East Asian countries. Korea existed as a single kingdom from 668 until 1910, when it was annexed by Japan until 1945. After World War II, it was divided into the Republic of Korea (South Korea, Taehan Min’guk) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea, Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmun Konghwaguk), suffering a civil war between 1950 and 1953 but retaining the division after the signing of an armistice. South Korea has an area of about 99,300 km2 and a population of about 46·88 million (2000 estimate); North Korea covers about 122,800 km2, with a population estimated at 23·91 million. Ethnic Korean minority populations of some size are also found in northeast China, Japan, Central Asia (especially Uzbekistan) and the USA (see United States of America, §II, 5(iv)).
ROBERT C. PROVINE (I–IV, V, 1(i), (ii) and (iv)), OKON HWANG (V, 1(iii)), KEITH HOWARD (V, 2)
The Korean peninsula projects southwards from the coast of north-eastern China, nearly forming a land bridge to Japan. Korea's proximity to better-known neighbours and a relative lack of reliable information about its culture have led to a widespread but ill-informed assumption that Korean culture derives from or simply imitates that of China or Japan. While some clear connections to those countries do exist, Korean musical practices are more remarkable for their distinctiveness than their similarity to other East Asian musics.
Korea's musical indebtedness to China is quantifiably small but qualitatively significant. Of the 60 or so musical instruments listed and illustrated in traditional documents, over half are clearly copies of (or derived from) Chinese instruments, but only a handful of these are still used with any frequency; those that are are generally used in court music, which forms only a small part of the total musical landscape. Most of the instruments used for almost all the traditional music in Korea, in other words, are native constructions (even if partly influenced by foreign models), carefully designed to suit the requirements of Korean music, which are distinct from those of China. There is a small surviving body of court music considered to have been borrowed from China (see §II, 1 below), but this forms only a tiny part of the already small court repertory. On the other hand, much of Korea's literary and philosophical traditions bear a close relationship to Chinese Confucianism, and both musical notation and theory in Korea are much indebted to China.
Korea's musical remains in Japan are difficult to measure. Ancient documents state that Korean musicians of the Paekche dynasty (ended 663 ce) taught music in Japan, but it is impossible to say how much lasting influence this may have had on Japanese musical history. Komagaku, a category of Japanese gagaku, actually means ‘music of Korea’, and it may preserve elements of Korean musical practices; but it comes from a much earlier stratum of musical repertory than any music now surviving in Korea itself, and comparisons of musical content have failed to produce convincing evidence of relationships.
Historically, most Korean music served occasional purposes. At the royal court, ensemble music and dance were performed at formal banquets, royal marriage celebrations, welcoming ceremonies for foreign envoys, and state sacrificial rites to ancestral and other ‘spirits’ in keeping with the Confucian code of proper conduct. Religious occasions employing music included various Buddhist observances and commemorative rites, as well as shamanistic rituals such as exorcisms, typically performed in response to a particular need. Secular folk music was performed most frequently in conjunction with the agricultural cycle, as work-songs and at seasonal festivals. As the Korean climate could be unforgiving (hot and wet summers rising from South-east Asia, and cold and dry winters descending from Siberia), farmers enthusiastically welcomed short periods of relief and pleasure with song and dance. Additional anxiety arose from the seemingly continual threat of foreign invasion from both land and sea, and the directness and emotion of much Korean folk music may reflect a desire to celebrate in the face of an uncertain future. As explained below, the modern environment of Korean music is radically different.
The documented history of the Korean peninsula roughly coincides with the Christian era. From a number of tribal confederations in the first few centuries ce, three emerged as distinct states by the 3rd or 4th century: Koguryŏ, Paekche and Silla. This early period of statehood, known as the Three Kingdoms, is attested by written history (both Korean and Chinese), legends and archaeological discoveries; it lasted until 668 ce, when Silla established ascendancy over its two rivals and brought a substantial portion of the peninsula under unified rule.
The remainder of Korean history until modern times has involved a succession of dynasties of varying character but not a great deal of geographical expansion or contraction. Silla lasted until 935, overlapping briefly with the Koryŏ dynasty (from which comes the name ‘Korea’) of 918–1392. Chosŏn supplanted Koryŏ in 1392 and persevered through mixed fortunes, including a number of foreign invasions from the mainland and from Japan, until 1910, when the whole Korean peninsula was annexed by Japan. The subsequent dissolution of the royal structure of government meant the end of nearly all court occasions in which music was a part. Freed from Japanese occupation in 1945, the Korean peninsula was divided in half politically and remains so.
The earliest information on music in Korea comes from wall paintings in tombs, located in the northern part of the peninsula and dating mostly from the Koguryŏ kingdom, together with a few archaeological artefacts recovered in 20th-century excavations. From these we learn of early forms of a few musical instruments still used in Korea, especially the kŏmun'go zither, which has attracted considerable attention from Japanese organologists. The mural artists often engaged in foreign (especially Chinese) styles of tomb decoration, rather than simply depicting contemporary Korean practices, and this has left the misleading impression of heavy foreign influence. Much information is doubtless awaiting discovery in the hundreds of unexcavated tombs near the Yalu river in China. A limited amount of musical information, chiefly to the effect that Koreans like to sing, dance and drink, can be found in contemporaneous Chinese historical sources such as the so-called ‘standard histories’.
Native Korean documents containing musical material survive only from the mid-Koryŏ period (12th century) onwards; they are increasingly abundant from early Chosŏn (15th century) to the present. These give us (for Koryŏ and Chosŏn) remarkably thorough descriptions of ritual and ceremonial contexts in which music was performed, though as the authors were of the educated upper class writing for their peers, the information is almost exclusively about court and aristocratic music, with folk music receiving little mention.
The Samguk sagi (‘History of the Three Kingdoms’) of 1145 is in most respects like a short Chinese standard history, and it contains a few pages devoted to an essay on music, derived from earlier written sources and providing almost the only documentary data that survives about the Three Kingdoms period. The essay gives a short survey of music in Silla, Paekche and Koguryŏ, listing musical instruments used at the time and in particular giving legendary origin stories for the 12-string zither kayagŭm and the six-string zither kŏmun'go. The presence of these instruments during the Three Kingdoms period is also attested by tomb paintings and various artefacts.
In the Chosŏn dynasty, documentation becomes much more plentiful. The contexts of court music and many heated discussions about music and its uses are described in court annals called sillok, which preserve a nearly day-to-day account for the entire Chosŏn dynasty (from 1392 onwards). The sillok also contain a number of subject-specific monographs, including some dedicated to music and ceremonies. The court also produced ritual manuals (ŭigwe) specifying precisely the order and content of particular ceremonies on specific historical occasions, giving illustrations of musical instruments and ensembles, and naming the pieces of music to be played. A number of musical treatises survive, of which by far the most important is the 1493 Akhak kwebŏm (‘Guide to the Study of Music’), which describes musical theory, ensembles and instrument construction, as well as performance techniques, dance and costumes (fig.1). All these sources habitually refer back to earlier authoritative documents, as is characteristic of Confucian scholarship.
The earliest surviving musical notation in Korea dates from 1430; it contains a copy of part of a 1349 Chinese source that was used in the revival of aak at that time, together with hundreds of modified transpositions of the Chinese pieces, prepared for use in Korean court ceremonies. From 1447 onwards there are hundreds of pages of scores of court and aristocratic music written in a precise rhythmic notation called chŏngganbo, a grid of lines that allows the insertion of symbols for almost any musical information (note names, tablature, solfège, mnemonics, dance choreography) in a particular time frame (see §IV, 3 below). The presence of such a notation in Korea at a time when both China and Japan used only rudimentary rhythmic symbols reinforces the assertion that explicit rhythmic structure is essential to Korean music to a degree not shared by China and Japan. The earliest mensural scores contain specific rhythmic patterns for drum, melodies for singers, string and wind instruments (though only one generic string line and one wind line) and song texts, so that the core features of Korean music (rhythmic pattern and melodic mode) are clearly indicated, while secondary and individual features such as ornamentation and idiomatic instrumental technique are missing.
From 1572 onwards there are dozens of kŏmun'go tablature scores (see fig.8 below), in which it is possible to trace the development of some pieces of music down through several centuries; indeed, this has been a major activity of Korean musicology. From the 19th century come a number of singers' notebooks, grouping thousands of poems (mostly the three-line sijo) for singing; some of these include a rudimentary neumatic notation that allows correlation with surviving kagok melodies (see fig.9 below).
In total, the historical information on Korean music is almost exclusively about musical activities of interest to the upper ruling class. The information relates to what the Koreans have always considered important in connection with their music: the context in which the music is performed, the rhythmic patterns, skeletal melodies (giving mode and tune, but apart from kŏmun'go tablature not ornamentation or specific instrumental techniques), song texts and reference to earlier authorities.
Chinese ritual music (yayue, Korean pronunciation, aak) came to Korea as a gift from the Chinese emperor in 1116 and was originally performed in a number of formal court ceremonies. The surviving descendants of that music, still using early 12th-century melodies, are just two short pieces performed only at the semi-annual sacrifice to Confucius at the shrine of Confucius (Munmyo) and at concerts by the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts in Seoul. This is stately, rarified music performed by two alternating ensembles of special wind and percussion instruments of Chinese origin, such as the sets of tuned bronze bells (p'yŏnjong) and stone chimes (p'yŏn'gyŏng) (fig.2 and fig.3); many of these instruments are used for no other purpose.
Other court ceremonial music, mainly of Korean origin (for which the native term is hyangak but also loosely called aak), includes two suites (Pot'aep'yŏng and Chŏngdaeŏp) of 11 pieces each, performed by singers and two large instrumental ensembles at the annual sacrifice to royal ancestors at the royal ancestral shrine (Chongmyo) in Seoul and in concert. The history of these suites can be traced in detail through numerous scores as far back as their origin in the mid-15th century. Less well known is a set of pieces for a late 18th-century sacrificial rite at a shrine called Kyŏngmogung; these are now performed only in concert. A number of individual pieces originally played at banquets and other celebratory occasions to accompany dancing and singing survive only as concert pieces. Sujech'ŏn, held in special esteem, is thought to be a purely native piece (hyangak) and to have roots many centuries old; Yŏmillak is a long piece (over 80 minutes) with a documented history back to the 15th century; Ch'wit'a, derived from court processional music, employs especially loud instruments and proceeds at a regular, walking pace; and Nagyangch'un and Pohŏja derive ultimately from Chinese ci music of the Song dynasty (960–1279; see China, §II, 4) or earlier, but their performing style is fully Koreanized – they are the only two pieces of so-called tangak, that is, music other than aak that has been imported from China. There are numerous other individual court pieces, and many of the court pieces exist in multiple arrangements.
Non-ceremonial instrumental music of the former ruling aristocracy of the Chosŏn dynasty is essentially limited to one suite of nine increasingly faster movements, Yŏngsan hoesang, which is performed in a number of versions of varying instrumentation and is employed both as chamber music and dance accompaniment. Hyŏnak Yŏngsan hoesang is set for mixed ensemble of strings, winds and percussion; Kwanak Yŏngsan hoesang is for winds and percussion only; P'yŏngjo hoesang is set for mixed ensemble but is melodically transposed down a 4th and somewhat more ornamented; and Pyŏlgok is again for mixed ensemble but omits some movements and adds three other quick movements at the end. Individual movements and extracts from this suite have a pervasive presence in concerts and dances, in countless different instrumentations; it is an essential item in the repertory of every traditional musician.
Refined, subtle vocal music setting poetry of high literary quality is found in kagok, sijo and kasa. The repertory of kagok, for male or female solo voice with eight accompanying string, wind and percussion instruments, consists of about 40 interrelated pieces, each setting a poem in the favourite national form known as sijo, consisting of three couplets. Although each kagok melody is now associated with a single text, in the past each tune could be used to perform many different texts; traditional sources of sijo texts, in fact, are singers' collections of texts (generally late 19th century), organized into sections according to the kagok melody used (see fig.9 below). The word sijo, confusingly, is used in Korea to refer both to this poetic form used in kagok and to a simplified musical setting of such poems for voice and drum (optionally with a few melody instruments added); several short sijo melodies, distinguished mainly by range and voice quality, are used to present countless different texts in the same poetic form. Kasa are settings of longer texts, some in the nature of travel diaries in verse, also with mixed ensemble accompaniment; the extant repertory consists of only 12 pieces and is much less frequently performed than kagok or sijo.
Music considered by Koreans to form their folk tradition includes both professional and amateur genres. The highest artistry and training is required for p'ansori, a dramatic narrative form for solo voice and drum (puk), which has developed over several centuries; it employs song, speech and gesture. Only five stories remain in the active modern repertory, but each lasts several hours and provides ample scope for individual interpretation and development. Training and memorization require years of sustained effort, and a complex structural system of melodic modes and cyclical rhythmic patterns appears in the music, correlated with emotions and developments in the drama.
A more recent (late 19th-century) virtuoso instrumental form, partly derived from p'ansori, is sanjo, played on a single melody instrument (which may be any of a number of standard Korean string or wind instruments) with Changgo drum accompaniment. Unlike p'ansori, in which rhythmic patterns vary according to the emotional content of the story, sanjo presents four or more rhythmic patterns in ascending order of metrical speed, each movement being set to one rhythmic pattern and the slow movements being more intensely ornamented in melody. A system of ‘schools’ of playing exists for each instrument used in sanjo, essentially a genealogy of influences passed down by famous teachers.
In the recent past, other folk genres have been refined to a professional level. Nongak, farmers’ music, for example, has been performed by bands of percussion instruments for many centuries at both a simple local level and at a professional level by touring bands. Loud music for outdoor events, nongak ranges from simple work rhythms to assist repetitive tasks in the fields to complex set pieces performed by professional bands at concerts and festivals. There are still elements of regional variants in farmers’ music. Following its near obsolescence in the 1970s, nongak has become highly popular throughout South Korea and among ethnic Koreans abroad, especially in a derivative form, samullori, in which it is played on four specific instruments (the drums changgo and puk, and the gongs ching and kkwaenggwari) taken to a highly developed and professionalized level by the originating group Samul Nori and numerous imitators.
Although professional musicians all perform folk genres, the repertory as a whole is far more widespread. Korean folksongs, minyo, typically display a verse and refrain form, and solo improvisation of words for a verse in a group performance is a common practice. There are strong regional characteristics of Korean folksong, the main distinctions lying in rhythmic patterns, melodic modes and vocal style. Although many folksongs are performed throughout the country, they are still considered to be characteristic of particular regions, the primary areas being the central Kyŏnggi province, south-western Chŏlla province, the eastern provinces of Kangwŏn and Kyŏngsang, and the northern provinces (now in North Korea). Some musicologists distinguish between widespread folksongs and songs known only in a limited locality. The more professional forms such as p'ansori, sanjo and some nongak are highly practised and informed by wide musical knowledge, often obscuring remnants of regional traits, though there remain a few well-developed regional types of singing (chapka) in which the local stylistic traits are consciously cultivated.
Religious music includes several genres associated with Buddhism and shamanism. The most commonly heard form of Buddhist music is yŏmbul, a simple and highly repetitive sutra chanting (in either Chinese or Sanskrit), which can be sung by virtually any monk; many recordings of yŏmbul are available on cassette and CD. Pŏmp'ae are long and complex chants that move through their texts very slowly; these chants require extensive training and are not often heard. Buddhist songs in folksong style and vernacular language that anyone can sing are called hwach'ŏng, and a particularly well-known and often recorded Buddhist piece sung by various professional singers is Hoesimgok. The yŏmbul and pŏmp'ae are usually accompanied only by simple percussion, a ‘wooden fish’ (mokt'ak) or metal gong (ching).
Shaman music comes in many types, names and regional variants, but there is a broad distinction drawn between vocal forms (muga) and instrumental ones (sinawi). The muga are varied in nature, being narrative, dramatic or lyrical. They are generally sung by a shaman, in Korea usually a woman, with little accompaniment other than the changgo drum, and their length varies enormously from a few minutes to several hours duration.
Sinawi is instrumental music, originally accompanying dance and other acts in shaman rites but nowadays often played in concert with no religious connection. It may be played by any combination of melodic instruments, so long as the near ubiquitous changgo drum is present. Typically it uses only two or three rapid rhythmic patterns and a single melodic mode. In combination with the high vocal art of p'ansori, it is one of the precursors of sanjo.
In addition to the narrative p'ansori described above, two further types of Korean theatre typically employ music. One is masked dance drama (t'alch'um), of which there are several regional variants. These have a long history and were documented by official sources as they were sometimes used to entertain visiting dignitaries from foreign countries at various stages along the journey. In the last couple of centuries, the dramas have come to be the property of the common people, and their content often includes earthy material of a satiric nature, poking fun at the aristocracy. Each type of drama has a slightly different musical accompaniment, but generally they contain drums, gongs and a few loud melody instruments such as the p'iri (oboe). The actors sing and dance in folk style to the musical accompaniment.
The other theatrical form employing music is the puppet drama kkoktugaksi, which uses a small enclosed stage and a few musicians, like those of the masked drama, who provide accompaniment for songs and occasional instrumental pieces.
The rich Korean instrumentarium is too large to list in detail here (see GroveI). The 1493 Akhak kwebŏm contains precise descriptions and illustrations of 65 musical instruments, many complete with fingering charts (see fig.1 above); more instruments have been introduced in the intervening centuries. It is instructive, however, to consider the frequency of use of the instruments: of the 60 or so instruments typically listed in recent accounts of Korean music, many are either rarely used or are entirely obsolete, and only about a quarter of them enjoy a measurable popularity. Many of the instruments used in the music performed at the sacrifice to Confucius and the sacrifice to royal ancestors, for example, are used only on those occasions (or in infrequent concert performances). Similarly, many instruments are used in court music only, and that music now forms only a small portion of the active modern repertory in South Korea. The remarkable and beautiful sets of tuned bronze bells (p'yŏnjong) and stone chimes (p'yŏn'gyŏng) (see fig 2 and fig.3 above), for example, appear only in the music for sacrificial rites and a handful of other court pieces (see §V, 2 below for details of instrumentarium used in North Korea).
On the other hand, a few characteristic Korean instruments are used frequently. Melody instruments need to be able to play readily in the Korean melodic modes, to render a wide vibrato, to bend notes over a considerable pitch range and to produce florid ornamentation. Drums must be able to provide both a secure rhythmic underpinning and a variety of stroke and timbre, since a simple deep thump is inadequate to articulate the subtle elements of patterning in rhythmic cycles. One-sound percussion instruments are usually supplemental instruments, rather than essential ones. Many of the imported melody and percussion instruments, such as those used in the court sacrificial rites, are restricted in range and capability from the standpoint of native Korean musical practices and therefore are not often used.
In modern times, Korean instruments have been classified under three main headings: percussion, strings and winds. In the past (as in Akhak kwebŏm), instruments were classified under the Chinese ‘eight sonorous sounds’ system: metal, stone, silk, bamboo, gourd, earth, skin and wood (see China, §III). Some instruments, such as the haegŭm fiddle, use several of the materials, so that their position in the classification is not obvious, while in some cases the sounding material of the instrument is not actually the classifying material. A particular Korean twist in instrument classification is that bowed strings (the haegŭm and ajaeng), because they are capable of sustaining and shaping tones, are members of so-called ‘wind’ ensembles.
The standard accompanying percussion instrument in both folk and court music is the double-headed hourglass drum Changgo. Two heads, made of animal skin stretched across metal hoops, are laced together to hold them onto the hollow drum body, with the heads overhanging by a few centimetres. In most indoor music, the changgo is played on the left side with an open hand and on both the overhanging flange and in the centre of the right side with a slender bamboo stick. In loud outdoor music such as nongak, it is played with a ball-headed mallet on the left and a sturdy bamboo stick on the right. The distinct sounds produced by the different mechanisms allow subtle variations of basic rhythmic patterns to be performed.
Percussion instruments best known in the highly popular genre samullori include the changgo, puk, Kkwaenggwari and Ching. The puk is a barrel drum that reinforces the strong beats of rhythmic patterns. The kkwaenggwari and ching are both bronze gongs: the kkwaenggwari is a small instrument with an extremely penetrating sound, played by the leader of the ensemble, and the ching is a large lipped gong, often with a rising pitch, played primarily on the main beats of a rhythmic pattern.
Other notable percussion instruments include chabara (brass cymbals) played in Buddhist dances; pak, a set of six slender slabs of wood bound loosely together at one end played by the ensemble director in court music; and ch'uk and ŏ, two single-purpose wooden instruments for court music. Ch'uk is a wooden box, played by thumping a heavy stick against its bottom for the purpose of signalling the start of a piece of music (see fig.1 above), while ŏ (fig.4) is a wooden tiger with a serrated ridge down the backbone scraped by a brush of split bamboo, which is used to signal the end of a piece. There are also many highly decorated membranophones used only in the court repertory.
The four most popular string instruments are the Kŏmun'go, Kayagŭm, Haegŭm and Ajaeng. The kŏmun'go is a six-string fretted long zither played with a pencil-shaped plectrum. The body is of paulownia and chestnut wood, and the strings were originally silk but are now usually nylon; the tall frets lie under only three of the strings, while the others are supported by individual movable bridges. The characteristic vibrato and note-bending of Korean music is achieved by pressing the melody strings laterally across the frets with the left hand. The kŏmun'go is the leader of court ensembles in which it appears and has the reputation of being a masculine instrument.
The kayagŭm is a similarly shaped, 12-string long zither, but is plucked with the fingers of the right hand. It has no frets, but has 12 movable bridges (‘wild goose feet’), so that it bears some resemblance (and probable genetic relationship) to the Chinese zheng and Japanese koto. The player modifies pitches and produces vibrato by pressing the strings behind the movable bridges with the left hand. The kayagŭm is the most popular (and reputedly the original) instrument for performing sanjo, though all the other melody instruments described here may also be used in that genre. The kŏmun'go and kayagŭm are the best documented musical instruments in historical sources.
The haegŭm and ajaeng are bowed chordophones. The haegŭm is a two-string fiddle (held vertically) with a long, slender neck piercing a bamboo soundbox. The strings are not pressed against the neck; rather, their sounding length and pitch are determined by the distance from soundbox to fingers and by the tension created by finger pressure. The horsehair bow passes between the two strings, producing a sound that in ensemble playing closely resembles a human voice. The haegŭm often appears in sinawi improvisation.
The ajaeng is a long zither similar in basic shape to the kŏmun'go and kayagŭm, and with movable bridges like the kayagŭm; in court music it has seven strings (more recently nine) and is much longer than the eight-string folk version. The bow is a slender, rosined stick of forsythia wood.
An imported trapezoidal dulcimer, yanggŭm, is found in a number of court pieces, as well as in the aristocratic suite Yŏngsan hoesang. It was brought to Korea from Beijing in the 18th century and is related to the Chinese Yangqin. In South Korea, it is much less sophisticated than the Chinese instrument in either a technical or artistic sense, but in North Korea it is highly developed.
The chief aerophones are Taegŭm, P'iri and Tanso, all made of bamboo. The taegŭm is a large transverse flute with six large fingerholes and a membrane-covered hole. Partial holing and varying embouchure allow players to produce characteristic Korean melodic features of vibrato, note-bending and ornamentation, and the membrane hole imparts a variety of timbres (gentle and pure at lower pitches and volume, and penetrating at higher pitches and volume). In court ensembles, it functions as the tuning instrument.
The p'iri is a small, double-reed cylindrical pipe with eight holes, and it comes in three forms: the hyang-p'iri, a general purpose instrument of medium diameter; the se-p'iri, a more slender and gentle-sounding version used in ensembles accompanying vocal music such as kagok; and the tang-p'iri (fig.5), a thick, stubby and rough-sounding version used only in certain pieces of court music requiring a more substantial sound. The tanso is a small, notched vertical flute with five fingerholes; comparatively simple to play, it is a cheap and popular instrument that often serves as preparation for the more difficult wind instruments.
Another double-reed instrument is the conical, wooden t'aep'yŏngso (or nallari), closely related to the Chinese Suona. Extremely penetrating and loud, it is the only melodic instrument found in farmers' music (nongak) and also appears in the court orchestras at the Royal Ancestral Shrine.
Although genres of Korean music are highly varied in style and instrumentation, there are some consistent features that link them together and partly distinguish them from types of music in neighbouring countries such as China and Japan. Triple rhythms, not common in either China or Japan, are very characteristic of both Korean folk and court music, and even passages considered to be duple are often bent (as in jazz) to give a swaying, dance-like, triple rhythm. Most types of Korean music (Buddhist pŏmp'ae chant being a notable exception) employ regularly recurring rhythmic patterns or cycles: long ones in the more refined genres, such as kagok and court instrumental ensemble pieces, and comparatively short ones in the cases of professional and amateur forms in the folk tradition.
Similarly, there are a restricted number of scales and melody types used across the whole range of Korean music, though the use of these in court music is rather more subtle and complex than in folk music. Korean listeners quickly fasten their attention on the rhythmic pattern and melodic mode, using them as a secure structure from which they can appreciate the variants and deviations of melody, rhythm and form that are cultivated in performance.
The Korean term for rhythmic pattern is changdan, basically meaning ‘length’. Court and aristocratic music generally has repeating metrical and rhythmic structures, though typically with irregular expansions and contractions that have arisen as a result of long historical development by performing musicians. In all cases the rhythmic structure is clearly marked by percussion instruments. The succession of metre-marking rhythmic events is particularly important, even if, especially in slow tempo, the length of constituent beats (from a Western standpoint) is irregular. The slow court piece Sujech'ŏn, for example, has an underlying 18-beat metre of 6+3+3+6 beats (ex.1) emphasized by strong strokes on the changgo drum, but over the course of 20 repetitions the pattern is variously contracted to 16, 14 or even 9 beats.
In the aristocratic kagok and Yŏngsan hoesang, the repetition of metrical structure is clearer and more regular than in court ensemble music. Each movement of Yŏngsan hoesang carries a single metrical structure, the opening movement ‘Sangyŏngsan’ having, for example, a 20-beat (6+4+4+6) pattern (ex.2) and the eighth movement ‘T'aryŏng’ having a four-beat pattern (ex.3). Kagok uses two main repeating structures, either 16 beats (11+5) or 10 beats (7+3), where the 10-beat pattern is clearly a contraction of the 16-beat one (ex.4a and b).
Korean folk music, whether professionalized or not, mostly shares in a collection of rather straightforward rhythmic patterns that are well known to all performers and listeners and immediately recognized. The patterns are characterized by their length (the primary consideration, as reflected in the name changdan: ‘length’), a sense of speed and character, a basic metre (which may be varied if the length remains the same) and certain recognizable and recurring events. On the main drums for accompanying folk music, the changgo and puk, open left-hand strokes have greater metrical strength than do strokes with the right-hand stick.
Four core patterns are chinyangjo, chungmori, chungjungmori and chajinmori. Chinyangjo is about 10 to 12 seconds long; it is very slow and usually in a six-beat metre, with each beat having triple subdivision (18/8). Characteristically, little happens in the drum part until the last two beats, when a reinforcing articulation at the end of the melodic phrase occurs. The moments of highest emotion in p'ansori and the saddest folksongs (such as the south-western Yukchabaegi) are set in chinyangjo (ex.5a).
Chungmori is about ten seconds long, of a moderate speed, and typically in a 12-beat metre with duple division of each beat (12/4). The first beat is usually strongly marked, with a sharp stick accent on the ninth beat. In performance, the 12 beats may be metrically organized as four groups of three, three groups of four and other groupings (ex.5b).
Chungjungmori (ex.5c) is about four seconds long and of a swaying, dancing speed. It is typically in 12/8, with a strong downbeat and an accent on the last quaver before the fourth beat. Metrical change is very common with chungjungmori, and performances may modulate quickly between 12/8, 6/4, 3/2, 3/4+6/8 and other possibilities. In p'ansori, this pattern is remarkably flexible, being used both for sad and jolly scenes. An important variant of chungjungmori, in which the right-hand stick is particularly active, is kutkŏri, used to good effect in sanjo and sinawi.
Chajinmori (ex.5d) is about two to three seconds long and in a fast tempo. Again in 12/8, it is rather like a speeded-up chungjungmori, with similar metrical modulations. An even faster version of this pattern is called hwimori. Excited passages of p'ansori are often set in this pattern.
Melodic modes have been described in various ways in Korea. Historical documents are usually in the Confucian tradition, ignoring folk music and describing modes only for court and aristocratic music with Chinese terminology. In this description, scales (heptatonic and pentatonic) are defined using sets of notes derived from the circle of 5ths, and those scales are applied to Korean music (e.g. in Akhak kwebŏm). It does not, however, take into account the various melody types characteristic of Korean performance.
A more modern modal description frequently used by Koreans divides the modes into two basic types, one anhemitonic pentatonic (p'yŏngjo) and one of variously five, four and three notes (kyemyŏnjo). The five- and four-note kyemyŏnjo are used to describe certain pieces of court music, and the three-note kyemyŏnjo is used for folk music. Important characteristics of the folk kyemyŏnjo are a large vibrato on the note a 4th below the tonic and a slowly descending, drooping quality in the note a step above the tonic; ex.6 shows two possible versions of p'yŏngjo and kyemyŏnjo.
There are variants of both types of modes, depending on which notes are used as cadence tones, which have the most heavy vibrato and so on, and in performance the definitions are much enriched by ornamentation, notes foreign to the mode and modulations between different modal variants. Korean musicologists distinguish a number of regional melodic styles and modes, in particular for the music of the capital area, the north-west, the east coast, the south-west, and the island of Cheju to the south of the peninsula.
Like rhythmic patterns, melodic modes have associations of certain expressive qualities, so the kyemyŏnjo, for example, is used for sad songs such as the south-western Yukchabaegi. In a genre such as the narrative p'ansori, there is a complex interaction between the dramatic and emotional qualities of melodic modes and rhythmic patterns, together with types of ornamentation.
Korea's most important contribution to musical notation in East Asia is a precise rhythmic notation called chŏngganbo, which was invented in the 15th century and continues in a highly developed form. Chŏngganbo consists of a lattice of lines read downwards and from right to left, groups of columns being separated by wider lines. Each column contains information for a voice, instrument or category of instrument, and each box in a column represents a unit of time; several columns taken together provide a kind of score for ensembles (fig.6). The columns starting from the right show a melodic line (notation discussed below), named strokes for the changgo drum, the occurrences of the director's pak clapper and the singer's text. The modern version of the chŏngganbo notation allows for subdivision of a box for smaller rhythmic values and a great many additional symbols for dynamics, ornaments and other details.
In the case of percussion instruments, the name of the stroke (for the changgo) or simply the name (or drawing) of the instrument is inserted at the appropriate point. In fig.6, every second column in each group of four has the same rhythmic pattern recurring.
There
are a number of pitch notations used in conjunction with the chŏngganbo
rhythmic notation. A Chinese pitch-name system, yulchabo (Chinese lulu),
simply names the pitch and can be inserted in the appropriate time slot. A
Korean system of modal notation, oŭmyakpo (‘pentatonic simplified
notation’), involves naming the tonic pitch (kung) and indicating how
many scale degrees above or below that tonic the other notes are; it is
necessary to know which melodic mode is in use in order to work out the actual
pitch. In fig.6, which is in p'yŏngjo, the pitches in the first
column are the tonic (which might be taken as A
for illustration), two steps above the tonic (D), one step above the tonic
(B), two steps above
and one step above in one box (D–B), and back to the tonic (A) twice.
A notation system used frequently in historical notation books from the late 16th century onwards is the tablature system called hapchabo for the six-string kŏmun'go. This notation, apparently based in part on Chinese qin tablature, indicates which string to use, which left-hand finger to stop the string at which fret, which plucking technique to use with the right hand, and other details (fig.8). The tablature books document changes in pieces and their performing style through the centuries and are therefore particularly helpful to historical musicologists.
In the column to the left of each group of three in fig.8, a mnemonic notation system called yukpo is also shown. These syllables, written in the native Korean alphabet (invented in the 15th century), imitate the sounds of the instrument and are more useful as a memory aid than for illustrating precise pitch and rhythm. Modern derivatives of the yukpo system, with differing syllables for each type of instrument, are still in common use in instrumental teaching and for communication between musicians when their instruments are not at hand.
A last type of notation to mention is yŏnŭmp'yo, a partly neumatic notation system consisting essentially of articulation marks written adjacent to columns of poetic text, allowing the experienced singer to correlate the particular text with the inflections of the memorized kagok tune to which the text is to be sung. This notation is found only in singers’ text collections such as the Kagok wŏllyu (‘Original Source of kagok’) of the late 19th century (fig.9).
Koreans identify a number of interrelated aspects of form as being characteristic of their traditional music, dividing them into structural forms and performative forms. One type of structural form is the varied repetition found in some court music (such as the tangak pieces Nagyanch'un and Pohŏja) and aristocratic music (some movements of Yŏngsan hoesang); it may be described as, for example, AB+CB, where B is the same, but where C is either a variant of A or entirely different (this is termed ‘varied head with identical continuation’).
Another type of structural form arises from increasing ornamental detail within a given melody, either retaining the original melodic length or making it longer. In the case of the vocal aristocratic music sijo, poems with larger numbers of syllables are sung to a variant of a basic tune in a more decorated style but retain the same overall length. Similar forms arise in folk music as well, where the greater decoration results in greater length.
A third type of structural form is the joining of slow and fast versions of a single piece, such as the southwestern folksongs Yukchabaegi and Chajin Yukchabaegi (‘fast Yukchabaegi’). An extension of this form of increasingly fast movements may also be found in the aristocratic chamber music suite Yŏngsan hoesang and in the virtuoso sanjo.
Performative aspects of form include the joining of phrases of melody in court music, where a small group of instruments extend the end of one phrase until the remaining instruments join in for the next phrase. This form is particularly noted in the court piece Sujech'ŏn. Another performative aspect of form, common in folk music, is call and response.
The dominant musical culture of modern Korea, both north and south, is Western; indigenous traditional music is a minority interest. No doubt this situation results largely from the outward-looking attitude engendered by industrialization and modernization in the 20th century. Yet since the division of the Korean peninsula into two halves ollowing the defeat of Japan in 1945, musical traditions have also developed in different ways, with political dogma determining artistic policy in North Korea.
Korea, §V: Modern developments
In the 1960s there was fear that traditional music would disappear entirely from the active musical scene in South Korea, but during the 1980s and 90s there was an encouraging trend to reverse the situation, though with an inevitable change of context. University students in particular took up traditional music as a cause, and many students have been studying traditional instruments (especially kayagŭm and farmers' percussion music instruments), buying commercial recordings and supporting concert performances by professional musicians. The government of South Korea has offered support by encouraging interest in traditional culture in general, by naming and paying certain musicians as ‘national treasures’ to keep their arts alive, and by sending cultural troupes on foreign tours.
As mentioned earlier, music in Korea was traditionally linked to occasion, and nearly all those occasions have disappeared in modern times. Governments are no longer royal, and with very few exceptions court ceremonies and banquets are no longer carried out except as special events and tourist attractions. In Seoul the music for such occasions is preserved, mainly for concert purposes, by the government-supported National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts (formerly called the National Classical Music Institute), which takes much of its instrumental and musical heritage from the Royal Music Institute (Changagwŏn) of the Chosŏn dynasty.
The predecessor of the National Center suffered during the Japanese occupation of the first half of the 20th century and subsequently under successive South Korean governments, surviving only because of the extreme dedication of its musicians. With national economic success and revival of interest in national heritage, support for the National Center grew, and in the 1980s it moved to a large set of purpose-built buildings south of the main part of the capital Seoul, where its activities include supporting frequent concerts, teaching students, housing a museum and carrying out valuable research and publication. While its predecessors were primarily concerned with court and aristocratic music, the present National Center preserves and teaches all types of traditional music as well as fostering new composition using national instruments and musical concepts.
At the folk level, the mechanization of agricultural tasks has meant the disappearance of the community work groups that traditionally provided the performers for much farmers’ music and folksong, so that such music has become largely the extra-curricular activity of school children and the property of festivals and contests. The increasing dominance of Christianity has led to the comparative rarity of shamanistic occasions for the performance of music and the stagnation of development in Buddhist musical forms: folk music has become almost entirely a secular affair. The powerful and rich in Korea are typically the staunchest adherents to Western religion and culture, and until the late 20th century their influence has rarely been to support the cultural heritage that they themselves have largely abandoned.
The present revival of interest in traditional music comes with an upsurge of interest in national traditions in general, but the music is unavoidably repackaged. Performances on recordings, television, radio and stage require exact (and often short) timings foreign to the less rigid performing circumstances of the past; international tours perform music to suit foreign audiences, and the presence of the media, modern competitiveness and heightened audience expectation have led to a professionalization of much that was formerly rural music. Regional traits, originally retained in the isolated pockets of society in royal Korea, are disappearing in the tide of national media and communication systems.
The more highly developed forms of music were traditionally taught by rote over a long period of time, a method that fostered many individual, personal variants of musical style and technique. The usual modern practice is to use notation (often Western rather than Korean) and teach a large quantity of music as set pieces, without the encouragement to develop individual styles. As a result, much of the traditional flexibility and spontaneous quality of the past is being replaced by precision of reproduction, brilliance of execution and largeness of repertory. Encouraging signs of a return to more traditional, creative methods of rote teaching, however, were evident at the end of the 20th century.
In modern South Korea there is a thriving industry in Western art music, with a number of major orchestras and concert halls. In Seoul, there is the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (begun 1957), the KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) Symphony Orchestra (1956), the Korean Symphony Orchestra (1987), while a number of regional orchestras have also been formed in Pusan, Taegu, Inch'ŏn and other cities. Concerts are frequently given by international touring artists, and record shops are filled with the latest classical CDs. Korean performers such as the violinist Kyung-Wha Chung (Chŏng Kyŏnghwa in standard romanization) and the conductor Myung-Whun Chung (Chŏng Myŏnghun) have established impressive international careers.
Composition is taught at a number of universities to many hundreds of students, the leading institution being the College of Music at Seoul National University, where the chief composition teacher is Kang Sŏkhŭi. The most famous ethnic Korean composer in the 20th century was Isang Yun (1917–95), who spent much of his professional career in Germany. Yun's compositions often bear Korean names, and he claimed they contained deeply Korean significance, but their instrumentation and structure are essentially Western.
In addition to this contemporary and often avant garde Western-style art music, a widely performed and enjoyed type of lyric song, confusingly called kagok like the traditional aristocratic genre, has occupied many composers since about 1920. The first work in this genre is thought to be Pongsŏnhwa (‘Balsam Flower’) by Hong Nanp'a (1900–40), and many hundreds of such songs have been written since then, becoming a staple of radio and television. The style of this lyric kagok is entirely Western, employing orchestra and a purely diatonic, conservative harmony, combined with Korean words; many Koreans feel, however, that kagok expresses deeply Korean sentiments and that this is a very Korean form of music.
In Korea, ‘popular music’ refers to music that is neither Western classical music or Korean traditional music. Korean popular music can be divided into two categories: ‘easy-listening’ instrumental music and popular song. The former, known as kyŏng ŭmak (‘light music’), was introduced to Korea by a Western-style military band established around 1901, and it is now mostly played by Western-style bands or orchestras to provide background music for films, television programmes or musical theatre, in original or arranged compositions.
When Koreans speak of popular music, however, they usually mean popular song (yuhaengga or taejung kayo). Originating at the turn of the 20th century from ch'angga (Korean versions of Western songs), the term yuhaengga (‘song in fashion’) did not appear until 1926, when a ch'angga called Saŭi ch'anmi (‘Adoration of Death’), Ivanovich's ‘Blue Danube’ with Korean words sung by Yun Simdŏk, became an unprecedented hit. A recording industry soon emerged because of the profit potential of the Korean song market, and in 1931 Ch'ae Kyuyŏp made his début as the first full-time professional popular singer.
Despite a few efforts to create sin minyo (‘new folksong’) based on Korean traditional folksong style, most Korean popular songs during the Japanese occupation (1910–45) were heavily influenced by enka, a genre of Japanese popular song. Using the pentatonic scales and duple metre characteristic of enka, these Korean popular songs came accidentally to be known as t’ŭrot’ŭ, a word derived from ‘fox trot’.
The period after independence in 1945 and during the Korean War (1950–53) was devastating for recording facilities. Korean popular musicians were forced to rely on live performances in akkŭktan (musical theatres) or dance halls. Most star singers (such as Kim Chŏnggu, Hyŏn In and Paek Sŏrhŭi) continued to sing t'ŭrot’ŭ songs, which by this time were also called ppongtchak (an onomatopoeic word reflecting the duple metre), but a few marchlike war songs with patriotic content, called chinjung kayo, (‘war pop song’) also gained brief popularity. With the frequent appearance of the term taejung (‘mass public’) in print media, the term taejung kayo (‘mass song’) started to be used along with yuhaengga to refer to popular songs.
Following the cease-fire agreement between the North and the South at the end of the war, the popular music of the stringently isolationist North Korea has been virtually unknown outside its borders (see §2 below). In South Korea, the recording industry was revived, and commercial broadcasting companies were established after the war. A new type of song, influenced by contemporary American popular song, was introduced to the South Korean public by various Korean singers who had once provided musical entertainment for the American soldiers stationed in Korea (e.g. Ch'oe Hŭijun, Han Myŏngsuk and Patti Kim (Korean name Kim Hyeja)). Despite the continuing presence of t'ŭrot’ŭ sung by Yi Mija, Nam Chin and Na Huna, especially after the normalization of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan in 1965, the impact of American popular music on South Korea has continued to grow.
T'ong-guitar (a boxlike guitar) music, the Korean imitation of the 1960s American folksong movement, was a symbol of South Korean youth culture in the early 1970s, along with blue jeans. While t’ŭrot’ŭ singers had orchestral accompaniment, t'ong-guitar singers (such as Song Ch'angsik, Yong Hŭiŭn and Kim Min'gi) mainly relied on the acoustic guitar, which served as a symbol of their identity. Meanwhile, American-style rock bands, known in South Korea by the English term ‘group sound’, introduced electronic instruments and synthesizers. With the t'ong-guitar music and the ‘group sound’, the major age group of popular music consumers shifted from adult to youth. By the mid-1970s, however, the t'ong-guitar movement had lost its momentum, owing to the government prosecution of many t'ong-guitar singers for smoking marijuana; rock-style t’ŭrot’ŭ by singers such as Cho Yongp'il filled the void.
The 1980s were marked by diverse trends: the revival of t’ŭrot’ŭ (led by Chu Hyŏnmi), which confirmed the strong undercurrent of Japanese legacy in Korean musical aesthetics; the introduction of heavy-metal rock bands and dance music; and the establishment of sentimental ballads as a major popular musical genre that had its origin in the early 1970s t'ong-guitar music. Also, to counter mainstream popular songs, the formation of Norae undong (‘Song Movement’), led by the group Noraerŭl ch'annŭn saramdŭl (‘People Seeking Songs’), was supported by college students, young intellectuals and working-class people.
The sentimental balled genre continued to account for the major portion of record sales in the 1990s. With the decline of t’ŭrot’ŭ and the dominance of reggae and Korean rap with strong and fast dance rhythms in television programmes, however, teenagers became the major popular music consumers, supporting teen idols such as Sŏ T'aeji wa Aidŭl (‘Taiji Boys’), Lulla and Kim Kŏnmo; adult consumers, alienated by the mass media, sought noraebang (song booths for private karaoke) to satisfy their musical needs.
The traditional musician Kim Kisu (1917–86), who trained as a singer and kŏmun'go player, advocated the development of new music using Korean musical instruments and concepts. For some years near the end of his career, he was director of the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts and spearheaded developments of the traditional rhythmic notation system, chŏngganbo, and publication of new compositions. He also published many transcriptions of Korean traditional music in Western staff notation.
Following Kim, a number of composers who employ traditional Korean materials have come to prominence. Hwang Byungki (Hwang Pyŏnggi, b 1936) trained as a lawyer but became professor of music at Ewha Women's University in Seoul and has written a substantial number of pieces for the kayagŭm, both in traditional styles and using avant-garde ideas. One of his most popular pieces, for kayagŭm and changgo, is Ch'imhyangmu, written for a film about excavations of Silla tombs; it frequently appears in recital programmes. Hwang is himself a noted kayagŭm player, and in 1998 he published a much expanded and revised sanjo score based on the school of a famous player, Chŏng Namhŭi, who went to North Korea after the 1945 partition.
Other composers widely performed in South Korea include Yi Sŏngch'ŏn (b 1936), professor of music at Seoul National University, and Yi Sanggyu (b 1944). Both these composers use traditional materials in a wide variety of ways, employing harmonic structures and modified instruments, writing operas based on traditional stories and so on.
Korea, §V: Modern developments
Kim Il Sung, the head of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) from 1948 until his death in 1994, and his son Kim Jong Il, groomed as his successor since the 1970s and leader since 1994, are routinely given credit for guiding artists. The most significant early policy statement concerning music is contained in Kim Il Sung's early talks with artists and writers, notably ‘On Some Questions Arising in our Literature and Art’, dated June 1951. Written at a time when Kim Tubong, an established literacy critic who led the Korean communist faction in China during the early 1940s, had some influence, these echo Mao Zedong's 1942 Yan'an speeches and reflect Soviet socialist realism. Kim noted that artists were ‘engineers of the human soul’, whose works should serve the people as a ‘powerful weapon and great inspiration’. At the same time artists were criticized for having ‘lost touch with life’ and for lagging ‘behind our rapidly advancing reality’.
The Tadong Chohap was a famed Pyongyang association of kisaeng (entertainment girls); signalling its training function, it was re-named the Chosŏn kwŏnbŏn. A number of prominent musicians, including Ha Kyuil (1867–1937) and Ch'oe Chŏngsik (1886–1951), taught there, and students included the prominent post-division South Korean singers Muk Kyewŏl (b 1921) and An Pich'wi (b 1926). It is known that several singers of folksongs in the Kyŏnggi and Sŏdo styles (see below) performed regularly in Pyongyang. The city was a centre of Protestant mission activities, and it is reasonable to suppose that American revival hymns would have been familiar to many. The Japanese colonial regime also promoted Western-style military bands and songs – ch'angga (the Korean pronunciation of Japanese shōka), tongyo children's songs and kagok lyric songs – and from the late 1920s, Japanese record companies based in Seoul issued recordings of yuhaengga (popular songs, the Korean pronunciation of Japanese enka).
Pyongyang's musical establishment grew rapidly after the political division of the peninsula. Left-leaning musicians crossed to North Korea as the southern state moved to ban socialist activity, initially under the American military trusteeship and then, more urgently, from 1948, as the Republic of Korea (South Korea) was proclaimed. Among the migrants who specialized in Korean traditional music were Kong Kinam, An Kiok, Pak Tongsil, Im Sohyang, Chŏng Namhŭi, Cho Sangsŏn and Ch'oe Oksŏn. Western musicians included the composers Kim Sunnam, An Kiyŏng, Ri Kŏnu, Yun Naksun, Pak Ŭnyong and Chŏn Chonggil, the critics Pak Yŏnggŭn and Chŏn Hakchu, and several dozen well-known singers, pianists and instrumentalists. The composer Kim Sunnam (1917–86) reflected socialist ideals in both his compositions and musical activities. Similarly, Ri Kŏnu wrote revolutionary songs such as Haebang chŏnsa ŭi norae (‘Song of the Independence Fighters’), Kanŭn kil (‘The Way to Go’) and Yŏmyŏng ŭi norae (‘New Era Song’). An Kiyŏng, reflecting emerging nationalism, published important folksong notations in his ‘Chosŏn minyo wa akpohwa’ in the journal Tonggwang (May 1931) and wrote many songs, including a further Haebang chŏnsa ŭi norae published in November 1945.
Creating a musical undercurrent that has continued to the present day, songs that perpetuated Japanese models were composed for a while, now labelled with a Korean term as taejung kayo (‘popular songs’), rather than yuhaengga. But the socialist revolution, at least at the public level, required a new type of proletarian artist, and as the regime moved to silence dissent many musicians were purged, along with other artists. Political dogma demanded a new type of music, and this was provided by revolutionary songs using the Chinese geming guqu model. The composer Kim Wŏn'gyun (b 1917) was representative of the new type of artist. In 1946, when still a farmer, he wrote Kim Ilsŏng changgŭn ŭi norae (‘Song of General Kim Il Sung’), followed in 1947 by the Aegukka (national anthem). These two remain the most frequently heard of all North Korean songs and are given prime position in collections; to inspire walkers, the words of ‘Song of General Kim Il Sung’ are even chiselled into the rocks of Myohyang mountain.
Song production remains central to North Korean music, as demonstrated by the prodigious output of composers such as Ri Myŏnsang and Kim Oksŏng (both have now died), the 536 songs dating from 1949–80 published in Chosŏn ŭmak chŏnjip (1987), and the collection of 2,000 songs published in 1994 as Chosŏn kayo 2,000 kokchip. The appropriateness of songs is judged in terms of lyrics more than music. Kim Jong Il, in his 1975 ‘For the Further Development of our Juche Art’ speech, wrote that ‘…we should inspire the people to the revolutionary struggle by means of songs’. He criticized composers for not paying sufficient attention to lyrics: ‘Before good songs can be produced prettily-worded texts are necessary. The words should be poetic. But [since] many are turned into prose…no good songs can be produced’.
Music and dance are compulsory school subjects, and gifted students receive supplementary training in ‘children's palaces’ (haksaeng sonyŏn kungjŏng). Palaces now operate in each province, and since 1989 Pyongyang has boasted two: a new facility near Kim Il Sung's birthplace at Man'gyŏngdae supplementing an older, central institution. A music academy, the Pyongyang Music and Dance College, was founded in March 1949, offering specialist education from primary to tertiary level. In 1992, 1500 students were enrolled in its five departments (vocal, instrumental, composition, education, Korean music), and 50 more worked in a research division. Other specialist institutes, controlled by the Munhwa yesulbu (Ministry of Culture and Arts), include the Minjok akki kaeryang saŏpkwa (Committee for the Improvement of People's Instruments) and the Minjok ŭmak yŏn'gusil (People's Music Study Institute). The P'yŏngyang muyong p'yogibŏp yŏn'gushil (Pyongyang Dance Notation Study Institute) has promoted a new dance notation based partly on the Korean alphabet. The Yun Isang ǔmak yǒn'gushil (Isang Yun Music Research Institute), closely associated with the composer Isang Yun (1917–95), was charged with developing composition techniques and promoting knowledge of the European avant-garde but was temporarily closed shortly after Kim Il Sung's death.
State performance troupes function in each province and in the cities of Kaesŏng, Pyongyang, Namp'o and Ch'ŏngjin. In recent years these have worked primarily as propaganda squads, mobilized, according to the party newspaper, to encourage ‘workers to greater successes through artistic agitation’. There are also three state orchestras (the Chosŏn inmin'gun hyŏpchudan, the Kungnip kyohyang aktan and the Sahoe anjŏnbu hyŏpchudan) and an opera troupe, the P'i pada kagŭktan (Sea of Blood Opera Company). Musicians themselves are, in an echo of the Soviet system, appointed as in'min yesulga (‘people's artists’) and konghun yesulga (‘merit artists’). Appointments follow either a presidential nomination or the award of a gold medal by the Kukka misul chakp'um simŭi wiwŏnhoe (National Arts Council) or other equivalent bodies. Musicians who have been recognized in this way include Kim Wŏn'gyun, Kim Yŏn'gyu, Kang Kich'ang, Kim Rinok, Kim Kilhak, Ri Chŏngŏn and Kim Yunbong.
The state policies for art have not remained static but have evolved and developed with political changes. After the Korean war, the Sino-Soviet tensions that followed the death of Stalin led North Korean policy makers to distance themselves from the Soviets. This led to a major change in artistic policy as part of the Ch'ǒllima undong (‘Galloping horse movement’). Launched in 1957, the movement was the first of many ‘speed battles’ that essentially tried to enhance indigenous production. In art, it strengthened central control and promoted Kim Il Sung as sole arbiter through the doctrine of yuil sasang (‘ideology of one’). Kim was claimed to be in total harmony with the wishes of the people, but the people alone still owned production, hence vestiges of the élite culture of the past were abandoned, because, according to a 1960 speech by Kim, the people ‘could write better works than professional [musicians] confined to their offices’.
The concept of mass culture meant that only the vernacular was to be researched and studied, particularly when policy makers declared that ‘nihilism’ was unacceptable, so that Korean heritage had to form the basis of contemporary production. Folksong collections based on fieldwork began to appear, published in two distinct periods, first in the late 1950s and then in the mid-1960s. In both periods, to avoid what was termed ‘resurrectionism’, texts were modified to reflect the socialist agenda, and melodies were updated and homogenized to fit diatonic modes. Arrangements offered piano accompaniments. Effectively, the characteristic folksong style of the region around Pyongyang, Sŏdo, and the more professional style associated with southern folksongs, namdo minyo (and the related genre of p'ansori), were abandoned in favour of Kyŏnggi-style melodies from the region around Seoul and folksongs of more recent vintage. Other traditional performing arts were also promoted, but always in a manner appropriate to socialism. The masked dance-drama pongsan t'al ch'um from near Pyongyang, for example, abandoned ritual and play in its revised form to shift the emphasis to the oppression of the proletariat, the central role of an itinerant Buddhist monk being further satirized to expose the ‘hypocritical and foul life of monks’.
By the mid-1960s, the doctrines of the Galloping Horse Movement had led to attempts to modify Korean traditional instruments by the Committee for the Improvement of People's Instruments. Two basic tenets were behind the ‘improvements’ applied to what were now defined as ko akki (‘old instruments’). First, any links to the court or the élite of the past were to be removed; hence the Ajaeng (8-string bowed long zither) and Kŏmun'go (6-string plucked long zither) were abandoned. Second, instruments that traditionally had restricted pitch ability and were fashioned as much after aesthetic concerns as with ease of playing in mind were to be ‘improved’ to enable them to compete with Western orchestral instruments. The results, in the case of wind instruments, were the chang saenap (shawm), so p'iri, tae p'iri and chŏ p'iri (oboes), and the Tanso and chǒttae (flutes). Simple system metal keywork was added to each, and hardwood or metal bodies replaced bamboo. Among zithers, the Kayagŭm (traditionally, a 12-string plucked long zither) gained nine additional strings made from nylon or metal rather than the silk of old, as well as more user-friendly tuning pegs. The Haegŭm (traditionally, a two-string fiddle), was redesigned as a four-string instrument in four distinct sizes, from the smallest (so haegŭm), through medium-sized versions (chung haegŭm, tae haegŭm), to a bass instrument (chŏ haegŭm). Each was tuned to match a corresponding Western string instrument. The yanggŭm dulcimer was modified to resemble East European equivalents in both structure and playing techniques, and a new string instrument appeared, the ongnyugŭm. This last instrument, named after a site in Pyongyang, was, it is said, designed after Kim Jong Il asked the Committee why none of the harps from Korea's past were still played. Mounted on trestles, the ongnyugŭm retains the trapezoid shape of the yanggŭm but adds bridges from the kayagŭm and a system of rotating tuning triskeles operated by foot pedals not dissimilar to those on the western orchestral harp.
During the 1970s a new ideology took hold. Often glossed as ‘self reliance’, this was juche. Juche subsumed individual creativity under group responsibility within a collectivized art. Kim Il Sung was still sole arbiter, but artists were now required to reflect state policy through a ‘seed theory’ (chŏngjaron) in which ideology was always to provide the kernel for composition. In keeping with this, themes were rationed. Revolutionary songs and folksongs became the models for instrumental and orchestral composition, which, as taejung ŭmak (‘popular music’), still reflected proletarian culture. Songs were coupled to patriotic or heroic stories – stories labelled as ‘immortal’ or ‘revolutionary’ – to create a new style of opera, known after the title of the first production, in 1971, as the P'i pada (‘sea of blood’) genre. Each opera was written by a collective of musicians based at the P'i pada kagŭktan (Sea of Blood Opera Company). Operas, in turn, were used as the basis for symphonic works, the most renowned being a symphony based on P'i pada. Subsequent operas included Kkŏt panŭn ch'ŏnyŏ (‘The Flower Girl’), Ch'unhaengjŏn (‘Story of Spring Fragrance’), Tang ŭi ch'amdwin ttal (‘A True Daughter of the Party), Kŭmgangsan ŭi sori (‘Song of the Diamond Mountains’), Yŏnp'ungho (‘Gentle Breeze’), and Millima iyagi hara (‘Tell the Story, Forest’). Operas mix the indigenous with imported elements, for example traditional Korean and Soviet dance, and Western orchestras augmented by ensembles of ‘improved’ Korean instruments. Operas dispense with arias, replacing them with company choruses known as pangch'ang, a sub-genre for which Kim Jong Il is credited as inventor. Pangch'ang allow the action to continue, perhaps the heroine to die or a battle to be fought, while the singing company interprets to the audience what is happening on stage. Some pangch'ang have become concert items in their own right, an example being Haemada pomi omyŏn (‘Spring Comes Every Year’) from Kkot p’anŭn ch'ŏnyŏ.
By the late 1980s, synthesizers and electric guitars began to appear as North Korea tentatively embraced pop music, labelling it kyŏng ŭmak (‘light music’). Developments were allied to the widespread availability of cassettes, produced in the capital city by state companies such as Mansudae, Meari, Mokran, Naenara and Pyongyang. Three troupes provided the main artists for recordings. Reflecting their revolutionary credentials, three were named after sites where Kim Il Sung allegedly fought against Japanese colonialism in the 1930s: Mansudae yesultan (Mansudae Art Troupe), Wangjaesan kyŏng ŭmaktan (Wangjaesan Light Music Band), and Poch'ŏnbo kyŏng ŭmaktan (Pochonbo Electronic Orchestra). A fourth troupe, the Yonghwa mit pangsong ŭmaktan (Film and Media Music Troupe), was responsible for recording filmscores by Ri Chŏngŏn, Sŏng Tongch'un, Chŏn Ch'angil, Ko Suyŏng, Kim Yŏngsŏn and others. Although each troupe is large, and the line-up for different tracks varies, some individual singers remain celebrated. From 1993 onwards, in keeping with the trend throughout East Asia, the same troupes were used in the production of karaoke videos of popular songs and folksongs.
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