Chinoiserie
The pipa is called the Chinese lute. But the way it’s played these days, it rocks like an axe. Because of some innovations about a hundred years ago, the instrument can now play the Western scale and therefore can play along with any orchestra. It’s pretty amazing given that it is a 1800 year old plus instrument that originated from the Middle East. It made its way to China and established itself as a prestigious instrument undertaking.
And like many instruments from Asia, playing the pipa is not just about hitting notes but how you hit the notes. Sometimes you scoop up to a note, sometimes you glissando down. And sometimes you just hit it with a tremolo (usually accompanied by an attractive crescendo or diminuendo). I love this sound and apparently so do many other composers, especially in China.
But in the West there are composers who are equally fascinated by it. Lou Harrison even went to Asia to study it. And he wrote an excellent concerto for Wu Man (above), the foremost international pipa player who is pretty much on any Western recording of pipa music. With an unusual structure of seven distinct movements, all aspects of the pipa are explored, including making the pipa imitate other instruments. In the movement called Neapolitan, the pipa tremolo, one of the most popular pipa techniques, is thoroughly explored accompanied by pizzicato strings.
Neapolitan (mp3) - Lou Harrison (performed by Wu Man) Buy
Philip Glass was commissioned to write an international work for the 2004 Olympic Games. So when he had to pick an instrument to represent China, he went to Wu Man and her pipa. Now while he wrote a pipa piece that basically executes all the familiar Glassisms, he also allowed for some improvisation in Interludes, where two musicians of different cultures jam. China was paired with Australia, a good choice given that that meant pipa got a cool accompaniment from a didgeridoo. By the end of this song, the pipa is rocking it so hard that it would probably impress Steve Vai himself.
Interlude with Australia and China (mp3) - Philip Glass Buy
Pipa did get some use in the film The Last Emperor. I always find it somewhat ironic that the Asian composer on that film, Ryuichi Sakamoto, wrote in a Western style for mostly Western instruments, while David Byrne wrote the famous Chinese-ish main theme. This is probably the first and only time a trio won Best Score Oscars (Three 6 Mafia doesn’t count because they won Best Song)…and with good reason, the various composers together hit a unique balance of tradition and modernism. Take Byrne’s theme…violin solo imitating a Chinese erhu with marimbas and then a pipa at 2:35. An excellent mix of timbres…something which John Williams blatantly ripped off for his Memoirs of a Geisha score.
Main Theme from The Last Emperor (mp3) - David Byrne Buy
Just as the Beatles popularized the sitar, rock has an amazing ability to make new musical ideas palatable if it rocks hard enough. The band Sons and Daughters have made great strides in using lute as a guitar replacement in rock music so it’s certainly within the realm of possibility. Indeed, Incubus has used pipa. In fact, Mike Einziger of Incubus borrowed a pipa from Steve Vai and used it on the 2001 album Morning View. It’s a pretty lush arrangement with string section and pan flute for a song that includes turntablist twitching every now and then. It’s exotic without turning into a caricature.
Aqueous Transmission (mp3) - Incubus Buy
