Behind the popularity of the song "Sheng Sheng Man", do you know how difficult it is to make a Suzhou Pipa?

Blue bricks with painted tiles, white horses stepping on new mud... How many people come to Suzhou just to go to Pingjiang Road and listen to an authentic Suzhou Pingtan in the Pingtan Hall.

Two people, two chairs, and two musical instruments: pipa and sanxian. This is the basic performance form of Suzhou Pingtan.

Teacher Wu Liangying's "Sheng Sheng Man" live performance

However, for the old craftsmen in Suzhou, it is not easy to make a satisfactory pipa.

01

The Pipa from the Long River of History

Pipa has a very long history in our country.

"The Song of the Pipa", which is the nightmare of every generation of high school students, dominates the Chinese textbooks and must be memorized in its entirety, comes from Mr. Bai Juyi of the Tang Dynasty .

At that time, the pipa had become a very popular musical instrument and played the leading role in the orchestra.

Going back further, you might think of the Han Dynasty, when Zhaojun went to the frontier , she was wearing a bright red cloak and holding a pipa in her arms.

Emmm, but in fact, in Zhaojun's time, the pipa may not look like this. The pipa we are familiar with today has a curved neck and a pear-shaped sound box.

Our earliest pipa was once called "Pi Ba" and it existed in the Qin Dynasty. It was a round instrument with a long handle .

Why is it called "Pi Ba" such a strange name? In fact, "Pi" and "Ba" are both ways of playing it. Later, in order to unify the shape of characters such as "Qinse", it was renamed "Pipa".

It was not until the Northern and Southern Dynasties that the curved-necked, pear-shaped pipa was introduced to China from the Western Regions via the Silk Road. After the two were integrated, it became what it is today.

02

The ultimate elegance and craftsmanship

Although the pipa looks delicate, it is actually very heavy. Not to mention that making a pipa is "hard, dirty and tiring". In a small studio, they often work on hundreds of pounds of wood.

Generally speaking, the production of a pipa involves four major processes: backboard, topboard, stringing, and tuning .

Among them, the most important parts are the back panel and the panel.

For the backboard, you need to hollow out the inside and chisel out a pear shape with an axe. After it is formed, replace the axe with a plane and plane the back to make it look like a real thing before you start sanding it.

The back panel is used to reflect sound, while the front panel is used to vibrate and produce sound; together they form the resonance box of the pipa.

How is the curvature of the back panel dug? How is the thickness of the top panel handled and how does it match the back panel? These are all critical and directly affect the sound quality of the pipa.

It can be said that one point more is too fat, and one point less is too thin. Sometimes, if you plane a little too much or chisel a little too little, the board will be ruined and you have to start all over again.

After the board is finished, the strings can be installed and tuned. The most common pipa nowadays has four strings, six frets, and 24 frets. Does it sound a bit confusing? In fact, the frets and frets are things on the board similar to a washboard.

Detailed explanation of the parts of the pipa, source network

There is also a saying about the four strings. Do you remember "the big strings are as loud as heavy rain, and the small strings are as soft as whispers"?

The four strings are not exactly the same, they often have different divisions of labor, some are thick, some are crisp, thus forming the characteristics of the pipa "both civil and martial".

03

Slowly making a life of pipa

There is a master craftsman named Li Zhaolin in Suzhou, he is 78 years old this year, he grew up listening to the sound of pipa, at the age of 17 he was assigned to Suzhou National Musical Instruments Factory No. 1 to learn how to make pipa, now it has been more than 60 years.

He said that to make a good pipa, one cannot be impatient and must take one's time to complete it. It would take at least three or four months.

The studio was dusty, and he didn't pay much attention to maintenance. He was also a bit allergic, and had polyps in his nose. He had two surgeries, and now he has completely lost his sense of smell. However, he still couldn't give up his love for the pipa.

Historically, the standard for measuring a good pipa is: loose, explosive, swinging, crisp, and bright. It is too difficult to achieve all these five words, and a person may not be able to make a few satisfactory pipa in his lifetime.

Master Li never takes credit for being a "master" and always considers himself to be an ordinary retired worker.

His name had long been listed in the "Biographies of Chinese Makers". The book is very old, but Li Zhaolin still kept it intact. When his son took it out to show it, he had a bit of restrained pride, which was the craftsman's affirmation and pride in his own craftsmanship.

Fortunately, his son has taken over his class, his grandson has gone to Pingtan school to study, and his granddaughter has also shown an interest in the pipa. For Li Zhaolin, as long as the younger generations are still touching the pipa, part of his life seems to have continued.

Editor: Dust lamp

Photography: Zhou Haifeng, Ye Jun