Pipa's playing techniques are rich and colorful, which can be basically divided into right-handed techniques and left-handed techniques. The former includes playing, picking, rolling, dividing, hitting, hooking, turning, sweeping, waving and nodding, while the latter includes pressing keys, changing handles, jumping handles, crossing strings, playing, singing, rubbing, pushing, pulling and pulling. These complicated and difficult techniques have strict requirements in performance, so it inevitably involves the basic skills and teaching methods of the teacher himself. The cultivation of these basic skills requires not only the professional guidance of teachers, but also the unremitting practice of students after class. In the teaching and training of this skill and technology, every teacher has his own views and methods. Based on my many years of playing and teaching experience, the author will sum up some playing skills and techniques that need to be practiced and mastered in the initial stage of pipa.

First, rebound

In the beginner's stage, the first fingering is "playing", and its importance is self-evident. In order for students to practice "plucking" well in the introductory stage, teachers should first use the right methods to teach and form correct and good "habits". Secondly, teachers must ask students to work hard on timbre. As we know, the timbre of pipa can be divided into "music" and "noise", in which "music" is the most basic sound we use in playing; "Noise" is the sound produced by using special techniques in pipa performance, such as "twisting strings", "playing with sharp sounds", "picking up" and some percussion sounds. I mainly train beginners in two stages in the "flick" part: the first part is "fixed flick" and the second part is "wrist flick". Its purpose is to let beginners better master this playing technique, pave the way for clean and bright timbre, and lay a solid foundation for the development of basic playing skills in the future. Let me talk about the problems that are easy to occur in these two stages of training and the corresponding solutions.

1. Fix the elastic pick

Beginners often have the following problems when practicing and applying this technique: start playing when their hands are not ready; The thumb is separated from the index finger; Use the last joint of the finger when playing, and so on. The appearance of these problems easily leads to the phenomenon that the timbre is thin and hard. Let's take a look at how to bounce correctly.

When playing, first hold the right hand in a circle, and the tiger's mouth is longan-shaped (round), then directly hit the first two joints of the index finger and pop it up to the left panel. After the pop-up, the finger should point to the panel instead of straight ahead. The pop-up sound is thick and clean. Take back your fingers and restore your forehand after playing.

If you want to do this when playing the string, when your right hand is in the circle, the first joint of your thumb touches the string straight and makes a sound. After stirring, the touch of the big finger should not exceed the height of the second string. Take it back after picking it and restore the forehand shape.

The basic skills of "plucking" have been introduced above. In addition, we should pay special attention to it: we must learn to find the relaxed state of fingers after plucking the strings in constant practice, and when playing with this combination, the touch position of nails should be at the tip of nails and the strength should be at the fingertips, so as to make the sound played even and full.

Wave one's wrist

The performance of this technique is based on the practice of "fixed bounce" and wrist bounce. The sound made by the "fixed pick" is stiff, while the sound made by the wrist pick is crisp and soft.

In the teaching, the author found that students often have the following problems: when plucking the strings with their wrists, their movements are too large, their nails stay on the strings for too long, and their wrists are always in a state of tension and exertion. In this way, the sound played can not achieve the crisp and soft effect.

The correct playing method of wrist plucking is that the finger playing method remains the same, but the wrist needs to be in a relaxed state, so that the wrist rotates slightly like a fan when playing, and the nails should be quickly and decisively played on the string, all concentrated on one point.

It is particularly important to note here. Don't let plucking become playing up and down because of your wrist.

Second, double kill

Many beginners can't make the two sounds neat and light when using the double-play pickup technique, and there is always a phenomenon of "front and back tone". This is mainly because beginners "don't dare to start" when playing double strokes, and their fingers form a downward pull stroke on the strings, thus forming a "pull" stroke, and the pop-up sound will definitely not reach the neat effect required by double strokes.

The key points of this technique are: fingers should cross the string quickly to avoid nails staying on the string for too long, fingers should be "pointed" on the string like "dragonflies" when playing "double play", and the pop-up angle should be right in front, not falling; When "double-picking", the right wrist simply picks the upper right corner. The sound played in this way is clean, neat and brisk.

Third, sweep

When using this technique, teachers can guide students to train with the technique of "double play and pick". The specific method is as follows: first, start playing with double bombs, then use three-string bombs, and finally sweep four strings. In this process, with the increase of the number of strings, the action of turning the wrist of the right hand and the action of raising the forearm will become larger; When using the "stroke" technique, it also starts with double strokes and turns into three strings and four strings in turn. When you reach the four strings, your right hand must reach a certain strength and speed. When you brush it back, you will naturally shrink your hand like an "iron needle", which is very painful. In this way, the sound played will be neat, powerful and powerful.

The problem we should pay attention to here is that when practicing and applying this technique, never send the forearm of the right hand forward, which will lead to irregular sound sweeping and lose the strong sound effect of the sound sweeping technique.

Fourth, role-playing

That is, bounce quickly. In this seemingly simple technique, many students will have excessive wrist movements, unfocused fingers playing "points" and flat wrists. , will lead to unable to speed up the playback speed, nail noise is too large.

According to the author's years of playing and teaching experience, we should pay attention to the use of wrists and fingers when using this technique. First of all, the wrist should not be flat, it should stand slightly, and the rotation should not be too big; Secondly, fingers need to "stand up" to play, that is, the fingers used to play should be perpendicular to the strings, the nail should not touch the ground too much, and the tip of the nail should touch the strings. The speed and strength of this technology lies in the finger rather than the wrist, so the wrist needs to be relaxed and the finger has a sense of friction. Only in this way can the sound be played with both strength and speed.

Shake your fingers.

This is the same technique as the rolling effect, but the playing method is completely different. When using this technique, students are prone to the following problems: the right wrist is flat, the thenar is too close to the string, and the finger touch angle and forearm support point are incorrect. These problems will lead to excessive noise, unsmooth and uneven timbre.

The correct way to use it is to press one third of the forearm on the rounded corner at the lower right of the piano to support and fix it. On this basis, the wrist stands up, the right hand hangs naturally, the right shoulder leans slightly outward, the index finger pushes up slightly, the wrist rotates flexibly to produce speed, and the center of gravity is also on the finger. At first, you should start with your index finger, practice slowly, and then speed up the practice after your fingers reach a certain strength, and practice every finger.

Six, wheel finger

This technique is difficult to practice in the ordinary fingering of pipa, and it is also a characteristic technique of pipa. It is often difficult for beginners to reach the average strength and speed of five fingers. Before learning wheel fingers, we should start with the practice of dividing fingers, single and double hooks and moving fingers. In these exercises, every finger must be practiced, especially the ring finger and little finger with poor strength and flexibility. The purpose is to ensure that each finger will not have uneven strength and speed when playing the wheel finger technique.

The correct application of this technique is: keep the palm relaxed, point to the left panel after each finger pops up, and straighten the first two joints of the fingers. It should be noted that every time the finger comes out, the big finger should follow the downward direction, which makes it easier to pick it up. When the ring finger and the little finger bounce up, the fingers don't need to extend outward, but shrink inward to make them "fan-shaped", as if supported by a stick-like object in the palm of your hand, showing an umbrella shape. The sound played in this way is clean and powerful, which can better reflect the graininess and beautiful timbre of "like pouring pearls of all sizes into a plate of jade".

By the way, recommend a good institution for Beijing Guzheng training, Xiaoya Music Classroom:)