Chinese historical texts recorded that ancient kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula, including Goguyreo, Buyeo, and Samhan, occasionally held memorial services for heaven and people sang together as they danced to the tunes. This demonstrates that even the neighboring country, China, was well-aware of the characteristics of the Korean people, who relished music and dance.

Even nowadays, traditional funerals incorporate song and dance as part of the ritual to bid farewell to the deceased. As such, music greatly influenced Korean people in history as they cried and laughed with music throughout their lives. Therefore, Korean traditional tunes serve as an important channel for understanding the nation’s history and culture.

The traditional musical instrument we will learn about today is the gayageum, the symbolic traditional string instrument of Korea. Why don’t we first take a listen to one of the most familiar tunes played on the gayageum?

- Arirang / Arranged by Lee Sang-gyun, Played by Gayageum Trio “Gayami”

Arirang is the best-known melody representing the Korean people. We just listened to the performance played on a 25-stringed gayageum, an evolved variant developed to pluck a wider range of musical notes. Originally, the gayageum had 12 strings made of intertwined silk threads. Known as the gayatgo in the old days, the term meant, “stringed instrument of Gaya.”

About 1,500 years ago, the Gaya Kingdom existed in the southeastern part of the Korean Peninsula. One day, King Gasil created the gayageum and made the following statement to the court musician, Ureuk: “Languages of many countries are all different. How come the music of a country is similar to that of other countries?” In order to address the king’s concern, Ureuk composed 12 songs and dedicated them to the king. That’s the origin story of the gayageum.

The original shape of the string instrument has been preserved to date. Also known as jeongak-gayageum or beopgeum, a musician plays the gayageum by sitting on the floor and placing it on his or her lap. As the player plucks or flicks the strings with the right hand, at the same time, the left hand either bends or pulls and vibrates the opposite side of the strings to express various sounds. Since the music is usually associated with court music or enjoyed by noble-class scholars, gayageum music is characterized by deep and slow tunes. Let’s listen to another gayageum melody.

- String instrument performance “Yeombul-dodeuri” / Played by Choi Chung-ung

This ancient tune well-exemplifies the heavy and dignified sound of the gayageum that has lasted for some 1,500 years. Gayageum is made by hollowing out the single piece of paulownia wood. The 150-cm-long and 30-cm-wide wooden instrument has 12 strings on top, and each string is propped up with a wooden bridge called “anjok” which resembles a wild goose’s webfoot.

In the late Joseon era, a smaller and modified variation called the jeongak-gayageum was developed. It’s also called the sanjo-gayageum. Since the musical instrument has been downsized, the notes are elevated into higher tones. In addition, fast-tempo music could be played thanks to the closer spacing between the strings. Also, with thinner strings, players could express deeper feeing. That’s how it became an appropriate musical instrument to play commoners’ music, as it can cover a broader set of moods among the people. Ordinary people listened to music like folk songs, sangjo, sinawi, among many others.

This time, we’ll listen to gayageum-sanjo played on a sanjo-gayageum. Sanjo is a solo folk instrumental that is accompanied by a percussion instrument called jang-gu. The tune is named after the person who first composes it, such as “one’s ryu sanjo.” The next tune that will be delivered to your ears is called “Yu Dae-bong ryu gayageum-sanjo.” We’ll listen to the section that plays the fastest hwimori rhythm. Hwimori means to “blow boisterously.”

- Yudaebongryu Gayageum-sanjo, Hwimori / Gayageum by Baik In-yeong, Jang-gu by Jeong Hwa-yeong

Doesn’t the energetic beat feel like a storm sweeping away all of our worries and stresses? On today’s edition of Sounds of Korea, we learned about Korea’s symbolic string instrument, gayageum and the music played on the traditional musical instrument. Next time we’ll introduce another string instrument called geomungo that literati-scholars enjoyed in the old days.