notes.
Classification of Musical Instruments: Sachs-Hornbostel - LiveAbout The biwa sounds as written, and it is tuned to an A-430Hz. 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. The electric pipa was first developed in the late 20th century by adding electric guitarstyle magnetic pickups to a regular acoustic pipa, allowing the instrument to be amplified through an instrument amplifier or PA system. The strings are usually tuned to A2 D3 E3 A3 , although there are various other ways of tuning. Each group can include either two open strings or one open and one fingered string. Non-traditional themes may be used in these new compositions and some may reflect the political landscape and demands at the time of composition, for example "Dance of the Yi People" which is based on traditional melodies of the Yi people, may be seen as part of the drive for national unity, while "Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland" extols the virtue of those who served as model of exemplary behaviour in the People's commune.[48]. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa. They recognized that studies in music theory and music composition in Japan almost entirely consisted in Western theory and instruction. 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. (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. 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). 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 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. The two-headed tacked drum hung in an elaborate circular frame in court music is a gaku-daiko or tsuri-daiko. This type of biwa music has been preserved until now in gagaku (), or the court orchestra. In performance it was held sideways and played with a plectrum. 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.
Ms Biwa () | Japanese | The Metropolitan Museum of Art 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 new way to classify the acoustical properties of woods and clearly separate these two groups is proposed in this paper. The biwa, considered one of Japan's principal traditional instruments, has both influenced and been influenced by other traditional instruments and compositions throughout its long history; as such, a number of different musical styles played with the biwa exist. During the 1910s a five-string model was developed that, since the 1920s, has been the most common form of the instrument (gallery #2). Plucking in the opposite direction to tan and tiao are called mo () and gou () respectively. Mural from Kizil, estimated Five Dynasties to Yuan dynasty, 10th to 13th century. The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. Biwa 6.
The Birbyne and Biwa | The Other Instrument - Pennsylvania State University 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. From the Dingjiazha Tomb No. 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 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.
Sanxian ("Three strings") or Xianzi (Spike lute) - University of Edinburgh [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 (). Chikuzen was an historic northern province on Kyushu, the southern-most main island of Japan. Shakuhachi One of the most popular traditional Japanese wind instruments is the shakuhachi. The Koto came from the Chinese zither "Gu Zheng" during the Nara period in Japan.