Bipa

The bipa was popular in court music until it fell out of use in the early 20th century during the Japanese Colonial period.

In 2007, restoration by National Gugak Center of South Korea followed closely to the two original bipa from Akhak-Gwebeom [1], not made like the Chinese pipa.

This recreation uses silk strings and is plucked with fake nails (formerly used bare fingers) or with a plectrum, stick.

When performing, musician usually sit, put the lute on their lap in an upright position (slightly leaning to the left), the left hand holds the neck or the body and presses the strings, the right hand uses five fake nails (gajogak) (가조각; 假爪角) to pluck the strings.

In the past, people plucked the lute with a suldae – a bamboo stick (influenced from the geomungo), but today the person who preserves the Hyang bipa way of playing is the female musician Go Boseok (고보석) – who can also play Hyang bipa, wolgeum (moon lute), yanggeum and geomungo.

The Dang bipa is a four-stringed lute, with a curved neck with 12 frets, the modern version has a wider range of three octaves.

In the past, people have tried to restore the way to play Dang-bipa, but it seems to have failed because there are no professional musicians for this type of instrument.