The Pipa
The pipa (琵琶) is a pear-shaped Chinese lute with four strings and a long row of frets. Held upright and plucked with the fingers, it can whisper like rain or ring out like a battle.
弾 Play it yourself
Play the pipa
Play the pipa right here, from recorded notes; the line under the board says exactly which recording you hear. Nothing plays until you touch it.
More from the Chinese scholar’s garden: Guqin · Guzheng · Erhu · Dizi. All seven, Japanese and Chinese, are in East Asian instruments.
The pipa is a Chinese four-string lute with a pear-shaped body and about thirty frets. It is held upright and plucked with picks on the fingers, and its rolling tremolo can turn single notes into a sustained, shimmering line.
Its voice
Crisp and bright at the attack, the pipa can rattle, ring and roll. Its tremolo turns plucked notes into a sustained line, and players bend notes by pushing the strings across the frets.
A pipa has a shallow, pear-shaped wooden body, a pegbox bent back from the neck, four strings and — on the modern instrument — about thirty frets running from the neck down onto the face. Today the strings are usually tuned A, d, e, a.
Players wear small picks on the fingers of the right hand (once their own nails) and use techniques such as lunzhi (輪指), a rolling tremolo in which the fingers strike one after another so fast that the notes blur into one.
From the Silk Road to the Tang court
In early Chinese writing, “pipa” was a name for several plucked lutes. The pear-shaped, bent-neck lute came from Central Asia around the 4th–6th centuries CE and became a star of Tang-dynasty court music, when it was usually held across the body and played with a large plectrum. Over the following centuries players turned it upright and switched to the fingers.
Japan’s biwa descends from the Tang pipa, and instruments from that era survive in the Shōsōin treasure house in Nara. In China, Bai Juyi’s poem Song of the Pipa (琵琶行, 816) is still quoted whenever people describe the instrument; famous solo pieces range from the battle-scene Ambush from Ten Sides (十面埋伏) to the gentle Flute and Drum at Sunset (夕陽簫鼓).
Good to know
What is a pipa?
A Chinese four-string lute with a pear-shaped body and about thirty frets, held upright and plucked with picks worn on the fingers.
What is the difference between the pipa and the biwa?
The Japanese biwa descends from the Tang-dynasty pipa. The biwa kept a large plectrum and fewer, higher frets; the Chinese pipa moved to finger picks and many more frets.
How is the pipa played?
It rests upright on the player’s lap. The right hand plucks with finger picks, often in rolling tremolos (lunzhi); the left hand stops and bends the strings on the frets.
How many strings does a pipa have?
Four, usually tuned A, d, e and a on the modern instrument.