An image of the blue sparkling sea opens up before your eyes and the instruments with the sounds resembling the crashing waves and the resonant foghorn are played on stage. And then the darkened spectator seats suddenly turn into a picturesque island. The audience naturally gets completely immersed in the concert.

The musicians that recreated the sea on the stage are none other than the percussion quartet Gongmyoung. Here’s traditional music critic Hyun Kyung-chae to tell us more about this fusion music group.

Gongmyoung is made up of four male percussionists, who have been modernizing Korean traditional music, such as rhythmic samulnori. Their repertoire centers around Korea’s jangdan, or beat. The team has brought to the public the modern version of Korea’s rhythmic music.

Since its debut in 1997, Gongmyoung has made use of its experimental and creative spirits to develop its own musical instruments and modernize Korean traditional music. Here’s Song Kyong-keun, one of the Gongmyoung members.

Our music has a new sound, the sound made by our signature instrument. When the Gongmyoung team was founded sixteen years ago, no other musicians played both traditional musical instruments and western ones. So our group was at first described as a crossover team or a creative percussionist group. But we just wanted to play a new type of music. For some time now Gongmyoung has been described as a world music group. We didn’t intentionally set out to modernize Korean traditional music, but it’s something we enjoy doing.

Gongmyoung is composed of four musicians – Park Seung-won, Song Kyong-keun, Kang Sun-il, and Lim Yong-ju. The musical experiments conducted by Gongmyoung for the past 16 years led to the group’s introduction in the Korean elementary school music textbook in 2011, under the title “Modernization of Korean Music.” And two years later in 2013 Gongmyoung’s signature piece “Gongmyoung Play” was included in the middle school music textbook. Gongmyoung was also the first Korean music group to have been invited to the 2008 World Music Expo and the world’s biggest music market, the MIDEM Show Case, in 2009. Here’s traditional music critic Hyun Kyung-chae again.

The four young men started out by trying to modernize the traditional beat of Korean music. They tried out new techniques, which prompted stage play producers, dancers, and even fashion show organizers to invite them to play their music for their shows. Sometimes we can see them in sunglasses playing in the background while fashion models walk the runway. They are also well-known outside of Korea. They performed at the Art Market in Singapore and the 2008 World Music Expo or WOMEX, and amazed renowned music producers from all over the world with their 40-minute concert.

Although they all majored in traditional music, they wanted to create new sounds. The team’s name “Gongmyoung,” meaning resonance in Korean, reflects that desire. Here’s Gongmyoung’s leader Park Seung-won to tell us more.

Gongmyoung means to resound together. Different objects can make a harmonious sound if they have the same vibration or pitch. We wanted to deliver, or communicated our feelings to the audience, so we named our group “Gongmyoung.” We have a signature instrument, made of bamboo and named “gongmyoung.” The existence of the music group Gongmyoung started out with this instrument.

Their endless innovation and creative attempts have drawn countless music lovers to their concerts.

- I have been curious about the team Gongmyoung, and I finally got a chance to see them today. They are a world music group that mixes traditional instruments with modern ones. They are known to attempt new experiments, so I’m really looking forward to their concert. I expect that I’ll use not only my ears, but also my eyes to enjoy the concert.
- They are said to use many different instruments to express the feelings of the sea. I want to learn from them musically and want to cleanse my ears. I’m really looking forward to the concert.

The team Gongmyoung was born out the four musicians’ desire to communicate with people through music and make one, united sound. At the beginning of summer, Gongmyoung members traveled to Korea’s beautiful islands and seas to collect images and sounds, which they presented during their concerts. Let’s go to their concert “With Sea,” currently staged in Daehangno in Seoul.

The concert celebrating the 16th anniversary of their debut shows the backdrop of the Yeondo Island, a small island near the coastal city of Yeosu in South Jeolla Province. They explored the nooks and crannies of the Yeondo Island for two years and incorporated the island’s nature into their music. Here’s traditional music critic Hyun Kyung-chae again.

Gongmyoung has been and still is very interested in nature. They record the sound of the waves at the beach and compose music based on the sounds of the rainstorm they encountered while they were traveling. They melt into their music the sounds of nature, like the wind and the waves. One reporter wrote that Gongmyoung’s percussion music resembles the sound of nature.

Their latest concert “With Sea” seems to have transported the island and the sea right onto the stage. Here’s Gongmyoung’s team leader Lim Yong-ju.

“With Sea” was inspired by the Yeondo Island’s natural environment and the sea. We traveled to many islands to take a break before discovering the beauty of the Yeondo Island. So we decided to make music based on the island. The concert follows a certain storyline. The first piece depicts the process of traveling out of the city and to the sea. The harsh and hectic feelings of urban life are portrayed through a video and music in the beginning, but ends with the refreshing ambience of the sea. This concert tries to communicate the various sides of the sea, the rough and ferocious waves as well as the quiet murmur of the night sea, and other nostalgic memories and objects, like the lighthouse, associated with the sea.

The concert starts with a music piece describing the dreary and frantic atmosphere of the city. But then the melodies resembling the sea gradually make their entrance.

The sounds of the real waves are mixed into the performance to create a mesmerizing harmony. Such a fantastic performance was possible, because the Gongmyoung members are all accomplished musicians capable of finding new sounds and making their own instruments. Here’s Gongmyoung member Song Kyong-keun.

All the members of Gongmyoung are capable of making their own instruments. It takes a certain curiosity about sound and techniques to make instruments, so such skills cannot be acquired overnight. A person has to study and learn how a sound is made. All four of us in Gongmyoung have a strong yearning to create new sounds, which led to the creation of instruments. We made the drums we use in our concert so that the audience can experience new sounds from new instruments. This is what sets Gongmyoung apart from other music groups. We will keep trying to make new instruments.

In this concert Gongmyoung members played the jukhun and electric janggu of their own creation. Here’s Song Kyong-keun explaining what a jukhun is.

This is a 20-centimeter-long bamboo stalk. Its top and bottom are blocked and the hollow stem is long enough to accommodate eight fingering holes. And on the stem’s other side is an opening to blow into. When you blow warm air into this hole, it makes a small foghorn-like sound. You make a melody by blocking the fingering holes alternately.

Song’s jukhun was inspired by the hun, a globular Korean musical instrument made of clay. This bamboo wind instrument is small, but has a warm tone, and used in a piece called “Pahwa” in this concert. The sound of jukhun mingles sublimely well with the sound of the waves.

The electric janggu was developed in 2005 and is Gongmyoung’s signature instrument. Unlike the traditional janggu, the double-ended drum of Korea, the electric janggu has three drums – one at each end and one in the middle. This janggu can recreate all kinds of melody, from the sounds of percussion to string instruments. Here’s Gongmyoung member Kang Sun-il to explain more about the instrument.

The electric janggu has eight pads, which send different signals to a sampler machine. We record the sound we want in the sampler and play it later on. The electric janggu can recreate the sounds of the traditional janggu, the gong and the clapper as well as those of the gayageum and yanggeum. Another feature of the electric janggu is that its pitch and other sound effects can be turned into images, which can be shown in our concert. Let me play you a gayageum sample played with the electric janggu.

Kang’s electric janggu showed what it can do in the piece called “Let’s Play.” The audience could not stop gawking at the flashy performance.

The long-running “With Sea” concert has brought the sounds of nature to the usually crowded and noisy urban neighborhood of Daehangno.

Measuring up to its reputation as an ever-evolving experimental music group, Gongmyoung always attracts a huge crowd whenever it holds a concert. People are always exposed to new musical experiences at the Gongmyoung concert.

- It was a work of immense effort and passion. I got to know Gongmyoung better than before.
- It was special and new. It felt like I was at the beach. If you want to go see the ocean, come to this concert. It’s great!
- It was awesome! This is what I call spiritual healing. It made me feel better and gave me chills all over.
- It was amazing to see an electric janggu. It definitely was unusual. It was nice seeing a concert so different from others.

Over the past sixteen years Gongmyoung has held 576 concerts. On the “With Sea” posters there is a number fraction, 567 over one thousand, which indicates that this is 567th of their target of 1,000 concerts. The four members of Gongmyoung have pioneered a new frontier of music and added modernity to Korea’s traditional music and created new, unique instruments. Their commitment and fervor for music are inspirations for all traditional musicians of Korea.