Hwang Byung-ki  Sem Vermeersch

Korea music percussion rhythm percussion instruments Buddhism Confucianism

This essay was originally presented as the keynote speech at the Keimyung International Conference on Korean Studies in Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Keimyung University entitled, “The Korean Beat: In Search of the Origins of Korean Culture.” In his speech Professor Hwang Byung-ki [Hwang Pyŏnggi] provided a rapt audience with a magisterial overview of the role of percussion and percussion instruments in traditional Korean music and daily life. In this essay he introduces the major instruments from the various musical traditions of Korea, including Shamanism, Buddhism, the Confucian court, the yangban literati, and the farming community. Both the defining characteristics of instruments such as the hourglass drum (changgu), clapper (pak), barrel drum (puk), and also the major Korean rhythmic forms are explained with admirable clarity, making this complex subject easily accessible to the non-specialist. The essay concludes with a brief examination of the ways in which rhythm has permeated the daily life of Koreans in such simple acts as the woodcutter beating out a rhythm on his A-frame carrier with a stick or a woman enlivening her chores in the kitchen by beating on an upturned water scoop made from a gourd. By cherishing and cultivating these rhythms, the author argues, Koreans will open up “a new era in musical creation.”