LIU Xiangyun - pipa


Liu Xiangyun, a member of Musician Association of Jiangsu Province, and first chair pipa of the Traditional Orchestra of the Jiangsu Dance and Opera Theatre, was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province in 1973. At the age of seven, she began studying pipa under her father and entered Nanjing Primary School of Arts at age ten, joining a tour to Japan during the following year. In 1987, as a delegate of Nanjing Middle School Art Group, she toured Japan again.

In 1991, Ms. Liu entered Nanjing College of Art where she studied under master pipa player Liu Shi. After graduating with honors, she joined Traditional Orchestra of the Jiangsu Dance and Opera Theatre. The following year, Ms Liu took part in a highly successful tour of Taiwan and recorded two CDs. In 1997, she placed third in the Jiangsu Traditional Instrument Competition. In the year 2000, she participated in a large-scale recording of Chinese folk songs and dances. The result, What Nice Jasmine, won the gold award at the Sixth China Art Festival.

In addition to regular performance, she devotes herself to teaching and promoting Chinese music, performing at number of different university campuses and student orchestras. Invited by the International Student Education Center of Nanjing University as a guest lecturer in 1999, she began to introduce the students from all over world to Chinese traditional music and instruments. In addition to the pipa she also plays two other traditional instruments, the zhong ruan and the liu qin.
The PIPA

a distant relative of the Western lute, is one of the oldest musical instruments in the world, first appearing in Chinese texts over 2000 years ago. During the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) the pipa became one of the most popular musical instruments in China. Bai Juyi, among the most important poets of that period, vividly described pipa music and its techniques in his famous poem Pipa xing, or "Ode to the Pipa." The Tang Dynasty pipa was larger than the modern version and was played with a wooden plectrum instead of the five picks used today (a technique still used by its Japanese descendent, the biwa, and once used on the extinct Korean pip'a).

The modern pipa is tuned A-D-E-a, with all the open strings sounding below middle C on the piano. It has 30 frets which extend down the neck and onto the sound board, giving it a wide range including all the chromatic possibilities. The technique for playing the pipa is characterized by rolls, slaps, "Bartok pizzicato", harmonics and noises which are often combined into extensive tone-poems. Traditional performers can imitate a wide variety of sounds - from flowing water, conversing geese and trotting horses to Chinese gongs and drums and sounds of battle. Traditional pipa pieces are usually classified as either civil pieces (wenqu) or martial pieces (wuqu). Comparatively speaking, civil pieces are refined and elegant, and played at a slow tempo and soft volume. Martial pieces are generally faster and louder and often depict scenes in historic battles. The pipa is also used in chamber ensembles, to accompany singing and dancing, and is a popular solo instrument.