Music of South Korea

See also: List of South Korean bands

Music of South Korea has evolved throughout decades with lots of different influences. Nowadays, South Korean music can be divided into three different groups: Korean traditional folk music, western influenced non-popular music and finally the mainstream pop music, which includes the genre K-pop.

Korean Traditional Music

Main article: Korean music

The first evidence of Korean music is old, and it has been well documented by surviving written materials since the 15th century and was brought to heights of excellence during the Yi kings of the Joseon Dynasty. Imperial Japan's annexation of Korea eliminated Korean music from 1905 to 1945. A brief post-war period rewakened folk and patriotic music. By 1951, Korea was split, into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or North and the Republic of Korea or South Korea from which emerged two different approaches to music. Korean traditional music includes kinds of both folk and classical, courtly music, including genres like sanjo, pansori and nongak. The three types of Korean court music are aak, hyangak and dangak.

Mainstream Popular Music

Genres

Although the mainstream Korean popular music can be divided into several different groups, typically K-pop is considered as the leading genre of South Korean music industry nowadays, it is what the younger generations like to listen to more. Trot, on the other hand, once a mainstream in the 80s, is more considered to appeal older generations today.

K-pop

Main article: K-pop

Popular Korean music is a highly commercial industry throughout Asia. The music is created by young stars with high style, the latest looks, dance skills, and an ability to synthesize the music of the moment of the West whether it is done as Korean rap, Korean soul, Korean rhythm and blues, or Korean middle of the road music. Contemporary Korean music and pop stars are so popular, Asians have designated a word to reflect this fact. Hallyu, or Korean Wave, is the word noting how influential Korean culture has become in Asia^[1].

Trot

Main article: Trot (music)

Teuroteu (or somewhat derisively ppongjjak) is the oldest form of Korean pop, having developed in the years during the early 20th century, is a ballroom dance which influenced the characteristic simple beat of the genre. The genre had largely fallen out of popularity in today's popular music scene.

Recently, it has enjoyed a revival at the hands of Jang Yoon Jeong, who recorded the popular teroteu songs "Jjanjjara" and "Oemoena." Popular child actress and film star Lee Jae Eun has also recently recorded a "trot" album.

Acoustic Guitar

Influenced by American pop music and Korean folk rock, T'ong guitar (acoustic guitar) music developed in the early 1970s as a Korean version of folk singers like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. In the 1980s, tong guitar music became a form of soft rock ballad that earned critical scorn.

Song Movement

Main article: Protest_song#South_Korean_protest_songs

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a form of Korean folk rock music with politically and socially aware lyrics was invented by pioneers like Kim Min-ki. It soon earned the name Norae Undong (Song Movement).

Non-popular Western influenced Music

South Korea, where the US and its allies maintained large forces, initially accepted Western big band, rock and roll, then pop music, most often taking American styles and tunes and translating them into Korean. At the same time classical music that had a long history of performance by Koreans, became an area of great expertise in orchestral performances and created superb soloists who toured the world to great acclaim coming into its own in the 1980s, with great success internationally.

By the 1990s, Korean music that spoke to Koreans in a new vernacular began to be created; the traditional folk songs revived; and less derivative and more original music emerged. The contemporary culture of South Korea now includes world music elements, important new orchestral compositions featuring western orchestras with Korean soloists on traditional Korean instruments, and a new kind of musical nationalism that has emerged with new vitality particularly in scores for non-commercial areas, and in the film industry.

Classical music

The fine range of Korean symphonic orchestras have been bolstered by notable performers, and soloists, as well as highly skilled orchestra directors. Internationally known Korean composers of classical music include such notables as: Yi Suin, who specializes in music for children, and his famous "Song of My Homeland". Pianists and songwriters, such as Yiruma, became known in the Western world as well since the 2000s.

Korean Contemporary Christian music

Main article: Korean Contemporary Christian music

With the importation of Christianity, the evangelical use of music for proselytizing has led to many choirs, both within and without churches, and the importation of traditional American styles of Christian folksongs sung in Korean.

Western and Traditional crossover

Korean traditional instruments have been integrated into western percussion, and are beginning a new wave of Korean world music since 1998. Traditional instruments are amplified, and sampled, with traditional songs rescored for new age audiences.

See also

• List of South Korean bands
• List of Korea-related topics
• Contemporary culture of South Korea
• Korean Contemporary Christian music
• Korean Wave

References

1. ^ <references/> http://www.economist.com/node/15385735