Traditional Music of the Korean Court

 

*music plays*

 

In the above GIF (taken from 100 Days My Prince, a fun historical K-Drama currently on Netflix), the joke is less apparent without sound, but it's meant to contrast our "modern" globalized expectation about what "party music" is, with what would have been played in Joseon Korea (1392-1897) at royal "parties" -- at, for example, a crown prince's birthday.

This is a similar piece of music:

 

This is traditional Korean music -- specifically Korean court music, which was called "jeongak" (jong-ak, 정악), literally "proper music." The term jeongak distinguishes court music from folk music ("sogak" was for the common people), and court music itself was divided into three categories: aak, hyangak, and dangak (Chinese, Korean, and Sino-Korean court music). While there is no "court" in (South) Korea anymore, these sorts of performances still occur in celebrations of cultural heritage (and, of course, historical K-dramas).

Traditional music in Korea, especially the court music, owes a lot to China, and to Chinese Confucian ideals regarding the place of music in government. While folk music especially retained more "native" elements, the court was a proudly Confucian place, and in this context, music was meant to reflect proper moral character (Confucius said: "If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer"). This means that this kind of music was all about peace, harmony, and everything being in its place. Also, unlike folk music, court music featured emotional restraint (again, under the influence of Confucianism).

Traditional court music is therefore slow and sedate, and relies upon the instrumentalists tuning into each other ("harmonizing") rather than being conducted to keep together; the beat follows the instrumentalists' breathing. This music focuses on melody, with three to five scale tones, and a heterophonic texture.

 

People describe the overall timbre of traditional court music in different ways:

"The tone colour of Korean music in general, and the Jeongak genre in particular, is warm and soft. In fact, the timbre of the music can be attributed to the fact that Korean instruments are made of non-metallic substances. The wind instruments tend to be made of wood; even the stringed instruments have silk strings instead of wire." (Farrugia)

"The characteristic timbre of Korean music may be best described as unrefined
or unpolished. The rattling of the round-bottomed bridges of the gayageum (12-
string plucked long zither), the scraping and percussive sounds of the geomungo,
and the piercing, buzzing quality of the daegeum's membrane-covered hole are intentional characteristics of Korean music." (Lee, 37)

gayageum (12-string zither)

 

geomungo (7-string zither)

 

daegeum (large bamboo flute)

 

 

 Here is another example piece:

 

Personally, while I enjoy hearing traditional court music in historical K-dramas to add to the authenticity, my preference just for music's sake is for solo pieces of each individual instrument, rather than a full orchestra. I feel like there are -- in the "unrefined" nature of the instruments -- a lot of interesting quirks and qualities that I like hearing one at a time. To me, putting them all together gets a little overwhelming for my ears to sort through! I also enjoy modernized pieces that incorporate traditional instruments -- a hybrid sound, mixing the old into the new (for one featuring my favorite, the haegeum, see below: though, given the emotionality, this kind of performance probably owes more to the folk side of things!).

SOURCES:

Farrugia, Simon. “Spontaneous Creativity: Some Distinguishing Features of Korea’s Traditional Music.” Classical Music Daily, www.classicalmusicdaily.com/2021/10/korean.htm.

Lee, Byong Won. “Korean Court Music and Dance.” The World of Music, vol. 23, no. 1, 1981, pp. 35–51. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43562607. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

“Korean Court Music.” Wikipedia, 8 Feb. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_court_music.