pipa (instrument)

The Pipa is pear-shaped bowl lute from China, traditionally with four strings. The instrument has a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31, and usually has 4 strings. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa.

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 string-instruments like the ruan, its usage since the Song dynasty refers exclusively to the pear-shaped instrument.

See also:

• Biwa lute - Japanese derivative