Biwa
The biwa is a Japanese plucked lute, usually with a bent neck, four or five strings, and from four to six frets. It is pear-shaped, with a shallow wooden body, three sound holes, and twisted silk strings wound on lateral pegs; it is played with a bachi (plectrum). A descendant of the Chinese pipa, the biwa entered Japan in the late seventh century. Gakubiwa denotes the larger type used for gagaku (ensemble court music) and solo styles, often mentioned in literary sources. A second category, mosobiwa (blind monk's lute), was connected with Tendai Buddhist sutra recitation in Kyushu. Heikebiwa arose in the late twelfth century to accompany heikyoku, the narration of The Tale of the Heike by blind itinerant lay priests known as biwa hoshi. Biwa interludes punctuating sung text were thought to pacify the spirits of dead warriors. Heikebiwa guilds influenced shamisen styles as well. The mosobiwa was the ancestor of more modern instruments and performance styles, such as the satsumabiwa; Shimazu Tadayoshi (1492–1568) wrote songs for the satsumabiwa to encourage samurai values. Brought to Tokyo in the Meiji period (1868–1912), the orthodox (seiha) satsumabiwa school and two offshoots, kinshinbiwa and nishikibiwa, were extremely popular, especially until the Pacific war's end. Percussive effects, vibrato, and glissandi techniques distinguish satsumabiwa styles. A child of the mosobiwa of northern Kyushu, chikuzenbiwa, begun by Tachibana Kyokuo (1848–1919), appealed to women players with its smaller instrument and style that was suited to lyrical preoccupations. Tsuruta Kinshi (1911–1995) and Takemitsu Toru (1930–1996) brought new attention to the modified satsumabiwa with modern compositions.
Further Reading
De Ferranti, Hugh. (2001) "Biwa." In New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 12. London: Macmillan, 820–824.
——. (1991) "Composition and Improvisation in Satsuma biwa." In Musica Asiatica. Vol. 6, edited by Allan Marett. New York: Cambridge University Press, 102–127.
Guignard, Silvain. (1989) "A Japanese Musical Heritage in the Halfshade: The Biwa and Its Narrative Style." Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 4: 37–48.
Matisoff, Susan. (1978) The Legend of Semimaru, Blind Musician of Japan. New York: Columbia University Press.
Mayeda Akio. (1979) "The Musical Structure of Heikyoku." In European Studies on Japan, edited by Charles Dunn and Ian Nish. Tenterden, Kent, U.K.: Paul Norbury Publications, 220–229.
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