Buying silk strings + help dating an old pipa

[pipaplayer2010]

Hi Everyone,

I recently bought a Pipa on ebay and I've been having some problems with it. When it arrived by mail, the top of the neck had come unglued (they presumably shipped it with tension on the strings). I reattached it with luthier glue, restrung and tuned the instrument but after just a few minutes the bridge popped right off! I'm in the process of putting that back on now. According to the description the instrument is an "antique".. of course this is ebay so who knows for sure.

I know even a few decades ago, strings on pipas were made of silk. This instrument shows signs of repair so I'm wondering if maybe it was originally supposed to have silk strings and that's why it can't handle the tension of regular strings. This brings me to my first questions: Where would I buy silk strings? Also, would it be possible to use low tension nylon classical guitar or ukelele strings on it? Presumably the tension would be lower on those than regular pipa strings and they're easier to obtain than silk strings.

I'm also wondering: is there is an easy way to tell how old a pipa is? This one has 6 ledge frets (which I know means it is 20th century or newer) and 18 body frets. The frets on the body are all approximately the same width as opposed to most modern pipas I've seen which have smaller frets farther down the body and more frets total. The ledge frets are made of plastic (cheap I know..) but keep in mind that plastic has been around in some form or another for over 100 years. Just looking at how dried out the glue and wood are makes me think that it must be fairly old. Do pipas typically have makers marks on them and if so where would one look for these?

I didn't pay much for the instrument (no one else bid haha) so I'm not going to be particularly upset no matter how it turns out... would be nice to get a chance to play it though!

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

[sanmenxia]

Can you post a photo?

Apparently pipa with equal tempered scale frets were only first introduced in around the 1950s. So if your pipa has regularly spaced frets, like on a guitar, then perhaps it's not older than that.

[pipaplayer2010]

Here's a picture from the ebay auction. Since I'm in the process of gluing the bridge back on I think this is better than any pictures I might take.

A maximum of 50-60 years old is sort of what I was thinking too. The frets are spaced to a chromatic scale just like a guitar. The only major difference between this pipa and other ones I've seen is the number of body frets.

I've been looking online for more information but there really isn't much in terms of pipa history other than basic information like: the pipa has been around for x years, they used to have silk strings etc. I'm just surprised since there is so much detailed information available for guitars, European lutes and ouds.

I bought a set of D'Addario classical guitar strings and used their tension pdf to calculate the tension on a properly tuned pipa. The numbers I got would be very reasonable for a classical guitar.. total of 60 lbs tension on the strings if I use the middle 4. Since I don't have unit weight for pipa strings or the tension they would ordinarily be under I don't have anything to compare to... I even tried navigating some chinese websites but they don't seem to have the same kind of data that D'Addario provides. Does anyone know the unit weight (lbs/inch or similar) or tension (lbs or similar) for steel/nylon pipa strings?

Correction to my previous post: the auction actually said "old" not antique which is entirely accurate so I don't want to make it seem like the seller was making false claims or anything. The price was incredible, shipping was very fast and reasonable, especially from China. The thing that attracted me to this auction (other than the price) is that it was a unique item, not a 1/10 buy it now and the picture is of the actual item I received... I just think it's more interesting that way.

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[pipaplayer2010]

Update: I fixed the bridge and put classical guitar strings on it (used B, G, G, D from the guitar as A, E, D, A on the pipa). Since the scale length on the pipa is longer, I can tune the strings to the pipa notes (which are lower) without changing the tension much compared to a classical guitar.

I was worried that the nylon strings would be too quiet compared to the steel ones but that doesn't seem to be a problem. The instrument sounds pretty good now!

Now all I have left to do is fix some of the body frets since at least one of them is too tall.

[Charlie Huang]

You can get silk pipa strings from Fred Wong and his Taigu string franchise (he mainly makes guqin silk strings but also makes pipa, erhu, etc silk strings).