Korean Folk Music
Music has always been a part of countries' histories, growing and evolving until what it is today. Even with modernized music, traditional music still impacts people today. Music in South Korea has developed heavily over the years, being a large part of culture. The oldest references to music in Korea is from agricultural festivals that heavily involved dancing and singing in the northwestern tribes of Korea. Let’s start off discussing the foundations of Korean folk music. Jangdan (장단) is the rhythms used in folk music. In the music performed in traditional Korean folk plays, it is the beat and rhythm formed over a set unit of time. Jangdan is used in masked dance-drama (gamyeongeuk), puppet plays (inhyeonggeuk), and in dramas performed in shaman rites (gut nori). There are also two vague and broad categories for jangdan rhythm: instrumental music and songs. For the jangdan for instrumental music, there are multiple types of rhythms. Some examples are: “yeombul jangdan (rhyt...
