The Korea Spirit & Gugak(fm)

Stratos

Czech Republic6104 Posts

November 19 2012 20:57 GMT

TL, as I understand, is a place where people for centuries fell in love with the korean culture thanks to the Brood War. But just how serious does this intoxication get for you guys? I've never really seen too much blogs or threads on the traditional korean culture or music here, but maybe it's just my bad searching abilities. Either way, koreans have been lately going global(youtube) and there's a lot of gems hidden in there, waiting...

The Korea Spirit video series
There are only 5 videos that I know of - smithery, flute, Taekkyon (something like Taekwondo but older) a sculpter/carver (wood crafting) and I won't tell you the last one since if you don't understand korean it might be a pleasant surprise for you at the end

I discovered these a week ago and instantly fell in love with them.

There are 2 versions with different background music (some traditional, some western) for each of the vids. If you just click the channel of the vid, it's all in there.

Pretty cool stuff?

Gugak.fm
Since there's some traditional korean music in these, if you by any chance think you might want to discover it further, I've been listening to this radio for quite a while now: http://www.gugakfm.co.kr/
online radio, no signups, no latency issues for me.. only sometimes the player stops so I just press play again and that's it:
+ Show Spoiler +

This radio is pretty much dedicated to broadcasting traditional korean music (gugak). Sometimes during korean late night hours, you'll have a chance to listen to some russian, french and other traditional/old music. You will also get to listen to literature and modern variations on the traditional music. If you're studying korean it's a good excercise, although probably not too useful for beginners.

I don't really know much about the traditional music theory yet, but what I can tell you is: don't get discouraged by a piece or two you don't like, or even ten. Certain things take time to get used to in order for you to enjoy them, and there are many various instruments, styles and flavors to the music as well. Overall though, the traditional korean music is imo really refreshing to listen to, especially if you've never been exposed to such stuff before (like the similar chinese music). To give you a taste of what I personally found enjoyable...

Modern:

gugakfm youtube channel

When did you last listen to a korean lullaby? Heard this on gugak.fm :p 1:05 so op...

Percussion:

유소 U-so, an awesome percussion group. I have to see these guys live! search yt/the channel for more

Traditional:

Idk maybe there's some modern influence in this? It doesn't sound like western music though, so it's here.

Epic shit.

Did perhaps anyone discover anything similiar that you think deserves more attention than it's getting (i.e. ideally not kpop related)? Any good portal for this kind of stuff? I'd love it if there was a Traditional Korean music discussion thread on TL... but since I'm lacking in music theory and can't really understand korean well it'd be great if someone more able would make one.
...Or is it just kpop and kdrama for you guys?