Pipa

Pipa
A pipa from the late Ming dynasty
Classification
Related instruments
Sound sample
Pipa
"Pipa" in Chinese characters
Chinese琵琶
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyinpípá
pípa
Wade–Gilespʻi²-pʻa²
IPA[pʰǐpʰǎ]
[pʰǐ.pʰa]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanizationpèih-pàah
Jyutpingpei4-paa4
IPA[pʰej˩.pʰa˩]

The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a (Chinese: 琵琶) is a traditional Chinese musical instrument belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 31. 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 chordophones, its usage since the Song dynasty refers exclusively to the pear-shaped instrument.

The pipa is one of the most popular Chinese instruments and has been played for almost two thousand years in China. Several related instruments are derived from the pipa, including the Japanese biwa and Korean bipa in East Asia, and the Vietnamese đàn tỳ bà in Southeast Asia. The Korean instrument is the only one of the three that is no longer widely used.