Kakisukashi: This is a three or four-note arpeggio with two strings in unison. Omissions? The short neck has four raised frets, each one specifically assigned to one of the left hand fingers. Tachibana sought to create a new narrative style that would appeal to a contemporary urban audience (de Ferranti p. 120) and that would be performed by sighted musicians. [72] He was also the first musician to add a strap to the instrument, as he did for the zhongruan, allowing him to play the pipa and the zhongruan like a guitar. Although shaped like a Western lute, the Biwa's back is flat and it has a shallower body. Also known as mouth organ. In previous centuries, the predominant biwa musicians would have been blind monks (, biwa hshi), who used the biwa as musical accompaniment when reading scriptural texts. During the Qing dynasty, apart from those of the various schools previously mentioned, there was Chen Zijing (), a student of Ju Shilin and known as a noted player during the late Qing dynasty. Traditional Chinese narrative prefers the story of the Han Chinese Princess Liu Xijun sent to marry a barbarian Wusun king during the Han dynasty, with the pipa being invented so she could play music on horseback to soothe her longings. As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. [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]. The wen style is more lyrical and slower in tempo, with softer dynamic and subtler colour, and such pieces typically describe love, sorrow, and scenes of nature. Japanese Music and Musical Instruments. In 1956, after working for some years in Shanghai, Lin accepted a position at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. 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.