Learning Objectives
- Differentiate between orally transmitted folk music, called minsok kugak, and recent cultural globalization, fushion kugak (“fusion Korean music”) and ch’angjak kugak (“newly made Korean music”), which have come to dominate the contemporary traditional Korean music scene.
- Examine Korean music as acoustic reflections of Korea's historical, geographical, and ethnic identity, addressing such attributes as tone quality, tempo, vibrato, continuity, syncopation, modal and rhythmic shifts.
- Analyze the philosophical foundations of Korean court music, which is rooted in the teachings from the ancient Book of Ceremony, one of the most important sources of Confucian scholarship.
- Distinguish between Korean musical instruments, such as the 21-string kayagûm, a zither from Kaya, and the 6-string kômun´go with their other East Asian counterparts such as the Japanese koto, the Chinese guzheng, and Vietnamese dan tranh
- Analyze Korean music´s transition from workplace to stage as a metaphor of human evolution from tribe to a complex, industrial society.
- Examine the context of the hierarchy of court music, folk music as classified by regions, as well as differentiate these music(s) in terms of functionality, such as ceremonial, celebratory, processional, leisure, labor, healing, purging, or praying.
Conclusion
THE BOOK OF CHANGESNothing stays the same as everything changes: 'sun and moon, when full, wane.'
In terms of traditional music, what are the elements in the tunes and the sounds that constitute the "traditional" despite changes? Even within Korean music circles, there are debates and justifications that traditional Korean music is too difficult for the modern Korean ear and therefore should be modified and fused with modern taste and structure. In the so-called postcolonial era, many nations around the globe rediscover, resuscitate, and represent their "traditional musical performances" as a way of reconstructing their nations, ethnic solidarities, and cultural identities. Performance traditions from the past also provide artists with global resources and inspirations for their modern and post-modern inventions and adaptations. "Traditional" was once a "popular" reflection of its time and sentiment. Charged with such a daunting responsibility of living and interpreting the two worlds through your art, you cannot help but remain a perpetual student of the tradition you strive to embody, humbly and happily.
Korean traditional music can be divided into Korean folk music, aristocratic chamber music, Korean court music, and religious music..
