Yoari challenges Beyonce with $32

By Park Si-soo

Don’t be trapped by the dogma that music with high sound quality can only be made using high-priced instruments. Korea’s five-member Yoari Band has proven otherwise.

The pop music band, led by vocalist Kang Mi-jin, whose stage name is Yoari, created an online sensation in 2010 by perfectly reproducing “Sweet Dreams” by American pop star Beyonce. The band used only four musical applications for the iPhone ㅡ Virtuoso Piano, Music Studio, BeatMaker and ThumbJam. It spent only $32.96 or 35,300 won downloading all of them.

To date, the band’s playing of the song has drawn more than 2 million hits on YouTube. “Awesome! Nicely done,” a viewer of the clip commented. Another viewer echoed this, saying, “Very nice…that’s what technology can do today.”

In a recent interview with The Korea Times at a coffee shop in Gangnam, Yoari said good musical instruments are no longer a must to make good sounding music.

“Do you think pricy musical instruments are still essential? This is no longer the case in the digital era,” she said. “The time has come for people to play beautiful songs anytime and anywhere only with a smartphone, an amp and a connector between the two.”

The 27-year-old musician said the 2010 video clip was made for fun.

“I downloaded some musical applications by accident. Then I just wondered if it was possible to play music with them. So I tried it with my band members…that was the very first step into a whole new world,” she recollected. “I recorded our playing and posted it on YouTube because it was a very exciting experience. I didn’t expect that it would draw such attention.”

Yoari Band was invited to the “Korea Night” event held on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21 and performed there before President Park Geun-hye, singer-rapper Psy and dozens of Korean tycoons. The band played a total of 13 songs, she said.

“We invited the band to Korea Night because its way of playing music is very creative and unprecedented,” said an official of the Federation of Korean Industries, a powerful lobby group representing the country’s major conglomerates such as Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, which hosted the media-hyped event aimed at promoting Korean culture. “Yoari Band perfectly embody President Park’s creative economy slogan.”

Yoari is currently working to release a solo album in July.

“I’m recording the album with the use of smartphone apps,” she said, beaming. “I think my voice is suitable for rock and modern pop music. So I’m trying to make the album in a way that matches my voice.”

Asked about her role model, Yoari readily pointed to the now-defunct British rock band Oasis. “I want to become a musician who is remembered forever like Oasis.”