ⓒ KBS

South and North Korea perceive traditional music differently, as they have been divided over the last 70 years. 

What South Korea calls traditional music is described by North Korea as national music, which includes both traditional and revolutionary music. But strictly speaking, traditional music from the Joseon Dynasty is rarely found in the North, and it is revolutionary music that represents North Korea’s modern music. 

While South Korea has tried to preserve traditional music just the way it is, the North has selectively inherited traditional elements that would be deemed useful today. In other words, South and North Korea interpret tradition differently. South Korean traditional music artists broaden the spectrum of crossover music by embracing other genres. But that’s not the case in North Korea. 

In South Korea, it is important to inherit the tradition and keep it intact. North Korea, on the other hand, has reinterpreted traditional music in a modern way for the purpose of promoting the regime. That is to say, North Korea accepted traditional music in the name of national music, only within the framework of socialism. 

Traditional Korean music has various genres, including court music, Buddhist music, shaman ritual music, folk music and music performed by farmers. Among them, North Korea only selected music consumed by the general public. It assessed that religious folk dance of Seungmu and royal ancestral music would not be helpful for people’s mental health as they were part of culture for the aristocratic class. It filtered out traditional music based solely on socialist standards. That’s how North Korea interprets traditional culture. 

North Korea began to modernize musical instruments in the mid-1950s, right after the Korean War. It modified traditional instruments, restored ancient instruments that had only been found in literature and modernized them. The purpose was to blend traditional instruments with Western ones and to perform modern music with them. 

In North Korea, musical instruments are meant for modern music. That’s why the country worked on instrument modification. For instance, a traditional Korean string instrument called haegeum was divided into several different types.  While more holes were added to wind instruments, some were fitted with keys so they could transpose. The traditional haegeum is held vertically on the knee of the performer, but the modified one is put between the legs and played with a bow so it can produce more various sounds. In addition, North Korea created a number of new string instruments. 

North Korea believes culture and art tend to change and develop with the times. To show the change, it has invented new musical instruments in different periods and reflected some traditional elements in them.  

Instruments that are used in North Korea’s national orchestral music include four different types of haegeum, other string instruments like oknyugeum and gayageum, and a large transverse flute called daegeum that produces high and low pitches.  It also includes a small and notched vertical flute known as danso and janggu, a Korean percussion instrument that looks like an hourglass. Among plucked string instruments, gayageum underwent modification to become North Korea’s representative string instrument. 

After the project of instrument modification was complete, North Korea used traditional musical instruments alongside Western ones in the so-called “combined orchestra.” 

The combined orchestra included reformed traditional instruments producing sounds that match modern music. Altogether, there were the same numbers of traditional instruments as Western ones. For example, if there were ten violins, there would be ten traditional string instruments equivalent to the violin. In partial combination, the proportion might be different. The combined orchestra performed modern music reflective of North Korea’s national character. 

In addition to instrument modification, North Korea also changed singing methods as well. In the North, vocalization methods are divided into a national or juche style used for traditional folk songs and a Western style. Juche means self-reliance. 

To develop the juche-style singing method featuring a clear, soft and lilting voice, North Korea added a modern touch to the vocal style of folk songs that had previously been enjoyed by western princes. 

North Korea systemizes certain techniques and teaches them as standardized methods. For instance, North Korea selected a singing method of folk songs indigenous to a particular region, such as western provinces, and modified the method in a way to go well with modern music. It then defined it as the standard method. 

North Korean songs performed in this style sound like a mixture of vocal music and folk music. North Korea calls it the juche-style singing method, praising it as a vocal method that fits Koreans’ physical characteristics. 

North Korea believes its national vocal music is rooted in folk music. That’s why the North rejects music enjoyed by kings and aristocrats but finds philosophical value in folk music for common people. 

North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung once said that a true art for the people, created through labor, should correctly reflect their meaningful lives. In accordance with this view, lyrics of songs were changed to reflect socialist ideology. Professor Jeon talks about North Korea’s project of compiling old folk songs. 

North Korea carried out a massive project of collecting and recording folk songs to publish Collection of 1,000 Folksongs. Some folk songs were modernized, if necessary, and sung by young singers. Vocal styles as well as lyrics of the songs were adjusted to reflect people’s contemporary lives. Phrases like “thanks to our kind general” and “this is socialism” are found in some lyrics. That is, traditional folk songs have modern implications. This is the basic principle comprising North Korean art and culture. 

Pansori is a distinctive Korean genre of musical storytelling characterized by a singer’s expressive singing, descriptive speech and gesture, accompanied by a drummer. It is one of the intangible cultural assets inscribed as UNESCO intangible cultural heritage. 

North Korea, however, rejected pansori and did not popularize it because it was believed to represent the feelings of aristocrats and the ruling class. 

Pansori was indeed a popular art that expressed rough but honest voices of the people. As more and more artists emerged as pansori singers, however, the genre became part of culture of the upper class, with its lyrics appealing to the noble class. 

Pansori was less effective than folk songs in delivering the stark reality of commoners. Also, pansori performers would sing in a husky voice and it was difficult to learn its singing style. North Korea pointed out that pansori was not proper as its music pursues a bright and optimistic future. The country didn’t really show interest in pansori. Without any policy support, the genre naturally vanished. 

It is unfortunate that North Korea did not continue the tradition of pansori. But the North staged similar performances in the form of gageuk, which is North Korea’s unique art genre. Gageuk is roughly translated as musical drama or opera. 

After Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, gageuk was recreated as revolutionary opera. It is a composite art combining music, dance and theatrical performance and featuring the theme of anti-Japanese fight and class struggle. The prime example of revolutionary opera was Pibada or Sea of Blood in English, which was first produced in 1971 under the instruction of Kim Jong-il. Set in the late 1920s and the early 1930s, during the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, the story revolves around a woman who suffers from hardships due to the Japanese. It is meant to stress the inevitability of revolution. 

At the time, revolutionary opera was referred to as “Pibada-style” opera. It put emphasis on the scale and stage of the show, rather than artistic value, as it was aimed at propaganda and agitation as well as ideological refinement for the public. More than 200 actors and actresses would appear during a performance to showcase music and group dance.

During the early years of the North Korean regime, its culture and art was heavily influenced by the Soviet Union. But in the course of advocating self-reliance or juche, North Korea began to pursue its own culture and art. The North hoped to demonstrate something great through its own creation, and the result was Pibada. Afterwards, North Korea required all performing art forms, including a mass gymnastics show, music and dance, to follow the Pibada-style performance. 

In the Pibada-style show, an offstage chorus called bangchang(방창) is positioned on both sides of the stage. Background songs are played from bangchang while actors and actresses perform onstage. Sometimes, North Korea shows three-dimensional stage settings, using various pieces of stage equipment. 

North Korea also made classic tales into stage performances in the form of revolutionary opera. To distinguish them from revolutionary opera, North Korea calls them “national opera.” The most representative national opera is The Tale of Chunhyang, which premiered at the Mansudae Art Theater in December 1988 under the instruction of Kim Jong-il. 

While South Korea sheds light on power abuse or a love story in The Tale of Chunhyang, North Korea only focuses on class struggle in all classic tales. In North Korea’s reinterpretation of The Tale of Chunhyang, there is only a bitter division between aristocrats and commoners, between the exploiting class and the exploited class. Supporting roles in the tale are also depicted as moral and healthy people who cherish the seeds of socialist revolution. This is widely different from South Korea’s perception of the same roles. 

South and North Korea have inherited traditional music in a completely different way over the last seven decades since national division. Traditional Korean music was derived from the same root, but traditional music in North Korea seems pretty unfamiliar to South Koreans. 

It is necessary to develop traditional music in a way to reflect the change of the times. But it is also a grave mission to enrich traditional heritage by inheriting and preserving it in an appropriate way.