Pipa Art

01 · Historical Records

In the long course of its historical evolution the pipa underwent a transformation from being held horizontally and plucked with a plectrum to being held upright and played with the fingers. The Tang dynasty was the high period of the art of the horizontally held, plectrum-plucked pipa; by the Ming and Qing dynasties pipa artists had made great contributions to the composition of pipa pieces and especially of large suites, and many famous pipa playing schools had formed. In the 1930s Mr Liu Tianhua made bold reforms to the pipa and originated the thirteen-fret six-phase pipa. In 1957 Yang Shaoyi, a transmitter of the Pinghu school, took up a teaching post at the Xi'an Conservatory of Music and carried the pipa of the Pinghu school into north-west China.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The pipa is an ancient plucked string instrument of China; the two characters “pipa” are first found in Xu Shen's Shuowen Jiezi of the Eastern Han. “Pi” and “ba” are two playing techniques of this traditional instrument, corresponding to what are now called “tan” (to pluck) and “tiao” (to strike upwards with the thumb); the instrument was named after the technique and was called “piba”, which was later written as “pipa”. From the Qin and Han to the Sui and Tang the pipa was the general name for a number of plucked string instruments. After the founding of the People's Republic of China the development of the pipa reached a new peak. Today, besides solo playing and the national instrumental ensemble, the pipa is also the principal instrument of such genres as Jiangnan sizhu, Guangdong music, Chaozhou xianshi and Fujian Nanyin. The pipa art of the Pinghu school reached its culmination in Li Zufen (about 1850—1901). Li Zufen, whose style name was Fangyuan, was a native of Pinghu in Zhejiang; his pipa art came from four generations of family teaching. The playing technique of the pipa of the Pinghu school is quite distinct, with characteristic fingerings such as the “outward-down tremolo”, “two butterflies flying wing to wing”, “leftward stroke and repeated sweep”, “seven strokes”, “horse-hoof tremolo” and “hanging-thread tremolo”. There are two kinds of tremolo stroke, the upper-outward and the lower-outward. The Pinghu school basically uses the outward-down stroke: the little, ring, middle and index fingers pluck downwards in turn and the thumb then plucks upwards; it also uses the upper-outward stroke, in which the index, middle, ring and little fingers pluck downwards in turn and the thumb then plucks upwards. The pipa of the Pinghu school sternly avoids showiness without substance and affected artificiality, and is renowned for a style that is full and ornate yet solid and far-reaching, with densely packed notes and a rich sound in performance and a long resonance. The pipa of the Pinghu school occupies a very high position in the history of art and has had considerable influence on the formation of the various pipa styles of today. The source of the famous piece Spring River, Flower Moon Night is precisely the pipa piece of the Pinghu school, Sunset Flute and Drum.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The pipa of the Pinghu school is one of the principal schools of pipa playing art in China; in the late Qing dynasty and the early Republican period it was current mainly in the Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai area.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Pipa Art · Pipa Art.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

On the basis of the traditional old pieces he inherited, he drew widely on folk ditties, fused them into one, codified his fingerings and enlarged the repertory, finally forming his own theoretical and performing system, which he sorted out and compiled into the New Score of the Thirteen Large Pipa Suites of the Southern and Northern Schools, published in the twenty-first year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing (1895). The Thirteen Pipa Pieces of the Pinghu School, transmitted by Zhu Xingjing and Yang Shaoyi and edited by Ren Hongxiang, represent the repertory of Pinghu school performance, and among their representative works are Huaiyang Pacifying Chu, Yu Lunpao and The Gyrfalcon Catches the Swan. Zhu Dazhen (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): male, Han, born in July 1939, a native of Pinghu city, Zhejiang Province. From 1958 to 1966 he went many times to the home of Fan Boyan in Shanghai to collate and correct the playing technique of the pipa of the Pinghu school. Through self-study and with Fan Boyan's guidance he became able to play the pipa pieces of the Pinghu school such as The Xunyang Pipa, Wild Geese Alighting on the Sandy Shore, Night Mooring by Maple Bridge and Huaiyin Pacifying Chu. His artistic style is renowned for being full and ornate yet solid and far-reaching. In recent years he has taught at the various transmission and teaching bases, carried out transmission and teaching work, and taken an active part in the various display and performance activities relating to the pipa of the Pinghu school. Representative inheritor of pipa art (Pinghu school), a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the third national-level batch.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Yin Rongzhu 03-0876
• Lin Jiaqing 03-0877
• Zhu Dazhen 03-0878
• Zhou Lijuan
• Wang Zhen

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Pipa Art (Pinghu, Zhejiang) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Zhu Dazhen · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗