This article is to discover the universal phenomenon represented in the both musical performances of Korea and Turkey. It attempts to seek not only the common features of Asian music in general but also the universality characterised in the Korean tra...
This article is to discover the universal phenomenon represented in the both musical performances of Korea and Turkey. It attempts to seek not only the common features of Asian music in general but also the universality characterised in the Korean traditional music. Four musical elements are largely focused on : (ⅰ) a tonal organisation (modal types); (ⅱ) a rhythmic organisation; (ⅲ) a musical form and (ⅳ) a performance setting. First, the common features in terms of a tonal organisation in both musics of Korea and Turkey are the use of microtones and a concept of a path. For instance, the term `seyir` of Turk music can be translated into a `rupa` and a `path` whose meaning is equivalent to that of Indian and Korean music respectively. Traditional musicians in both Korea and Turkey tend to understand a modal type in a holistic way listening to a group of tones within a scale as the concept of the length, rather than perceiving it from an individual tone in an analytical way. Musicians in the two different cultures also tend to differentiate the types of the tonal organisations, as soon as they listen to a few notes at the beginning of a certain music. Korean musicians can certainly dictate the type of a mode from a phrase of the beginning section, expecially in the performance of Pansori and Sanjo. Furthermore they can tell not only the types of tonal organisations but musicianship and personality of individual performers they listen to, as well as the degree of their skills. By the same token, Turk musicians tend to confirni the type of mkum at the beginning of a musical performance. Such ability of distinguishing a particular type of mode would be based upon the fact that cach piece of music is constructed by its own characteristic melodic type. Second, in terms of a rhythmic organisation, Korean traditional music is based on the principle of jang&n (literally long and short, rhythmic cycle) that is constructed by the techniquq of expansion and contraction of a length. There is also common in both jangdans of a long beat and a structure of additive rhythms. For instance, Yeominrak represented in Sejongsillok, one of the Korean classical pieces of music, consists of 256 jeonggan (beat.; and unit of length1 that corresponds to one cycle. And its innate regulation i s that 6 jeoms of janggujeom (indicated by the hourglass drum) repeat and change which have the addictive rhythmic structure. Beside this rhythm, its structure is as diverse as beats of 32/4, 64/4, 80/4 and 120/4.