pipa opinion

it seems that nearly al of the pipa's that make it
into the US are fretted 12 equal.

i have seen two pipa's, but they were more in the
toy category, but clearly were hepatonic.

a few years back, i made an electric pipa. i used
the pentatonic scale given in helmholtz/ellis. it
may or may not be just intonation, don't know for
sure. eventually, i stuck in 2 extra frets in the
large gaps.

after 3 or 4 years i started to like the sound,
although, this is the same problem i had when i
bought some chinese music records--it took me several
years to adjust. looking back, i enjoy the traditional chine music, and
am not really sure what was the difficulty ( plus hazy recollections ).

best, buzy^
===

please visit the NOVOSONIC web page, for information
on new instruments and new music.....

http:/members.xoon.com/novosonic/enter.htm

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The small version of the "pipa" is not a toy and it is not a pipa --
it's a liuqin. Mine has two octaves of frets in a chromatic scale
which sounds pretty much like 12-tone equal temperament.

There is a picture of a pipa and some very basic information on
how to tune it (no details on intonation) on the page:

http://www.cs.ust.hk/icmc99/virtuosi.html

Some other Chinese intstruments are there as well.

Best,

Lydia Ayers