Pipa   is the name of a traditional Chinese instrument. It is a stringed lute originated in West Asia and arrived in China during the Sui dynasty, known as  quxiang  (bent-neck)  pipa  with only ledges but no frets, played by a plectrum. Then in Tang dynasty, a musician named Fei Luoer borrowed the frets of  ruan  and affixed them on  pipa , then the  pipa  played today came into being, which has a history of around 1600 years. According to Xu Wei’s  Nanci xulu  (a Ming history of drama), “now southern songs are sung to the accompaniment of  dizi ,  guan ,  sheng  and  pipa ”, which suggests that  pipa  is among the traditional accompanying instruments for  kunshan  tune at early time. Since Ming and Qing dynasties, musicians have been playing  pipa  with four ledges and thirteen frets, of which the backboard is typically made of  hongmu  (rosewood),  wumu  (ebony),  zitan  (red sandalwood) or  huali  (padauk), when the belly is made of  tongmu  (paulownia). The four strings of  pipa  are tuned A, D, E and A respectively and its full range is 3 octaves and a half. Its lower range sounds deep and full, mid range bright and upper range very clear. There are many fingering techniques: for right hand, there are  tan, tiao, jiatan, gun, shuangtan, shuangtiao, fen, gou, mo, shu, kou, fo, sao, and lun ; while for left hand, there are  rou, yin, daiqi, xu’an, jiaoxian, fanyin, tui, wan, chuo, and zhu . Both hands combined can produce various chords.   