Korean music
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What is Korean music?
Korean music refers to the art of combining instrumental or vocal sounds for emotional expression or beauty of form in Korea and the Korean peninsula. It has a strong indigenous tradition with influences from the Mongols and the Chinese.
Korea's bridge position between China and Japan is reflected in its music, with movements of foreign cultures and armies playing major roles in its tradition. However, a core of indigenous musical styles lies beneath these reflections.
Genres include court instrumental music, vocal music, shaman music, and narrative folk genres like p'ansori. Instruments like the ajaeng, taegŭm flute, kŏmungo, and haegŭm fiddle are unique to Korea. K-pop has emerged as a global phenomenon in the 21st century.
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What are some traditional types of Korean music?
Traditional Korean music includes vocal and instrumental forms, often performed in court or folk settings.
- Kagok Consists of 26 five-section solo songs and one duet accompanied by a small ensemble of instruments such as the kŏmungo (zither), taegŭm (flute), and changgo (hourglass drum).
- Sijo Classical lyric poetry sung with hourglass drum accompaniment, sometimes joined by a flute or fiddle.
- Kasa Narrative songs accompanied by flute and drum.
- P’ansori Narrative song performed by a singer-narrator and a drummer. It incorporates singing, narration, body movements, and gestures.
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What is K-pop and why is it popular?
K-pop, short for Korean popular music, is South Korea's "idol music," crafted by artists trained by entertainment companies. Emerging in the early 1990s, K-pop's global popularity is unique, considering most songs are in a language other than English.
K-pop's digital age birth involves online campaigns for fan engagement. PSY's "Gangnam Style" went viral in 2012, making the world aware of South Korea's catchy music. BTS gained global recognition with songs about mental health and self-love, and girl groups like Twice and Blackpink have also achieved international fame. In 2019, the K-pop industry was worth an estimated $5 billion.
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What are some instruments used in Korean music?
Korean music employs diverse instruments, particularly in shamanic traditions and folk music. The changgo is a popular hourglass-shaped drum struck with the hand and a stick. A small, flat gong is another significant instrument. The haegŭm, a two-stringed vertical fiddle, is used in many genres, including court, folk, and shaman ensembles. Flutes and double reeds are also used; while they may appear Chinese, their sound is uniquely Korean, often incorporating microtonal slides and syncopated rhythms.
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How does Korean folk music differ from modern Korean music?
Korean folk music and modern Korean music, or K-pop, differ significantly in their origins, style, and cultural context. Folk music is rooted in ancient Korean traditions, including shamanistic rituals and agricultural festivals. It features unique stylistic elements such as microtonal slides and syncopated rhythms, often incorporating a six-beat metric unit with a polymetric character. Traditional instruments like the kayagŭm and changgo are central to folk music, which has seen a revival in modern times.
K-pop, which emerged in the late 20th century, is characterized by its blend of upbeat pop, dance music, and ballads, incorporating global influences such as hip-hop and reggae. K-pop is heavily influenced by American pop music and is produced by entertainment companies that train artists to become pop stars.
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How has Korean music influenced cultures around the world?
Korean music has significantly impacted global cultures, especially with the rise of K-pop in the 21st century. K-pop's global popularity is unusual for music primarily sung in a language other than English.
The song "Gangnam Style" by PSY went viral in the summer of 2012, exposing the world to South Korea's modern, catchy music. In 2019, the K-pop industry's estimated worth was $5 billion. K-pop is a significant part of hallyu, the Chinese term for "Korean Wave," which refers to the global popularity of Korean culture, including films, TV shows, and food.
Boy bands like BTS have also contributed to K-pop's visibility, combining elements of electronic dance music and hip-hop with synchronized choreography. Girl groups such as Twice and Blackpink have also become prominent in the global music scene.
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Korean music, the art concerned with combining vocal or instrumental sounds for beauty of form or emotional expression, specifically as it is carried out in Korea, or the Korean peninsula, where a strong indigenous tradition has been influenced by the Chinese and the Mongols.
On a map the Korean peninsula, which comprises the countries of North Korea and South Korea, looks like a finger pointing from the top of China down to the lower part of Japan. Thus, one would expect its music to reflect its “bridge” position between two such powerful traditions. The movements of foreign, particularly Chinese, armies and cultures are indeed major factors in Korea’s tradition. But beneath these reflections lies a deeper core of indigenous musical styles that, at first hearing, seem most strange to the ear of listeners with preconceived notions as to what East Asian music sounds like. A possible additional factor in the growth of Korean music is the region’s position as a peninsula jutting out from Manchuria and from the native ground of many Mongolian hordes. Archaeological sources indicate that various Mongol peoples from northern Asia did indeed occupy areas of Korea from at least 2000 bce, and Chinese writings show that their people and armies were active in Korea from the period of the Chinese Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) on. Obviously, a study of Korean music contains riches extending far beyond its geographic borders.
Shaman music
The earliest references to music in Korea are found in a 3rd-century-ce Chinese text that comments on agricultural festivals (nong’ak) with singing and dancing among the tribes of northwestern Korea. Such events are still a strong part of Korean life. Another ancient but long-lived tradition in Korea is shamanism, or communication with the unseen world by a shaman in a state of trance. This is of special interest because such a belief is historically characteristic not only of all northern Asian tribes but also of other peoples (such as Eskimos [Inuit]) who live in the northernmost regions of the world. Korea is one of the few regions south of the Arctic that maintains strong shamanism in the face of foreign religious adoptions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity.
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A female Korean shaman (mudang) may use many combinations of musical instruments. The simplest and potentially most significant accompaniment is a small, flat gong with a slight rim. It brings to mind the single-headed pan drum with a wooden or bone hoop found in the shamanism of most of Central Asia and in the Arctic Circle as far away as Lapland and Hudson Bay. A drum sound itself is produced in Korea by the most popular percussion instrument, the changgo, an hourglass-shaped, two-headed drum struck by the hand on the left head and a stick or a ball-headed beater on the other. In Korean shaman rituals, flutes, double reeds, fiddles, and other gongs and drums may be used that at first sight may appear rather Chinese. The sound, however, creates a totally different impression.
To the uninitiated listener, the driving polyphony (combination of simultaneous voices, or parts) of Korean music might seem closer to Dixieland jazz than to Chinese music. For example, the flute part in a small shaman ensemble may employ such devices as microtonal slides (shifts in pitch that are less than a semitone, or half step), intervals that are “out of tune” with the ancient Chinese lü (bamboo) tuning pipes, and syncopated rhythms, which together yield a very un-Chinese jazzlike sound. Korean music also exhibits a tendency toward a six-beat metric unit as well as a kind of polymetric character; while some parts are organized in six-beat units, others might seem to follow beats of four, so all parts come together only after 12 beats. Triplets and even five-beat forms are found as well. These stylistic features are indeed unique to Korea and are typical of the kind of music best known and loved by the general Korean populace. Less-familiar styles of court music are maintained by dedicated national music institutes and Korean scholarship.
