Pipa Compiled by Richard G. Johnson 10 March 2003

. . . Description The pipa is a four-stringed Lute, one of the oldest Chinese musical instruments which appeared in Chinese written texts of the second century BC. Xi Liu of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD) described in his book, The definition of Terms -- On Musical Instruments, that the name of the instrument pipa originally refers to two finger techniques. The two Chinese characters pi and pa stands originally for the two finger techniques, i.e. plucking at the strings forwards and backwards, respectively.

The pipa , a combination of pi and pa, originally referred to two right-hand techniques: pi meant "to play forward" and pa "to play backward". The archetype of the modern pipa, which had a half-pear- shaped soundbox, a crooked neck, 4 or 5 strings and 4 frets, originated in Central Asia and arrived in China in the 4th century AD. The immortal poetry Song of the Pipa by Tang poet Bai Juyi reveals the instrument's great popularity in the Tang and Song period (618-1279). Until then a plectrum was used; after that time, performers only used their fingernails, which still persists today.

The number of frets has gradually been increased, up to 23-25 frets in the modern type, expanding the instrument's range chromatically. Now the strings are steel wires, instead of silk, with or without nylon coiling round. Its range is over three and a half octaves.

Although several of the ancient lutes of China have generally been grouped into the category of "Pipa," the "pear-shaped" Pipa is an instrument which stands alone in Chinese music history as an important orchestral and accompaniment instrument, as well as, a distinctive solo instrument.

T HE P IPA, PAGE -1- OF -8- The most common Pipa has a "pear-shaped " body with a short neck and a wooden belly There are typically 6 "ledges" on the neck of the instrument and between 19 to 26 bamboo frets on the belly, producing a wide range of possible pitches. The strings are either steel-wire or silk and the most common tuning is A, D, F, A. With the PIPA held vertically in the lap, the musician uses a variety of complicated playing techniques, some of which include: fretted pitch-bends, tremolos, various double and triple, and a continuous strumming of the strings with the four fingers.

. . . History In the Qin Dynasty (222-207 BC), there had been a kind of pluck-instrument, known as xiantao, with straight neck and a round sound-body played horizontally. In the preface to his verse Ode to Pipa, Xuan Fu of the Jin Dynasty (265-420 AD) wrote: "...the pipa appeared in the late Qin period. When the people suffered from being forced to build the Great Wall, they played the instrument to express their resentment". By Han Dynasty (206 BC -- 220 AD), the instrument developed into a form of four strings and twelve frets, plucked with fingernails and known as pipa or qin-pipa. In the Western Jin Dynasty (256- 316), the qin-pipa was named after the famous scholar, Ruan Xian, who was a virtuoso in such an instrument. The instrument is still called ruan till present day. During the Northern and Southern Dynasty (420-589 AD), a similar instrument with a crooked neck and four or five strings was introduced through the Silk Road from little Asia, known as the Hu Pipa (Hu stands for "foreign" in Chinese), which was played horizontally with a wooden plectrum. By the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907), the pipa was one of the most popular instruments, and has maintained its appeal in solo as well as chamber genres ever since.

The Tang pipa was larger than the modern instrument. It usually has four or five strings and fewer frets (compared to the present day pipa). Probably influenced by the hu pipa, the Tang pipa was often played with a wooden plectrum, a technique still used by its Japanese descendent, the biwa. Since the mid Tang Dynasty, and particularly since the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the instrument has been gradually developed into the present form of a lute played with fingernails while the techniques with the plectrum were totally abandoned. The modern instrument is half-pear-shaped, with a short, bent neck, and has 30 frets which extend down the neck and onto the soundboard, giving a wide range and a complete chromatic scale. The usual tuning is A - E - D - A (La - Mi - Re - La). Notation for pipa combines symbols for pitch (Kung-ch'e system) with abbreviated characters for special finger techniques.

T HE P IPA, PAGE -2- OF -8- This instrument has both a longer and a more elevated history in China than the spike fiddle, having been introduced from Central Asia during or before the seventh century. Its name is onomatopoeic, combining early terms for strokes across the strings and back. If the fiddle was the archetypal beggar's instrument, the pipawas that of the professional court entertainer. Nonetheless, by the time of Abing's birth, the pipahad acquired a long history of use in entertainment and ritual genres outside the court.

The origin of Pipa can be traced back to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, when it's ancestors combined the Quxiang Pipa (with a bent neck), which had been already been introduced from Xiyu (the area west of Yumenguang including what is now called Xinjiang and parts of Central Asia) with the Zhixiang Pipa (with a straight neck), which had been popular forming the half-shaped, fretted pipa which is now in use.

The instrument's most significant development spanned from the Han to the Tang Dynasty. As Chinese dance performance gradually changed through the years, the PIPA's structure and Chinese dance performance techniques changed as well, compensating for the new demands as an accompaniment instrument The PIPA traditionally had 4 silk strings, being a Silk Instrument in the Ba Yin scheme. In the West instrument is classified as a Chordophone.

. . . Tuning & Playing Given a standard tuning of A, d, e, and a, an expert player of the old form instrument, had access to a three octave range.

Today the playing techniques a re even more sophisticated. The pipa is often used for solos and in ensembles or in the modern Chinese orchestra.

Pipa's technique is characterized by spectacular finger dexterity and virtuosi programmatic effects. Rolls, slaps, pizzicato, harmonics, noises are often combined into extensive tone-poems vividly describing famous battles or other exciting scenes, such as the Ambush which describes the decisive battle field fought in the second century BC between Chu (Xiang Yu) and Han (Liu Bang). The instrument is also capable of more lyric effects, as the tune Sai Shang qu. This tune is said to represent the sorrowful song of a Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) noblewoman, who was compelled for political reasons to marry a barbarian prince. This story appears in several versions connected with

T HE P IPA, PAGE -3- OF -8- the origin of the pipa. There are also a lot of written texts and famous poems about the pipa music played by virtuoso performers in history. For instance, the following comments can be found in the texts from the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) describing the intensity of the Ambush played by artists of that time : "... as if thousands of warriors and horses are roaring on the battle field, as if the earth is torn and the sky is falling". In his poem, the Pipa Song, Bai Juyi, one of the leading poets in the Tang Dynasty, described vividly the pipa music performed by an artist: "... The thicker strings rattled like splatters of sudden rain, the thinner ones hummed like a hushed whisper. Together they shaped strands of melody, like larger and smaller pearls falling on a jade plate."

A pipa is constructed from attaching a soundboard of wutong wood (firmiana platanifolia, no less) to a hollowed out, pear-shaped shell of varnished teak. Relative to the Western lute, its body is shallow. Four tuning pegs are inserted, two on each side of the head, which, in the past, like that of the fiddle, was often shaped to resemble an auspicious creature: a dragon head, phoenix tail, or bat. Each of the four silk strings is stretched from a combined string-attachment and bridge located towards the base of the belly upwards to its own tuning peg. Lying under the strings are a series of frets (horizontal bamboo lengths glued onto the tapering upper body) and triangular blocks (projecting from the neck). The number of frets varied from one pipa to another, even during Abing's lifetime. A traditional instrument at the time of Abing's death had four blocks and either ten (see photo 3), twelve, or thirteen frets. According to Cao Anhe, whose thirteen-fret pipawas borrowed by Abing for the recording session in 1950, he had some problems coping with its additional fret, and may have been more familiar with the twelve-fret variety.

In addition to these notes, the skilled traditional pipa player produced others through the use of harmonics and by pressing a stopped string sideways, a technique which increases its tension, resulting in a rise in pitch. Multiple pitches are commonly plucked together, a melody played on the highest pitched string perhaps being accompanied by open-string strums across the lower three.

Plucking techniques involve every finger of the right hand, but most frequently the thumb and index finger. Standard strokes include tan, a rightwards pluck with the index finger, and tiao, a stroke in the opposite direction with the thumb. When these strokes are repeated in quick succession the resulting tremolo is termed gun, literally "roll." A second mode of producing

T HE P IPA, PAGE -4- OF -8- a sustained tone is called lun, or "wheel." This technique involves plucking the string alternately and continuously with all the fingers in rapid and smooth succession.

Rather like the erhu, the pipa is set on the left part of the player's lap during seated performance. Most contemporary performers hold it in an almost perpendicular position, the instrument's neck and head close to the performer's left ear, though some traditional genres retain what appears to be a more ancient practice, that of holding the pipa at a more horizontal angle.

Music psychologist Eric Clarke has proposed three possible patterns of relationship between small-scale musical units in improvisations:

1. performances in which a more-or-less pre-conceived hierarchical structure is followed; 2. those in which units form an associative chain of interrelated elements; 3. those where the player proceeds by selecting pre-formed units from a repertory.

From the study of Abing's music for pipa, we can see that one form of improvisation may be contained within another. At the structural level, all three of Abing's pipa solos rely on pre-conceived plans, the first model in Clarke's scheme. However, at a sub-structural level in Great Waves and Zhaojun Clarke's second style of improvisatory progress is dominant: that is to say, within each section of the music, interconnected units are chained together one after another. At this same level in Dragon Boats, on the other hand, Clarke's third improvisatory principle is operative, and the sections are chosen from a memorised repertory of folk song tunes, interposed with passages imitating local percussion music.

The Pipa is one of the most expressive Chinese traditional music instruments. There is one old saying about its timbre just like the greatest poet in China named BaiJu-yi wrote in his poem "tinkling of pearls of different sizes falling against a jade tray." Also its fretting and tuning system in equal temperament and it's performing technique have been developed during the past over 1,500 years. Thus make it one of the most important members in the family of Chinese traditional instruments. Till today Pipa is still an indispensable instrument in the ensembles of different ages.

. . . Repertoire There were huge repertoires of pipa music in Chinese history, particularly during the Tang Dynasty. But most of them were lost. Fortunately, there are precious pipa pieces handed down from one generation to another by individual artists and scholars. Some pieces have

T HE P IPA, PAGE -5- OF -8- been preserved in Japan and some more pieces of musical scores were discovered along the Silk Road in Gansu Province, China, around 1900. These musical notes, known as the Dunhuang scores, triggered great concern and interest in China as well in abroad. However, they remained a mystery until the early 80s, when the scholar, Prof. Ye Dong from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music successfully "decoded" 25 pieces of them. The beauty and elegance of these pieces have thus first been revealed to the public after having slept for a thousand years.

The pipa music has been loved by Chinese people through the centuries. During the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1645-1911) Dynasties, various pipa schools with different styles were flourishing in the South, centered in Wuxi, Suzhou and Shanghai, and the North, centered in Beijing. The development of finger techniques for both hands achieved a high standard by the masters from each school. The present day pipa techniques are mostly the fusion of those different schools. Now the pipa is one of most popular instruments in China. Many of the compositions that make up the traditional repertoire, which were handed down from generation to generation through individual artists and scholars, date back hundreds of years, while others are part of a body of compositions that are dynamic and growing. In the recent decades, composers have explored the possibilities for pipa and orchestra. Nowadays, there are also celebrated pieces for pipa concerti with orchestras.

Dragon Boats This example shows how Abing developed folk song tunes in Dragon Boats. The top stave shows a contemporaneous notation of the tune Eighteen Strokes while the lower stave(s) show a passage transcribed from Abing's pipa solo. Eighteen Strokes is considered to be a very bawdy tune indeed - the singer describes, piece by piece, the figure of his beloved. (Yang Yinliu was careful not to mention this song by name in his commentary on this piece). With one exception (bar 3), Abing expands the metre of the melody two-fold, from 1/4 time to 2/4 time. He plays a simplified outline of the tune on the top string of the pipa, accompanying this tune with

T HE P IPA, PAGE -6- OF -8- open-string strums across the other three strings. There is also a small, modal alteration - Abing uses the note F# where the folk song typically has a G.

Great Waves The diagram below shows the use of similar material in a sample passage from Great Waves (on top) and Zhaojun (underneath). In fact, we could make this kind of comparison within all three sections of these two solos. Comparing the two solos, we find that the opening section is much the longest, beginning slowly and working through several free variations of the same material

The second section of each solo is linked to the first by octave reiteration of the pitch A. Offbeat, open-string A's are repeated throughout both these sections (although the ways in which they are performed and transcribed differ somewhat), and both second sections share the same characteristic of fast tempo with gradual acceleration. Finally, both second sections rely on simple melodic material of an additive nature which emphasises a few pitches in turn. On the other hand, this section of Zhaojun is distinct from the shorter second section in Great Waves in that it returns to repeated octave A patterns at its end.

A similar sense of stylistic resemblance emerges from the examination of the third sections of Zhaojun and Great Waves. Tempo is fast in both, the A pedal from section 2 is replaced by periodic sounding of the open D string and there is an amount of common melodic material. Rhythmic style is similar in each. Nonetheless, the two pieces are not identical. For example, Zhaojun ends on D, while Great Waves continues to a final cadence on the note A.

For a long period there have been many of Pipa scores widely circulating among people in different parts of the country. Some of the Chinese Pipa classics are:

1. Ambush on all sides 2. Spring river in the moonlight 3. Chaojun out of the fortress

T HE P IPA, PAGE -7- OF -8- 4. Great waves sweeping away sand 5. White snow in sunny spring 6. Dragon boat 7. The lofty moon 8. Chu king unarmed 9. Five heroes on the wolf teeth mountain 10. The mountain and flowing water 11. The dancing golden snake

. . . Poetry The pipa's clear, bright and mellow tone and its variable volume can be seen from the description of Bai Juyi's verses:

The bold strings-they patterned like the dashing rain, The life strings-they sounded like the lovers' whispers. Chattering and pattering, pattering and chattering As pearls, large and small, on a jade patter fall.

. . . Bibliography

T HE P IPA, PAGE -8- OF -8-