Traditional Music - I

Korea's traditional music is based on the voice. That voice is always a distinctively Korean voice, a voice that arises from the temperament and disposition of the Korean people. It is related to Korea's climate and natural environment and also to religion and ideology.

Korean traditional music can be broadly divided into jeongak, (court music), which has an intellectual emphasis, and minsogak, (folk music), which is full of emotional expression. The former is closely related to the culture of the royal family and the upperclass, the latter belonging more to the common people.

The first general characteristic of Korean music to note is its leisurely tempo. Most court music moves at a slow pace, sometimes so slow that a single beat can take up to three seconds. As a result, the mood of this music is static, meditative, and reposeful. The reason for this stately tempo is related to the Korean people's concept of the importance of the breath. Whereas Western music, based on the heartbeat, can be as lively, energetic, and dynamic as the pounding of the heart, Korean court music, founded on the rhythm of breathing, takes on the attributes of a long breath: tranquility, balance, and contemplation.

The tone quality of Korean music is generally soft and solemn, especially in court music. Because of this soft tone quality, even when one note or line clashes with another, one does not hear a discord. The tone results from the fact that most instruments are made of nonmetallic materials. String instruments have strings of silk thread rather than wire, and almost all wind instruments are made of bamboo.

Korean wind instruments include the cylindrical oboe (piri), the metal-bell woodwind (taepyeongso), the transverse flute (daegeum), the endblown flute (danso), the mouth organ (saenghwang), and the ocarina (hun). String instruments include the twelve-stringed zither (gayageum), the six-stringed zither (geomungo), the seven-stringed bowed zither (ajaeng), and the two-stringed fiddle (haegeum). Percussion instruments include the handheld gong (kkwaenggwari), the hanging gong (jing), the barrel drum (buk), the hourglass drum (janggu), the clapper (bak), teh bell chimes (pyeonjong), the stone chimes (pyeongyeong), teh tiger-shaped scraper (eo), and the wooden box (chuk).