This is the last post in our series on traditional Korean folk music, and today we’ll cover Sanjo, Dance Music, Nongak, Muak, and Beompae.

Sanjo is an instrumental solo piece that originated in the southern region of Korea and is most often played on the gayageum, geomungo, and daegeum, but is also sometimes played on other instruments. It consists of three to six different rhythms in a piece and is always accompanied by a janggu. At the end of the 19th century, Kim Changcho composed the first sanjo using gayageum, followed by goegugo, daegeum, haegeum, and ajungsanjo. Sanjo has the most diverse elements of folk music, with various melodies, rhythmic forms, and compositions, so it is often called the artistic union of folk music.

Dance Music, as the name suggests, refers to music that was used as an accompaniment for dances of various purposes, and these dances are divided into MinGan Dance, Nongak Dance, Tal Dance, and Gud Dance.

MinGan Dance is a dance that was performed by professional dancers and includes GumMu, MuGo, SeongMu, HanRyangMu, NamMu, and SalPuriCheom etc.

Nongak Dance is a dance performed when playing the Nongak, which is named differently depending on the region because the accompaniment and rhythm are different in each region.

Tal Dance is a dance performed while wearing a mask, and it is also divided into regions: HaeSeo Mask Playing, such as Bongsan Tal Dance, Gangryeong Tal Dance, and Eunyul Tal Dance, which are passed down from Hwanghae Province, where Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, is located, and Gyeonggi Mask Playing, such as Yangju Byeolsandanol and Songpa Sandanol, which are passed down from Gyeonggi Province.

Gud Dance is a dance that shamans used to perform for superstitious rituals such as chasing away ghosts, and it is still passed down from many shamans today, and the accompaniment for this dance is similar to Muak, which will be discussed below.

Nongak is the music used in village rituals to pray for good fortune, usually for health or abundance. Nongak is divided into five different forms. The first is DangSanGud, which is an agricultural music played during village games and is mainly found in the southern region.

The second is MaDangBalBi, which means to step on the yard of a house. This is a ritual in which the village guardian deity is invoked and walks from house to house to ward off evil spirits and attract good fortune. It was usually practiced on the first day of the first lunar month.

Next is GulLipGud, which is a ritual where the above DangSanGud or MaDangBalBi is performed by professional priests called GulLipPae who travel around the village in exchange for money or rice. Musically and formally indistinguishable from the above two forms, but generally larger in scale, scholars believe that Nongak was greatly developed by these GulLipPae.

DuLaeGud was a farm music played by farmers as they went to weed their fields or rice paddies, praying for abundance. It is said to have been played by farmers who were not professional musicians, so it was often simple and unskilled, but played for their own enjoyment.

PanGud is a performance form of nongak where a professional nongak band plays in a yard, organized and sequenced in order to entertain the villagers. Because it was a public performance, the musicians had to have excellent musicianship and dancing skills.

Muak refers to instrumental accompaniment music that was played like songs sung by shamans in various ceremonies. The form of this music included all types of music, including accompaniment music, effect music, independent instrumental music, and vocal music, and was called muak if it was simply used in the ritual behavior of the shaman. It was most often played at the OhGuiGud, a ceremony performed when a person died, and the DangSanGud mentioned above, and the music used was similar regardless of the type of Gud if it was performed in the same province, but if it was performed in different provinces, the music was different even for the same type of Gud, and this served to form a unique Muak in each province. Gud is a religious ritual in traditional Korean folklore that has had a significant influence on the various musical forms we’ve covered. In Muak, we have NoLetGaRakJo from Seoul and Gyeonggi, YukJaBeGiTori from Jeolla, Chungcheong, and Gyeongsang provinces, SuSimGaTori from Pyeongan and Hwanghae provinces, MaeNariTori from Gyeongsang and Gangwon provinces, and SeoWooJetSoriTori from Jeju Island.

Lastly, Beompae is a vocalized song sung at temples to offer ashes, and while it’s not technically folk music, it’s often included in folk music for convenience, so we’ll cover it here. Beompae is similar to Gregorian Chant in Western music in that it is a monophonic melody with no set rhythm, and it is ceremonial music for ashes. Beompae is used in five different rituals: SangJuGeonGongJe, SiWangGakBaeJe, SangJunYeSuJe, SuRyukJe, and YoungSanJe.

SangJuGeonGongJe is performed for the dead and is the smallest of the five rituals, usually taking one day, and is therefore the first basic ritual that monks usually learn.
SiWangGakBaeJe is slightly larger than SangJuGeonGongJe and is usually performed for our good fortune, asking for mercy from the 10 kings who rule the underworld.
SangJunYeSuJe is a pre-death ritual to ask for their revival in paradise, and is the ritual most closely associated with Buddhist reincarnation.
SuRyukJe is for those who died in water, and in the case of a large SuRyukJe, the YoungSanJe (see below) is offered first at the temple, and then taken out to the river or sea.
Finally, YoungSanJe is the largest of the three, taking three days in total, and is performed to pray for the peace of the country and for the soldiers to fight well and not die, and also for casualties if there are nasty accidents

Beompae can also be categorized into four types based on its musical style: AnChaBiSori, GutChaBi, WhotSori, and HwaCheong.

AnChaBiSori is also known as YeomBul, and refers to a chant performed by a prestigious monk who belongs to the temple where the ashes are being offered, while GutChaBi is a chant performed by a monk who is invited to another temple to offer ashes there.
WhotSori is a different musical form than AnChaBiSori and is used in almost all temple ceremonies along with AnChaBiSori.
HwaCheong is a form of Buddhist proselytizing that involves setting Korean texts to music that is easily understood by the masses in order to make the doctrine more accessible.

So there you have it, the traditional Korean folk music. Of course, there is a lot more to each genre of folk music if you dig deeper, but we’ll focus on the musical forms and rhythmic forms. I think this research on traditional Korean music was very meaningful because I realized a lot of things that I didn’t know and there are a lot of ideas that would be interesting to apply to my own music in the future.

Next, I will add my thoughts on how Korean traditional music has been developed and how it should be developed.