Hi,
I just built a 4 string Satsuma biwa and fitted it with proper silk strings. It is playable, but only produces sawari on the thinnest string. I’m pretty sure this is because I went with a jazz guitar style bridge/tailpiece. I’m a guitar maker and found an example like that on a Japanese website. http://www.kotosandmore.com/biwa_set.html
But, now I’ve concluded that the traditional bridge is needed, for sawari. Unfortunately, I cannot find any technical info (specific to the bridge) or hi res pics of a traditional bridge in playable condition online.
Any biwa owners, I’d be very grateful for an extreme closeup side view of the strings passing over the ivory strip (I call it a rattle plate. What’s it actually called?).
Or, maybe you can just tell me if it works like this: each string is tied so it loops under itself and so, e.g., a 1mm diameter string crosses the rattle plate, at a height of about 1mm (slightly less, due to stretching & squishing of the silk)? Thus far my experiments indicate there’s more to it.
What else makes a traditional biwa bridge produce sawari? For instance, though the bridge looks heavy & rigid, to me, is it perhaps hollowed-out to resonate, like a 2nd gourd on a veena?
Dude that’s awesome that you built a biwa. I considered buying the one on kotosandmore but my teacher as well as another player said it wasn’t very good. The frets are concave polymer. Most biwa make sawari with wide, flat frets and bridge. It’s sort of a cheap knockoff for players that can’t afford much. However I got some good stuff for you! If you go to Betsill workshop website you’ll see he is a woodworking genius and he made a perfect biwa from a very prestigious biwa leant to him. Contact him by email and he sells his full specs and plans and photos as a package for $100. My building skills aren’t up to the challenge, but perhaps you have what it takes. If you succeed and develop proficiency you could have quite a business selling to Americans. I’d like to buy a new biwa myself !
Thank you, Derik. I actually blew up Betsill’s lo res plan and based mine on it. However, I ended up constructing the body rather than carving it. I’m glad to hear the review of the Kotosand more model. If it sounded good, I’d be stumped because mine is just like it and mine doesn’t really sound like a biwa. Ironically, since building it, I acquired a ton (maybe literally) of kiln dried English Walnut in suitable dimensions for carving biwa bodies. I don’t know if it’s comparable to the mulberry they use in Japan.
BTW: Derik, aren’t you the guy with a couple extra biwas? I live in Covington (Kent, Maple Valley area) and I make mostly electric guitars. Would you possibly consider a trade?
Thats really cool! So you were able to improve the resolution of the online image enough to use it? I am the guy with a couple extra biwas! I appreciate the offer, but I don’t play guitar. I’m selling these extras and possibly even my shamisen so that I can order a really nice biwa.
The resolution sucked. I could only read a couple of the dimensions and used those numbers to blow it up to scale. But, in the end, I only used his plan as a general guideline.
You might notice, on his drawing he has the strings tied around the front of the ivory plate. That’s why I didn’t realize the ivory was for sawari. Live & learn, I guess.
In the next few months, I’ll probably make a fully carved biwa from that walnut. Maybe more, if folks are interested.
Betsill mentions, on his site, that he sells a lot more bachi than instruments. I’ve made a couple bachi, as well. One using Betsill’s Chikuzen design, but (as a guitar player) I couldn’t deal with the size. I later made a bachi, of my own design. It’s got the sharper points of a Satsuma, but it’s only 6" wide and instead of a tail (handle?), the back is rounded, to sit in the palm of my hand. I figure it’s like training wheels.
Hello Spencer, I don’t know whether you had this information at the time of building, but biwas don’t have a bridge. The strings are tired to the tail-piece, but then run through mid-air. The sawari sound is created when the string rests on the broad, flat frets, or, if an open string is played, the broad head piece provides this function. On seeing the kotos and more picture you attached I was surprised to see this set-up, I’ve never before seen that on traditional Japanese biwa.
Are you saying the vibrating strings don’t clatter on the ivory at the leading edge of the tailpiece?
I can confirm, a jazz guitar bridge doesn’t make for a traditional sounding biwa.
To bolster your point, I posed my same questions to the guy who makes my silk strings. Since I am getting sawari on my thinnest string, he believes the instrument can produce sawari on the other strings, with certain changes to the wrap & gauges. I should be able to report back on that, within a couple weeks.
He also pointed out that the Kotosandmore instrument appears to have a thicker, denser soundboard than mine. Mine is a very lightweight western red cedar, carved to 1/4" thick. Theirs is a dense hardwood. I’m more and more convinced, sawari (on a biwa) is the resonance of the instrument body itself. The clattering strings vibrate the body, like beads in a rattle not like strings on a guitar. I deduce this, because the traditional thick carved biwa body, with its traditional tailpiece appear too rigid to respond to a string’s high partials, like a Western stringed instrument.
Here’s a test: can you pop harmonics on a traditional biwa? I predict no. Please, will someone try it?