Pipa has a variety of playing techniques and techniques, which can be basically divided into right-hand techniques and left-hand techniques. The former includes playing, picking, rolling, splitting, pressing, hooking, wheeling, sweeping, whisking, shaking, and phoenix nodding, etc., while the latter includes pressing the sound. , Change the handle, jump the handle, cross the string, hit the tone, with the tone, chant, knead, push, pull, chuo, note, twist the string, vibrato, pause, overtone, etc. These complicated and difficult skills and techniques have strict requirements in performance, so this inevitably involves the basic skills and teaching methods of teachers themselves. The development of these basic skills requires not only the professional guidance of teachers, but also the persistent and continuous practice of students outside of class.

In the teaching and training of such skills and techniques, each teacher has his own views and methods. Based on his years of performance and teaching experience, the following will summarize some performance skills and techniques that need to be practiced and mastered in the beginner stage of pipa and their key points. 

1. Bounce

In the beginner stage, the first fingering that comes into contact with is "flick and pick", and its importance is self-evident. In order for students to practice "playing and picking" well at the introductory stage, teachers must first teach them in the correct way to form a correct and good "habit", and secondly, teachers must also require students to work on timbre. We know that the timbre emitted by the pipa is divided into "music" and "noise", among which "music" occupies the main position, it is the most basic sound we use in playing; "noise" is a special sound used in pipa performance The sounds produced by the technique, such as "twisted strings", "sounds", "picks", and some strikes that imitate percussion. I mainly conduct two stages of training for beginners in the "flick" part: the first part is "fixed bouncing", and the second part is "wrist bouncing". The purpose is to enable beginners to better master this playing technique, and to lay a solid foundation for the development of basic playing skills in the future. Next, I will talk about the problems that are prone to occur in these two stages of training and the corresponding solutions.

1. Fixed bounce

Beginners are often prone to the following problems when practicing and using this technique: they start to play before the hand shape is ready; the big finger is separated from the index finger; the last joint of the finger is used when playing, and so on. The appearance of these problems can easily lead to the phenomenon of thin and hard sound. Now let's take a look at how to correctly pick up.

When playing, first hold the right hand in a circle, and the tiger's mouth is in the shape of a dragon's eye (circular), then straighten the first two joints of the index finger to the left panel and pop it out. towards the panel, not straight ahead. The resulting sound is thick and clean. After playing, the fingers are retracted to restore the hand shape before the shooting.

If you want to do this when picking, when the right hand is in a circle, the first joint of the big finger touches the string straight and makes a sound. After picking up, the place where the big finger touches the string should not exceed the height of the second string. . After picking, retract it and restore the hand shape before picking.

The above describes the basic skills of "playing and picking", in addition to this, special attention should be paid to: you must learn to find the relaxed state of your fingers after playing in continuous practice, and the position where your fingernails touch the strings when playing with this combination. All should be on the tip of the fingernail, and the force should be on the tip of the finger, and strive to make the sound even and full.

2. Wrist snap

The performance of this technique is based on the practice of "fixed picking" and then adding the wrist to pick and pick. The sound of "fixed pick" is more "rigid", while the sound of wrist pick is crisp and soft.

The author found in the teaching that students often have the following problems: the movement of the wrist is too large, and the nails stay on the strings for too long, and the wrist is always in a state of tension and force. In this way, the sound played will not achieve a crisp and soft effect.

The correct way to play the wrist is to keep the fingers in the same way, but the wrist needs to be in a relaxed state. When playing, let the wrist rotate slightly like a fan, and the nails should be fast and decisive on the strings. Play around and focus on one point.

Special attention should be paid here, do not make the pick up and down because of the addition of the wrist.

2. Double bounce

Many beginners cannot make the two tones neat and light when using the double-bounce technique, and there is always the phenomenon of "before and after". This is mainly because beginners "don't dare to start" when they perform double-playing and picking, and the fingers form a downward-sliding style of playing on the strings, thus forming a "pulling" playing method, and the sound of the popping will definitely not reach To the neat effect required by the double-bounce pick.

The key points of this technique are: the fingers should pass the strings quickly, so as to avoid the nails staying on the strings for too long. When "double-playing", the fingers "point" on the strings like "dragonfly on the water", and the popping angle is in the right direction. The right wrist is simply lifted to the upper right corner during the "double pick". The resulting sound is clean, neat, and light.

3. sweep

When using this technique to play, teachers can instruct students to cooperate with the "double-playing and picking" technique. The specific method is: first play with double-playing, then play three strings, and finally carry out sweeping of four strings. , in this process, with the increase of the number of strings, the movement of the right wrist and the lifting of the forearm should increase accordingly; when using the "brush" technique, also start with double picks, followed by It becomes three strings and four strings. When the fourth string is reached, the right hand must reach a certain strength and speed, and when it is stroked back, the hand will naturally retract like an “iron needle piercing the hand”. In this way, the sound played will be neat, strong and powerful.

The problem that needs to be paid attention to here is that when practicing and using this technique, do not send the right arm forward, which will cause the sweeping sound to be irregular and lose the strong sound effect of the sweeping technique.

4. roll

That is, a quick pick. In this seemingly simple technique, many students will experience excessive wrist movements, lack of focus on the "points" of finger playing, flat wrists, etc., so that the speed of playing cannot be accelerated and the noise of the nails is too heavy.

According to the author's experience of playing and teaching for many years, when using this technique, we should pay attention to the use of wrist and fingers. First, the wrist should not be flat, but should be slightly erected, and the rotation movement should not be too large; secondly, the fingers should be "standing" to perform. Play, that is, the fingers used to play should be perpendicular to the strings, the area of the fingernails touching the strings should not be too large, and the tips of the fingernails should touch the strings. The speed and strength of this technique depend on the fingers rather than the wrist, so the wrist needs to be relaxed and the fingers feel friction. Only in this way can the sound be played with both strength and speed.

5. shaking fingers

This is a technique that has the same acoustics as a roll, but is played in a completely different way. When playing with this technique, students are prone to the following problems: the right wrist is flat, the thenar is too close to the string, the finger touch angle and the support point of the forearm are not correct. These problems can lead to excessive noise, uneven sound, and unevenness.

The correct way to play this technique is: press one-third of the forearm on the rounded corner on the lower right side of the piano for support and fixation. The right shoulder is adjusted slightly outward, and the index finger is pushed up slightly, and the speed is generated by the flexible rotation of the wrist, and the focus is also on the fingers. At the beginning of the practice, you should start with the index finger, and practice slowly, and then speed up the practice after the playing on the bottom and top of the fingers reaches a certain strength, and each finger should be practiced.

6. Wheel Fingers

This technique is one of the more difficult to practice among the common fingerings of the pipa, and it is also a characteristic technique of the pipa. It is often difficult for beginners to achieve an average of 5 finger strength and speed. Before learning the wheel fingers, you should start with the practice of splitting, single and double hooking, and looping finger exercises. 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 does not have uneven strength and speed when playing with the ring finger technique.

The correct way to use this technique is to keep the palm loose, each finger should point to the left panel after popping out, and the front two joints of the fingers are straight. It should be noted that every time you put out a finger, the big finger should follow it down, which makes it easier to pick it up. When the ring finger and little finger are bounced, the fingers do not need to be extended outwards, but should be retracted inward to make them appear "fan-shaped", as if there is a stick-shaped object in the palm of the hand supporting them, showing an umbrella-like shape . In this way, the sound of playing is clean and powerful, and it can better reflect the granularity of "big beads and small beads falling on a jade plate" and the timbre of beads that are round and jade-like.