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.