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Is Korean Traditional Music Like a Stay-at-Home Diaspora?
Dr. Jocelyn Clark, shown here in Seoul on Sept. 19, 2010, is trying to revive Korean traditional music in its homeland. (Asia Society Korea Center)
SEOUL, September 19, 2010 - The future of Korean traditional music was the topic of discussion here when Asia Society Korea Center hosted Dr. Jocelyn Clark for its latest monthly luncheon lecture.
Clark, an assistant professor at Pai Chai University’s Appenzeller School, first came to Korea 18 years ago to study the gayageum, a traditional Korean stringed instrument. She fell in love with it, but she was surprised to discover the lack of knowledge and interest among Korean people in music made by traditional instruments.
According to Clark, Koreans' understanding of "Korean-ness" as being something expressed in the blood is undermining Korean traditional culture. For example, foreigners who study Korean music are told that they will never "get
it" because they have the wrong kind of blood coursing through their
veins. As a result, Korean music has become distant from the everyday lives of its people, and its instruments are now seen as exotic in their own land—a "stay-at-home diaspora" of sorts. Instead, it is Western classical music that is played at Korean events and in concert halls.
Because of this, Clark believes it may be the responsibility of both cultures to save each other's musical traditions—Western classical music is, after all, more popular in Korea than in the West. Clark, a native of Alaska, is doing her own part to save Korean traditional music, notably through IIIZ+, a musical ensemble that she helped to create in 2001. IIIZ+ (pronounced "three zee plus") is made up of four musicians, each playing an Asian traditional instrument: three stringed instruments—the Korean gayageum, the Japanese koto, and the Chinese zheng—and a Korean janggu drum.
IIIZ+ was formed in Darmstadt, Germany, and has toured Western Europe, Asia, and the United States, bringing its unique sound to new audiences. For Clark, the difficulty comes when trying to describe what genre of music they fit into. World Music? New Music? Folk Music? None of these seem to fit. When the Belgian ambassador asked how Clark reacted to the word "fusion," she said that she didn’t particularly like it because it historically applies to a specific type of American jazz music and in Korea it means anything thrown together.
Although IIIZ+ has played in Taiwan and Japan, Clark has been reluctant to bring them to Korea, where, she says, audiences are closed to outsiders participating in their music. As opposed to Europe, where audiences look beyond the background of musicians or instruments and hear music as music, Americans come for a cultural show and Koreans are loathe to share "their" music with others. Hence, Korea and the United States risk being left behind by being unable to transcend race and background in terms of music. Clark said it is time for Koreans to hear their own music as music, and not as anything else.
It is a sad history between Korea and Japan but it does not enter into this discussion,
First everything has to come from someplace else, maybe the Japanese royal family originated from the Korean peninsula along with most of the early
inhabitants of Japan but does that have anything to do with the long cultural process that ends with the Japan of today or Korea for that matter, I think not, in the same way all koreans came down from China, does that make them any less valid?
The great thing about Art is beauty can be born out of the sad situations left by the evil. We know all human can choose to make heaven on earth or evil.
It is sad what we choose.
The bottom line is the Japanese Koto, or the the Korean Kayagum are different because of the different cultures that develop naturally from the wants of the souls of Japan and Korea, what makes us is what makes us different.
If you are Korean, the history is grim but it is over, move on and don't use Han as an excuse to get back at the Japanese.
It will only make you weak and cheaper in the end. There are bad Japanese, just like there are bad Koreans, but there are good
people in both country, lock hands and we will make a bright future for our children, let's give them a world of beauty.
Korean music is beautiful because it is from the Korean soul, if a westerner wants to learn it, she should think twice before she does something stupid like run before she can walk. The great weakness of westerners is how they don't even know how poor they perform on these traditional instruments, they always sound so cheap and those in the know, just walk out of the concert hall with the lost hope that someone outside their culture gets its.
I remember (many) a western man in Japan who had talent and studied the Shakuhachi, only to stop his study of the honkyoku and veer off the path to play contemporary music. He never truly finished his study (because his aim was not to be true to the tradition) and was not a master, yet he foolishly believed his own promotion, while back in Japan many students spend 30 years to perfect the honkyoku and never are satisfied with their honkyoku.
I think yes, westerner, wants to play an exotic mysterious zen instrument and become famous, not very Japanese...and be experts on the subject, which is
a funny western trait, sorry but I meet very few German Violin players who give speeches on saving the western tradition.
My Master on his death bed told his students, he was sorry he was leaving us as his study was not done, and he worried who would continue this work.
His oldest student who studied 43 years took over in all humility, apologizing to us all and promising to work hard to learn the tradition deeper and help each one of us.
If a Westerner wants to learn Sanjo, they should know it is a life long path. sadly very few do and for some reason, think they need to save the world.
This lady might as well try to save kimuchi, but I feel sorry for her because, in Japan or Korea, people are always polite and won't tell you how foolish you are or when you just are not ready, they expect you to know yourself...
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