The biwa, originally an instrument of high society, gradually spread among wandering blind monks who used this instrument to tell stories. In spite of its popularity, the nin War and subsequent Warring States Period disrupted biwa teaching and decreased the number of proficient users. New York, 1903, vol. As part of, Metalwork by Goto Teijo, 9th generation Goto master, Japan (16031673). Cheng Yu researched the old Tang dynasty five-stringed pipa in the early 2000s and developed a modern version of it for contemporary use. The sole stroke motion used in this example is kakubachi, but it also includes examples of hazusu and tataku. The typical 5-stringed Satsuma-biwa classical tuning is: CGCG, from first string to fourth/fifth string, respectively. 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 (710794). greatest depth of resonator One of the biwa's most famous uses is for reciting The Tale of the Heike, a war chronicle from the Kamakura period (11851333). The pear-shaped biwa lute has enchanted listeners in Japan for centuries. Over the centuries, several types of biwa were created, each having a certain size plectrum, a specialized purpose, a unique performance technique, and varying numbers of strings and frets. [61][33], During the Song dynasty, players mentioned in literary texts include Du Bin (). Biwa Description The biwa is a four stringed lute and it is approximately 106 cm long (42 inches). In Satsuma-biwa classical pieces, the thickest string (the first) is in principle. By the middle of the Meiji period, improvements had been made to the instruments and easily understandable songs were composed in quantity. Interest in the biwa was revived during the Edo period (16001868), when Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan and established the Tokugawa shogunate. This article is about the Chinese instrument. Plucking in the opposite direction to tan and tiao are called mo () and gou () respectively. 89.4.123. In addition, there are a number of techniques that produce sound effects rather than musical notes, for example, striking the board of the pipa for a percussive sound, or strings-twisting while playing that produces a cymbal-like effect. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute ", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. The pear-shaped instrument may have existed in China as early as the Han dynasty, and although historically the term pipa was once used to refer to a variety of plucked chordophones, its usage since the Song dynasty refers exclusively to the pear-shaped instrument. The artist Yang Jing plays pipa with a variety of groups. [2], Early literary tradition in China, for example in a 3rd-century description by Fu Xuan, Ode to Pipa,[1][28] associates the Han pipa with the northern frontier, Wang Zhaojun and other princesses who were married to nomad rulers of the Wusun and Xiongnu peoples in what is now Mongolia, northern Xinjiang and Kazakhstan. The 5-string specimen is larger (the vibrating length of its strings is 30.3 inches) and heavier than the 4-string specimen and also has some delicate decorative detail added that is carved out of mother-of-pearl (detail #8 and #9). Lingering, filling the palace hall, spring snow flew. Gao Hong graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music and was the first to do a joint tour with Lin Shicheng in North America. [24] However, it continued to be played as a folk instrument that also gained the interest of the literati. [74], Modern pipa player, with the pipa held in near upright position. The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889, Accession Number: The biwa arrived in Japan in the 7th century, having evolved from the Chinese bent-neck pipa (; quxiang pipa),[1] while the pipa itself was derived from similar instruments in West Asia. Koto. Wu Man is probably the best known pipa player internationally, received the first-ever master's degree in pipa and won China's first National Academic Competition for Chinese Instruments. It is one of the more popular Chinese folk music, often paired with singing. Once assembled, four wound silk strings of varying thicknesses are at one of their ends tied to the string holder bridge (detail #4) and the other to the tuning pegs. [69] The instrument is also played by musician Min Xiaofen in "I See Who You Are", a song from Bjrk's album Volta. Biwa hshi performances overlapped with performances by other biwa players many years before heikyoku (, The Tale of the Heike),[further explanation needed] and continues to this day. to divide instruments into eight categories determined by materials. Thought to be of Persian origin, the biwa was brought to Japan in the 8th century via Central Asia, China and the Korean Peninsula. The biwa's Chinese predecessor was the pipa (), which arrived in Japan in two forms;[further explanation needed] following its introduction to Japan, varieties of the biwa quadrupled. It is the most widely used system for classifying musical . Songs are not always metered, although more modern collaborations are metered. 11.7 in. Kakisukashi: This is a three or four-note arpeggio with two strings in unison. 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. [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. 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). In gagaku, it is known as the gaku-biwa (). Wei Zhongle (; 19031997) played many instruments, including the guqin. Although shaped like a Western lute, the Biwa's back is flat and it has a shallower body. Liu Dehai (19372020), also born in Shanghai, was a student of Lin Shicheng and in 1961 graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Player - Instrument Interface and Sound Production. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. The number of frets is considerably fewer than other fretted instruments. Biwa (Japanese instrument) - MIT Global Shakespeares Biwa (Japanese instrument) The Biwa is a Japanese teardrop lute, similar to the lute and the oud, with a short neck and frets. Australian dark rock band The Eternal use the pipa in their song "Blood" as played by singer/guitarist Mark Kelson on their album Kartika. A pipa player playing with the pipa behind his back. Detail #2 shows the backside of the instrument; detail #3 is a side view revealing both the shallowness of the bowl-shaped resonator and the height of the frets that are glued onto the neck. It had close association with Buddhism and often appeared in mural and sculptural representations of musicians in Buddhist contexts. The biwa has a shallow, rounded back and silk strings (usually four or five) attached to slender lateral pegs. Finally, measure 5 shows a rare instance where a melodic tone (F# in this case) is doubled on the second beat of the biwa's pattern. These two modern styles came to Tokyo with the local reformists who led the Meiji Restoration, and became the center of the contemporary music scene in the late 19th to early 20th century. Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API. The five-stringed pipa however had fallen from use by the Song dynasty, although attempts have been made to revive this instrument in the early 21st century with a modernized five-string pipa modeled on the Tang dynasty instrument. 2.2 in. the fingers and thumb flick outward, unlike the guitar where the fingers and thumb normally pluck inward towards the palm of the hand. Dunhuang, Mogao Caves. Novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties such as Jin Ping Mei showed pipa performance to be a normal aspect of life in these periods at home (where the characters in the novels may be proficient in the instrument) as well as outside on the street or in pleasure houses.[24]. As one of the modern types of biwa that flourished in the late 19, centuries, Satsuma-biwa is widely played today in various settings, including popular media. The biwa, originally an instrument of high society, gradually spread among wandering blind monks who used this instrument to tell stories. Table of Contents 1. The strings are tuned in fourths, and the melody is played almost exclusively on the highest pitched string. Ueda Junko and Tanaka Yukio, two of Tsuruta's students, continue the tradition of the modern satsuma-biwa. An English translation was published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961. Performers on the instrument frequently pluck two notes simultaneously, producing a variety of intervals, especially when the singer is silent. In the Meiji period (1868-1912), sighted musicians created new styles of secular biwa narrative singing inspired by Kyushu ms traditions and introduced them to Tokyo. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. During the Song dynasty, many of the literati and poets wrote ci verses, a form of poetry meant to be sung and accompanied by instruments such as pipa. The instrument was invented in China in the 3rd to 5th centuries AD, during the Jin dynasty. The frets of the satsuma-biwa are raised 4 centimetres (1.6in) from the neck allowing notes to be bent several steps higher, each one producing the instrument's characteristic sawari, or buzzing drone. 2. Biwa players no longer enjoyed special privileges and were forced to support themselves. However, depictions of the pear-shaped pipas in China only appeared after the Han dynasty during the Jin dynasty in the late 4th to early 5th century. Played with a large wooden plectrum, the instrument has four or five strings of twisted silk stretched over four or more . For the left hand, as mentioned above under the Construction section, bending of the strings (oshikan ) and delicate control of it to create a vibrato effect (yuri ) are crucial techniques to create the biwas subtle in-between notes that are unique for fretted instruments. NAKAMURA Kahoru, the biwa player with whom we worked, mentioned that for a concert including pieces in two different modes, she tunes two biwas before the concert. There is little space between the strings on the first three frets, causing obstruction when attacking an upper string whose immediate lower string is fingered in one of the first three frets. The gagaku biwa (), a large and heavy biwa with four strings and four frets, is used exclusively for gagaku. Typically, the lowest notes of the arpeggios are open strings, while the highest ones can either be fingered pitches or an open string. After having arrived in Japan via the Silk Road for purely instrumental music, the biwa evolved over time into a narrative musical instrument. The heike-biwa (), a biwa with four strings and five frets, is used to play The Tale of the Heike. In the 13th century, the story "The Tale of Heike" ()was created and told by them. [18], As biwa music declined in post-Pacific War Japan, many Japanese composers and musicians found ways to revitalize interest in it. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. Since the revolutions in Chinese instrument-making during the 20thcentury, the softer twisted silk strings of earlier times have been exchanged for nylon-wound steel strings, which are far too strong for human fingernails, so false nails are now used, constructed of plastic or tortoise-shell, and affixed to the fingertips with the player's choice of elastic tape. Ieyasu favored biwa music and became a major patron, helping to strengthen biwa guilds (called Todo) by financing them and allowing them special privileges. The transmission parameter (product of propagation speed and Q value of the longitudinal wave along the wood grain . In modern biwa, particularly in Satsuma-biwa, one sometimes strikes the soundboard sharply to get percussive effects. Members of these schools are sighted and include both females and males. A distinctive sound of pipa is the tremolo produced by the lunzhi () technique which involves all the fingers and thumb of the right hand. 36 1/2 7 7/8 5 in. Because of its traditional association with silk strings, the pipa is classified as a silk instrument in the Chinese bayin (eight-tone) classification system, a system devised by scholars of the Zhou court (1046-256 B.C.) The left hand techniques are important for the expressiveness of pipa music. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 681. [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. The body is often made of stretched snakeskin, and come in varying sizes. [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 (). The body is narrower and smaller than the other types of biwa. Region: East Asia. In 1868, the Tokugawa shogunate collapsed, giving way to the Meiji period and the Meiji Restoration, during which the samurai class was abolished, and the Todo lost their patronage. The biwa (Japanese: ) is a Japanese short-necked wooden lute traditionally used in narrative storytelling. It is an instrument in Japan, that is a two-stringed fiddle (violin). The flowers fluttered, and from Heaven the phoenix trilled, 105-126. Influenced by the recitations of blind priests, the music of the heike biwa reflects the mood of the text. Instruments are classified using 5 different categories depending on the manner in which the instrument creates the sound: Idiophones, Membranophones, Chordophones, Aerophones, & Electrophones. As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. Several related instruments are derived from the pipa, including the Japanese biwa and Korean bipa in East Asia, and the Vietnamese n t b in Southeast Asia. It is possible to include a fingered pitch among the lower grace-notes but that pitch should preferably be chosen among those playable on the 4th fret. [38] It has however been suggested that the long plectrum depicted in ancient paintings may have been used as a friction stick like a bow. to the present. Its tuning is A, c, e, a or A, c-sharp, e, a. Multiple strings are often played in one pluck like an arpeggio. Malm, William P. 1959. L 31 1/2 W. 11 13/16 D. 1 5/16 in. , one can make two or three notes for each fret and also in-between notes. Bodmin, Cornwall, Great Britain: MPG Books, pp. The biwa is a plucked lute chordophone of Japan. This is the original form of biwa that came to Japan in the 8th century. Each type has different and unique tones, techniques, and musical styles. This next instrument seems to have some spiritual meaning behind it. This 5-stringed lute with a powerful. Shamisen. This seeming shortcoming is compensated for by the frets height and the low tension of the strings. Painted panel of the sarcophagus of Y Hung, depicts one of the Persian or Sogdian figures playing pipa. Its boxwood plectrum is much wider than others, often reaching widths of 25cm (9.8in) or more. In order to boost the volume of its sound the biwa player rarely attacks a single string, and instead arpeggios 2, 3, or 4 pitches, with one note per string. This is due to the fact that the space between the strings on the first three frets is so short that a fingered 1st fret on the 3rd string, for example, would damp the following 4th string, as shown on Figure 7. The strings are struck with a hand-held wooden plectrum. Techniques that produce vibrato, portamento, glissando, pizzicato, harmonics or artificial harmonics found in violin or guitar are also found in pipa. For other uses, see, Illustrations from the 15th century Korean work, Xiansuo Shisan Tao (, later incorporated into Complete String Music ), Note that some people claimed Pei Xingnu to be the female player described in the poem, History of lute-family instruments Short-necked lutes, "The pipa: How a barbarian lute became a national symbol", "Avaye Shayda - Kishibe's diffusionism theory on the Iranian Barbat and Chino-Japanese Pi' Pa', "Chapter 1: A General history of the Pipa", "Bracket with two musicians 100s, Pakistan, Gandhara, probably Butkara in Swat, Kushan Period (1st century-320)", The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'ang Exotics, "Pipa - A Chinese lute or guitar, its brief history, photos and music samples", A report on Chinese research into the Dunhuang music manuscripts, "Chapter 3 Musical structure in the Hua Collection", "Comparison of Three Chinese Traditional Pipa Music Schools with the Aid of Sound Analysis", "Lui Pui-yuen, master of Chinese music, returns to perform once again", "Incubus - Mike Einziger Guitar Gear Rig and Equipment", "[search page, albums featuring Yang Jing]", "La scne musicale alternative pkinoise vue par Jean Sbastien Hry (Djang San)", "BC GRIMM Experimental Acoustic-Electric Music EPK", "Experimental Electric Pipa - , by Zhang Si'an (Djang San )", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pipa&oldid=1138787889, Articles with dead external links from January 2018, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles containing Chinese-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2019, Articles with MusicBrainz instrument identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Flute and Drum at Sunset / Flowery Moonlit River in Spring, This page was last edited on 11 February 2023, at 16:35. It was in the late 20th century that this instrument started to be re-discovered and re-evaluated in various musical settings, such as soundtrack for movies and ensemble and orchestra music, culminating in Toru Takemitsus signature piece November Steps, which premiered in New York City in 1967. The heike-biwa, smaller than the ms-biwa, was used for similar purposes. The wu style was associated more with the Northern school while the wen style was more the Southern school. Sort by. 38.5 in. The most eminent 20th century satsuma-biwa performer was Tsuruta Kinshi, who developed her own version of the instrument, which she called the tsuruta-biwa. [36][37] The Ming collection of supernatural tales Fengshen Yanyi tells the story of Pipa Jing, a pipa spirit, but ghost stories involving pipa existed as early as the Jin dynasty, for example in the 4th century collection of tales Soushen Ji. . Pipa is also an important component of regional chamber ensemble traditions such as Jiangnan sizhu, Teochew string music and Nanguan ensemble. However, another variant of the biwa known as the ms-biwa or the kjin-biwa also found its way to Japan, first appearing in the Kyushu region. 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. This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen. Not to be confused with the five-stringed variants of modern biwa, such as chikuzen-biwa. The short neck has four raised frets, each one specifically assigned to one of the left hand fingers. Although typically it is used to play short standardized phrases between lines of vocal text, it may be used for longer programmatic pieces depicting battles, storms, or other dramatic events. Instead, biwa singers tend to sing with a flexible pitch without distinguishing soprano, alto, tenor, or bass roles. 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 (). Over 100 years after its development, the H-S system is still in use in most museums and in large inventory projects. 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. 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). Harmonics: The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th harmonics of each open string can be performed by attacking the string with either the plectrum or the finger, and in both cases, the overall sonority is quite soft. Classification (Sachs-Von Hornbostel revised by MIMO) 321.312 chordophone--spike box lute or spike guitar: the resonator is built up from wood, the body of the instrument is in the form of a box through which the handle/neck passes In the 9th century the Ms (blind monks') biwa began to be used by blind musicians as an accompaniment to chanted religious texts and sutras. In the 13th century, the story The Tale of Heike ()was created and told by them. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Sun performed in the United States, Asia, and Europe, and in 1956 became deputy director of the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra. We speculate that being half-way in the section, the purpose of this clash may be to avoid a too strong feeling of cadence on the 'tonic E,' since there is one more phrase to come before completing this section. The nishiki-biwa (), a modern biwa with five strings and five frets, was popularised by the 20th-century biwa player and composer Suit Kinj (, 19111973). There is also evidence that other biwa instruments came from the Indian lute tradition. The typical 5-stringed Satsuma-biwa classical tuning is: CGCG, from first string to fourth/fifth string, respectively. Title: Satsuma Biwa () Date: ca. The higo-biwa is closely related to the heike-biwa and, similarly, relies on an oral narrative tradition focusing on wars and legends. Its plectrum is slightly larger than that of the gagaku-biwa, but the instrument itself is much smaller, comparable to a chikuzen-biwa in size. It is similar in shape to the chikuzen-biwa, but with a much more narrow body. Corrections? Its purpose is to show in context how the biwa uses its various patterns to color some melodic tones. Other noted players of the early 20th century include Liu Tianhua, a student of Shen Zhaozhou of the Chongming school and who increased the number of frets on the pipa and changed to an equal-tempered tuning, and the blind player Abing from Wuxi. [54][55] (The heptatonic scale was used for a time afterwards in the imperial court due to Sujiva's influence until it was later abandoned). Because of this bending technique oshikan (. When two strings are plucked at the same time with the index finger and thumb (i.e. The phrase structure is of four measures of four beats, and each section is composed of two phrases. The biwa is a stringed instrument used in Japan as a sort of story telling method. [51][52] Different schools have different repertoire in their music collection, and even though these schools share many of the same pieces in their repertoire, a same piece of music from the different schools may differ in their content. The fourth/fifth string G is an octave higher than the second string G. Again, note this is relative tuning; it could be AEAE, GDGD, etc, depending on the players range of voice. Each type has different and unique tones, techniques, and musical styles. This causes a sustained, buzzing noise called, which adds a unique flavor to the biwa sound. Four or five frets are attached to the body, and it is played with a large wooden plectrum (bachi). The biwas shallow body is a bouncing board that sharply projects its sound forward. In modern biwa, particularly in Satsuma-biwa, one sometimes strikes the soundboard sharply to get percussive effects. [6] Another Han dynasty text, Fengsu Tongyi, also indicates that, at that time, pipa was a recent arrival,[7] although later 3rd-century texts from the Jin dynasty suggest that pipa existed in China as early as the Qin dynasty (221206 BC). But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. Heike Biwa (), Medium: [32][33][34] A famous poem by Bai Juyi, "Pipa xing" (), contains a description of a pipa performance during a chance encounter with a female pipa player on the Yangtze River:[35]. 77-103. Its size and construction influences the sound of the instrument as the curved body is often struck percussively with the plectrum during play. It is an arpeggio that is always starting from the first string (the lowest) and swepping upwards to either the second, third or fourth string. (92.7 20 12.7 cm), Classification: Like pearls, big and small, falling on a platter of jade. Modern biwa music is based on that medieval narrative biwa music. Its plectrum varies in both size and materials. [3][4][5], The earliest mention of pipa in Chinese texts appeared late in the Han dynasty around the 2nd century AD. [10] In solo performances, a biwa performer sings monophonically, with melismatic emphasis throughout the performance. [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. Its plectrum is small and thin, often rounded, and made from a hard material such as boxwood or ivory. We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. [8][9] Liu Xi also stated that the instrument called pipa, though written differently (; pp or ; pb) in the earliest texts, originated from amongst the Hu people (a general term for non-Han people living to the north and west of ancient China). are crucial techniques to create the biwas subtle in-between notes that are unique for fretted instruments. The satsuma-biwa (), a biwa with four strings and four frets, was popularized during the Edo period in Satsuma Province (present-day Kagoshima) by Shimazu Tadayoshi. This is a type of biwa that wandering blind monks played for religious practice as well as in narrative musical performances during the medieval era, widely seen in the Kyushu area. Other prominent students of Lin Shicheng at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing include Liu Guilian (, born 1961), Gao Hong and Wu Man. 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. Classification: Chordophone-Lute-plucked-fretted. length [23], During the Song dynasty, pipa fell from favour at the imperial court, perhaps a result of the influence of neo-Confucian nativism as pipa had foreign associations. [17][18] The pear-shaped pipa may have been introduced during the Han dynasty and was referred to as Han pipa. [2][29] Wang Zhaojun in particular is frequently referenced with pipa in later literary works and lyrics, for example Ma Zhiyuan's play Autumn in the Palace of Han (), especially since the Song dynasty (although her story is often conflated with other women including Liu Xijun),[30][29] as well as in music pieces such as Zhaojun's Lament (, also the title of a poem), and in paintings where she is often depicted holding a pipa. The Museum's collection of musical instruments includes approximately 5,000 examples from six continents and the Pacific Islands, dating from about 300 B.C. This minute design detail gives rise to sawari, the distinctive raspy tone of a vibrating string. Like with the shamisen, a distinctive raspy tone quality called sawari is associated with the chikuzen biwa. Instrument Information Origins. The full vibrating lengths of the strings, the distance between their bend over the nut and the knots that secure their lower ends to the string holder, are all 27.7 inches. (80 30 3.4 cm), Classification: 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. The strings on a biwa range in thickness, with the first string being thickest and the fourth string being thinnest; on chikuzen-biwa, the second string is the thickest, with the fourth and fifth strings being the same thickness on chikuzen- and satsuma-biwa. the finger and thumb separate in one action), it is called fen (), the reverse motion is called zhi (). They included Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, and Su Shi. The piece is in Hy-j mode (E Dorian) and the basic melody is centered on the pitches: E, B, and A, three of the four fundamental pitches of the Japanese modes. Biwa performers also vary the volume of their voice between barely audible to very loud. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The body of the instrument is never struck with the plectrum during play, and the five string instrument is played upright, while the four string is played held on its side. Fine strings murmur like whispered words, 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.
biwa instrument classification