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Showing posts from January, 2023

Korean Traditional Music

Korean Traditional Music,  It's never easy to define.  First, the words of itself: Korea, tradition, music, are not easily describable.  Korea, like all other countries, we can point out its territory by geographical boundary by international law. But, culture is not as sharp as a knife. The boundary lies broader than we think. So, when we say Korean culture, the result will be somewhat different from that we had thought about Korea itself.   Tradition is hard to define as well. Some habbits or cultures had been handed down so far and made a meaningful level of heritage? That is a bit worth to be the tradition. In a day or two, or a short period of time? we are not able to call it a tradition. However, in other hands, a traditional heritage that has a loner history is not always considered "more important" or "more traditional." Some of items that we treat great is not always the longest one.   Music is not simply describable. Have you seen the news wh...

Pansori performance

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 A Pansori performance will be taken place. This program is hosted and sponsored by Crown&Haitai Confectionary group to celebrate new year of 2023. The group has sponsored many subgenres of Korean traditional music. Last Autumn, they presented a legendary music called Sujecheon at Sejong Culture Center in Seoul. This time, a large scaled spectrum of pansori will be shown on the stage at the same venue.  Here's a leaflet of the program. Dr. Kim happened to involve in the program as one of the participant to organize the historic research within limited scenes. Since I got such a news earlier than the others, I would like to inform here to let my blog readers know. However, as far as I know, the audience is only allowed by the company's invitation. Hopefully, the performance will be recorded and uploaded on the company's Youtube channel soon around February.

How do we classify music?

How do we classify music? It's possible according to times, principles to make sound, players, places, and more… In music, the name we call music differs according to times. Hyangak(향악, 鄕樂) in Korean  history of music, for example, implies the indigenous music where it was the primary music during or before Goryeo period. Or it can be a counterpart to Chinese music after the Chinese music had been imported to Korean peninsula under the name of Dangak(당악, 唐樂, literally meaning the music of Tang, China).  How to make sound? Yes, that can be another way to classify music, but it happens mostly when we classify instruments. As to the result of the classification, the purpose or use of music may differ as well. Players, we can see many different kinds of players -- some are buskers, and some are professional musicians or musicians at the Royal court. Their social classes were different for sure, and repertoires that they played were also different. Of course, genres of music w...