Heike Biwa (), Medium: Taiko Related Articles on Traditional Japanese Instruments 1. 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. Gao Hong graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music and was the first to do a joint tour with Lin Shicheng in North America. Though its origins are unclear, this thinner variant of the biwa was used in ceremonies and religious rites. 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. [10][11] This may have given rise to the Qin pipa, an instrument with a straight neck and a round sound box, and evolved into ruan, an instrument named after Ruan Xian, one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and known for playing similar instrument. [21] The pipa underwent a number of changes over the centuries. 38.5 in. 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. [17][14] Starting about the 10th century, players began to hold the instrument "more upright", as the fingernail style became more important. [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. As a result, younger musicians turned to other instruments and interest in biwa music decreased. 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). With the abolition of Todo in the Meiji period, biwa players lost their patronage. Today, the instrument is played in both narrative and instrumental formats, in the traditional music scene as well as in various popular media. Biwa music is based on a pentatonic scale (sometimes referred to as a five-tone or five-note scale), meaning that each octave contains five notes. The instrument is tuned to match the key of the singer. The ms-biwa (), a biwa with four strings, is used to play Buddhist mantras and songs. The instrument itself resembles gaku-biwa but is slightly smaller, and is held horizontally. In the 13th century, the story "The Tale of Heike" ()was created and told by them. 2. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/500681, Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown ; James L. Amerman, 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. [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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The left hand techniques are important for the expressiveness of pipa music. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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. With the rounded edge of the resonator resting in the players lap and the peg box end of the instrument tilted to the left at about a 45-degree angle from vertical, the biwas soundboard faces forward. Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API. [41] Three Ming dynasty pieces were discovered in the High River Flows East (, Gaohe Jiangdong) collection dating from 1528 which are very similar to those performed today, such as "The Moon on High" (, Yue-er Gao). A distinctive sound of pipa is the tremolo produced by the lunzhi () technique which involves all the fingers and thumb of the right hand. 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. The typical 5-stringed Satsuma-biwa classical tuning is: CGCG, from first string to fourth/fifth string, respectively. biwa, Japanese short-necked lute, distinguished by its graceful, pear-shaped body. Players hold the instrument vertically. 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]. Koizumi, Fumio. It was originally used by traveling biwa minstrels, and its small size lent it to indoor play and improved portability. Like pearls, big and small, falling on a platter of jade. In modern biwa, particularly in Satsuma-biwa, one sometimes strikes the soundboard sharply to get percussive effects. 105-126. She now performs with Red Chamber and the Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble. 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. Table of Contents 1. Performers on the instrument frequently pluck two notes simultaneously, producing a variety of intervals, especially when the singer is silent. [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. The instrument is played with a large wedge-shaped plectrum called a bachi. Shakuhachi 2. Other prominent students of Lin Shicheng at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing include Liu Guilian (, born 1961), Gao Hong and Wu Man. 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 pipa pieces in the common repertoire can be categorized as wen (, civil) or wu (, martial), and da (, large or suite) or xiao (, small). 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 (). [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. Reflecting its history as an instrument for samurai, its music is often described as dynamic and heroic. 5. later versions were played by the blind Japanese lute priests of the Heian period and it was also played as background music for story-telling It is not used to accompany singing. The higo-biwa is closely related to the heike-biwa and, similarly, relies on an oral narrative tradition focusing on wars and legends. Mural from Kizil, estimated Five Dynasties to Yuan dynasty, 10th to 13th century. [69] The instrument is also played by musician Min Xiaofen in "I See Who You Are", a song from Bjrk's album Volta. 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. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Idiophones African Thumb Pianos Wood, leather, Dimensions: This seeming shortcoming is compensated for by the frets height and the low tension of the strings. biwa, Japanese short-necked lute, distinguished by its graceful, pear-shaped body. The earliest-known piece in the collection may be "Eagle Seizing a Crane" () which was mentioned in a Yuan dynasty text. In the 20th century, two of the most prominent pipa players were Sun Yude (; 19041981) and Li Tingsong (; 19061976). 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. With this, the biwa entered a period of popularity, with songs reflecting not just The Tale of the Heike, but also the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, with songs such as Takeo Hirose, Hitachimaru and 203 Hill gaining popularity. The biwa developed into five different types in its long history: . It is however possible to produce the tremolo with just one or more fingers. In more recent times, many pipa players, especially the younger ones, no longer identify themselves with any specific school. greatest depth of resonator 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). At the beginning of the 13th century, Heike biwa players began telling of tales of the rise and fall of the Taira . 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. [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 (). [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. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. 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 (). Telling stories and holding religious practices with biwa accompaniment became a profession for blind monks, and it was these wandering blind monks who carried on the tradition. Koto 3. These tunings are relative, the actual pitches a given biwa is tuned to being determined by the vocal range of the singer/player. 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].
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