By Bernard Rowan
These days, gugak, Korean traditional music, has experienced something of a renaissance. There are several prominent artists. Consumers of Korean culture can enjoy various performances, recordings, and online videos. We can savor a taste of Korea's ancient past and keep it alive today!
I've written before about my favorite form of this music, "jongmyo jeryeak," which as I understand it amounts to Confucian ritual or court music. It is Intangible Cultural Property No. 1 for Korea. The complex but finally satisfying strains of these compositions combine with traditional clothing, instruments, and dance to provide a wonderful experience. I've attended performances at Korea House in Seoul.
Of course, I'd be leading one astray to claim this is the most famous of Korea's traditional music forms. Pansori, a particular kind of folk-singing, holds that title. Itself a complex style of many forms, pansori often features a sole performer intoning ages-old laments, songs of praise, Buddhist hymns, and poems familiar to Koreans. UNESCO has named pansori an intangible cultural property. The films of the famous Im Kwon-taek often feature a performance of pansori or other traditional music.
Korea.net contains a wonderful introduction to Korean traditional music. Wikipedia also provides an excellent survey under the title "Music of Korea."
I recommend checking out an online presentation of "Korea Traditional Music Instruments" at the Google Arts and Culture website. It displays live performances of all the major instruments with helpful descriptions.
Finally, many forms of Korean traditional music appear on Wikipedia's page "Intangible Cultural Property (South Korea)." Each one opens a window to Korea through traditional music.
It might surprise, but traditional music is part of the Korean wave or hallyu. I find several associations devoted to cultivating gugak. They exist in the United States, Canada and elsewhere.
Among popular and noted artists of Korean traditional music, I recommend Kim Jin-hi, whose website forms something of a curriculum itself. Park Ae-ri, Moon Oak-joo, and Ahn Sook-sun are among the major names.
There has been a festival of Korean traditional music held in Seoul for several years called the Yeowoorak Festival at the National Theater. At this year's festival in July, Coreyah, a group that mixes traditional music with present-day rhythms and style, performed.
Ba-Being is another similar group. I think the original or traditional versions of the form continue to need cultivation. It's also wonderful that younger Koreans diffuse the musical forms in fusion mixes.
A recent article by Keith Howard argues that devotees of Korean music must be wary of its death. State support for the art-form, as well as public and private funding and promotion efforts, need to occur.
Support for the arts typically ranks low on the list of public priorities in many countries, but that's not the case in Korea. Both approaches work for the current flourishing of interest in Korean traditional music.
Foreigners like me at first will find the music of Korea sound different, even odd or off. The first time I listened, it sounded to me like squawking birds, a few perhaps under flattening!
Of course, this vulgar prejudice or ethnocentrism reflects ignorance and bias. Western melodies reference analogues of symmetry and harmony. What we think of as "dissonance" has more prominence in Korean traditional music. However, don't think that way! It's a different approach to beauty in sound.
Finally, there is a national center for traditional music called the National Gugak Center. Its website (www.gugak.go.kr) has a wide variety of links for learning more about Korea's traditional music. Located in Seocho-gu, Seoul, this Mecca of culture deserves a visit.
There one can see and hear and touch traditional music and instruments. There are performances and programming to enjoy. Jindo and Busan have branches of the museum. The museum sponsors a "Program for Foreigners" that I'd love to try myself.
Whether Korean or foreigner, try to find and enjoy traditional music. It stays with me even when I'm far from Korea as a source of calm, memory and peace in an often busy and dizzying world.
Bernard Rowan (browan10@yahoo.com) is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University.
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I've written before about my favorite form of this music, "jongmyo jeryeak," which as I understand it amounts to Confucian ritual or court music. It is Intangible Cultural Property No. 1 for Korea. The complex but finally satisfying strains of these compositions combine with traditional clothing, instruments, and dance to provide a wonderful experience. I've attended performances at Korea House in Seoul.
Of course, I'd be leading one astray to claim this is the most famous of Korea's traditional music forms. Pansori, a particular kind of folk-singing, holds that title. Itself a complex style of many forms, pansori often features a sole performer intoning ages-old laments, songs of praise, Buddhist hymns, and poems familiar to Koreans. UNESCO has named pansori an intangible cultural property. The films of the famous Im Kwon-taek often feature a performance of pansori or other traditional music.
Korea.net contains a wonderful introduction to Korean traditional music. Wikipedia also provides an excellent survey under the title "Music of Korea."
I recommend checking out an online presentation of "Korea Traditional Music Instruments" at the Google Arts and Culture website. It displays live performances of all the major instruments with helpful descriptions.
Finally, many forms of Korean traditional music appear on Wikipedia's page "Intangible Cultural Property (South Korea)." Each one opens a window to Korea through traditional music.
It might surprise, but traditional music is part of the Korean wave or hallyu. I find several associations devoted to cultivating gugak. They exist in the United States, Canada and elsewhere.
Among popular and noted artists of Korean traditional music, I recommend Kim Jin-hi, whose website forms something of a curriculum itself. Park Ae-ri, Moon Oak-joo, and Ahn Sook-sun are among the major names.
There has been a festival of Korean traditional music held in Seoul for several years called the Yeowoorak Festival at the National Theater. At this year's festival in July, Coreyah, a group that mixes traditional music with present-day rhythms and style, performed.
Ba-Being is another similar group. I think the original or traditional versions of the form continue to need cultivation. It's also wonderful that younger Koreans diffuse the musical forms in fusion mixes.
A recent article by Keith Howard argues that devotees of Korean music must be wary of its death. State support for the art-form, as well as public and private funding and promotion efforts, need to occur.
Support for the arts typically ranks low on the list of public priorities in many countries, but that's not the case in Korea. Both approaches work for the current flourishing of interest in Korean traditional music.
Foreigners like me at first will find the music of Korea sound different, even odd or off. The first time I listened, it sounded to me like squawking birds, a few perhaps under flattening!
Of course, this vulgar prejudice or ethnocentrism reflects ignorance and bias. Western melodies reference analogues of symmetry and harmony. What we think of as "dissonance" has more prominence in Korean traditional music. However, don't think that way! It's a different approach to beauty in sound.
Finally, there is a national center for traditional music called the National Gugak Center. Its website (www.gugak.go.kr) has a wide variety of links for learning more about Korea's traditional music. Located in Seocho-gu, Seoul, this Mecca of culture deserves a visit.
There one can see and hear and touch traditional music and instruments. There are performances and programming to enjoy. Jindo and Busan have branches of the museum. The museum sponsors a "Program for Foreigners" that I'd love to try myself.
Whether Korean or foreigner, try to find and enjoy traditional music. It stays with me even when I'm far from Korea as a source of calm, memory and peace in an often busy and dizzying world.
Bernard Rowan (browan10@yahoo.com) is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University.
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