1. Foreword
Thank you for visiting my exposition and showing interest in my project!
In this exposition I would like to talk about my artistic research that is called “Gravity and Breathing as an Integrated Musical Frame”.
I did this artistic research during the “Advanced Postgraduate Diploma” at RMC from 2021 until 2023. I would like to express my gratitude to my tutors Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard, Lotte Anker and Marie Koldkjær Højlund for their support, guidance and mentorship during the 2 years at RMC.
I would also like to thank my external teachers in traditional Korean music and dance: Yunhee Choi (dance), Sol-I So (singing) and Byunggil Choi (percussion). It was very inspiring to study and research elements, philosophy and approaches from the Korean traditions. It helped my research a lot in terms of defining, conceptualizing and realizing. The meetings and lessons with Yunhee and Sol-I took place in Berlin and with Byunggil I met in South Korea.
My travel to South Korea for my research was very fruitful. In Europe, there are not so many possibilities to experience traditional Korean music. In South Korea, I had the opportunity to meet many Korean musicians (from students to professionals), listen to their concerts and talk with them about Korean culture. It also gave me an impression of how traditional Korean music is perceived and what role it plays in South Korea.
In this exposition, I will present my project, the background, my methods and the musical outcome of my artistic research. I see this project as an ongoing process and I hope to come with more music in the near future.
2. Short Description
In this artistic research I worked on an artistic practice which reflects on gravity and breathing and uses it as an extension of my musical tools for improvisation. The goal was to create music that translates the characteristics of gravity and breathing into a musical language and to research what kind of tension and release they can cause in musical actions or non-actions. This concept aims for the awareness of the performer and was conceptualized for a solo drum setting with snare drum, floor tom, bass drum and voice.
3. Inspiration and Cultural Background
The inspiration of this project has its roots in traditional Korean music and dance where the awareness of gravity and breathing are one of the core elements for approaching, understanding and performing music and dance. This awareness is a musical frame of the music and is present before, during and after a musical action is executed. That means that the characteristics of gravity and breathing are embedded in the performance even though you don’t play or move. That gives the performance a different nature and quality which I haven’t experienced before.
I was personally very inspired by this musical frame of traditional Korean musicians and dancers because the music gets an extra dimension, a dimension which cannot be seen or heard, but felt. Through this frame, the music has a different tension and focuses on spaces which surround the music. All the spaces, whether it is filled with an action or not, are equal and therefore a note and pause are coexisting as a whole.
Research Questions
Main:
1. How can the active awareness of gravity and breathing influence the performer?
2. What is the musical outcome when gravity and breathing are used as an extension of improvisation tools?
Sub:
1. How can traditional Korean music and dance inform my artistic practice and research?
2. What elements can be transferred from traditional Korean music to a context of contemporary drum playing?
4.1.1. Extroverted Approach
Most solo drum performances I have seen in Europe which were in the context of Western experimental and improvised music are, in my opinion, extroverted. By extroverted I mean that the active production of sounds is the main focus. That the “doing” is valued more than the “not doing”. Even though the performers mentioned that silence and pauses are part of their music they were used more as an interruption and break than they were part of their music. They were not integrated in their phrases or flow but placed in between and that gave me the feeling that the silence and pauses were artificial. And it didn’t take so long until the “doing” overtook the “not doing”. The doing is always filled with musical activity. In some cases hyperactivity. Creating means always producing.
In my project I was looking for music where silence and pauses are embedded in the performance. Music where the not doing and the doing are equal.
4.1.2. Groove and Patterns
Drums are seen and played as a percussion instrument that is “more” groove and pattern oriented. I experienced solo drum concerts where the performer played an improvised concert, some of them structured, but they focused mainly on the groove and pattern aspects of the drums. In my music and research I was exploring a different approach to the drumset - an approach that detaches the “groove role” of the drums.
4.1.3. Extension of the Drumset
I have also seen performances where the drummers had a more melodic approach. But here I experienced that to extend the melodic qualities of the drums, the performers chose to extend the drums with different objects and “foreign” percussion instruments. In this way, the traditional drumset had more variety of sounds. In the “modern” era, drums are also extended through electronics. Drummers use triggers to expand their tonal spectrum. In both cases, it is more about replacing sounds with new sounds, replacing the doing with new doing, replacing actions with new actions. In my project, I chose not to use any instrumental extensions so that the focus would be on the pure quality of the drums.
4.2. Projects Including Traditional Korean Music
In the last couple of years I could see that South Korea has been getting increasingly popular around the world. From food, tv shows, movies and K-Pop the attention to South Korean culture is growing and the government is also using this opportunity to support the cultural industry to promote South Korea.
The promotion of South Korea in this case means investing money to raise the numbers in tourism as a way to benefit the Korean economy. However, the government typically supports and promotes bands and ensembles that can catch a “broader” audience. This results in musicians making commercial choices to get this support and play concerts outside of South Korea.
Over the last few years there has been a boom of South Korean bands which work with traditional Korean music and combine it with genres like pop, soul, funk, indie, etc. In most of these cases that I have heard so far, the commercial artistic choices in their music lead to a superficial view of traditional Korean music. Choices where they sing traditional Korean melodies over a “groovy” bassline, use traditional Korean instruments as “exotic” colors and play traditional rhythms over jazz harmonies.
Commercial projects like these also have value in our society but South Korean culture shouldn’t only be presented in this superficial and entertaining way.
5.1. Gravity
This term informs about the energy that “pulls” you down to the ground and is always present. You can move with or against gravity. Moving against gravity causes tension and moving with gravity causes release. The decision whether you move with or against gravity is up to the performer. The interplay with gravity can be expressed in tempo (decreasing and increasing) and weight (heavy and light). In my project gravity is present in both musical actions and non-actions.
5.2. Breathing
With breathing I mean the circulation and flow of the energy in the 3 dimensional space. The circulation consists of breathing in and breathing out. With breathing in, you “fill” the space and create tension. While breathing out causes a release with “clearing” the space. The characteristics of breathing are expressed in dynamics and duration in this project. Therefore, my project conceptualizes breathing not as the act of circulating air in and out of the body or breathing exercises, but as a perspective of energy circulation and flow that moves in space.
5.4. Musical Non-Action
The musical non-action on the other hand is the space before and after the musical action happens. This space is in most cases inaudible but measurable in terms of duration. It can be interpreted as pauses and breaks but I prefer the term non-action because pauses and breaks indicate in some cases a stop or nothingness.
5.5. Musical Frame
The frame I am mentioning in my project is the overall structure of my music. You can also call it the musical rules or conditions that my performance is following to express the results of my artistic research in the music. The musical frame can also be understood as tools for improvisation. Tools like dynamics, timbre, rhythmical and non-rhythmical ideas, pulse, texture, tempo, etc. that musicians improvise with.
6. Salpuri / Pansori / Soribuk
Part of my process was to take lessons in traditional Korean dance, singing and percussion. My teacher in dancing was “Yunhee Choi”, in singing “Sol-I So” and “Byunggil Choi” in percussion.
The lessons in these three disciplines were the main artistic research in order to realize my project on the drums. In these lessons I was looking for elements that deal with gravity and breathing that I would like to incorporate and translate into my performance.
In my artistic research I learned and researched the dance “Salpuri (살풀이)”, the Pansori song “When Shimbongsa Opens His Eyes” (심봉사 눈뜨는 대목) and the rhythms for this Pansori song on the Soribuk (소리북).
In this section I would like to share my reflection on these disciplines and their influence on my project.
6.1.1. About
The dance Salpuri has its roots in the Korean shamanism and ritual dance. The music and dance is for the purification of negative energies. It is usually performed by one person but in some cases in a group. The performer wears white traditional ritual clothes which are typical within the shamanistic dance or music. In addition, the performer dances with a white fabric as an aesthetic extension. Traditional Korean dancers describe this dance as mystic, minimalistic and introverted but also intense, expressive and powerful. Salpuri is accompanied by vocals, percussion and string instruments.
6.1.2. Lessons and Research
The dancing lessons were more about learning what philosophies and approaches are embedded in Salpuri and in traditional Korean dance in general and not so much about dancing choreographies itself. Our lesson had two topics: The Range of the Energy and The Flow of the Energy.
6.1.3. Range of the Energy
“Energy is always circulating. If you produce energy and send it out into the room you should be able to pull the energy back and reuse it. I experience that people like to send a lot of energy out into the room but they don’t reuse it. They produce new energy every time and send it out. That’s not circulating energy but one sided energy”. When my teacher Yunhee performs she is setting a limited range where she sends the energy out. So the range where her energy flows is limited. “It is up to you how you set the range. For one performer the range could be larger than another. You should be just able to handle the range. But my experience is the more experienced you are the smaller the range becomes because you don’t have to prove so much.”
This aspect was very interesting because I always thought that you have to fill the whole room with your presence and your energy. What Yunhee was saying was the opposite: Limit yourself and limit your range of energy. It is a more “introverted” approach and I was working on transferring it into my playing. I call it introverted because this approach is more about limiting than expanding your presence as a performer. Working on my drum solo I focussed and channeled my energy within a specific range and tried to reuse the energy I am producing so that the energy is in constant circulation. This kind of practice aims for the awareness of the performer and demands a lot of concentration. When I practiced on the drums I imagined different “sizes” of ranges and tried to circulate the energy within these different ranges. In the beginning it was very difficult to hold concentration but when I managed to maintain the range I had the feeling that the ideas I played became more intense.
6.1.4. The Flow of the Energy
“When I perform I visualize a line that represents the energy. It is constantly moving in the 3 dimensional room and I just follow the line. The line can have different directions and can vary in the speed what I as a performer decide. That is for me the flow of the energy. The essence of Korean dancing is not to make movements to show movements but to follow the flow with your body. The movements are just the result of following the energy.”
Here Yunhee addresses when and why she moves. The fact that she is imagining a line that represents the flow of the energy was an aspect I wanted to transfer into my playing. In most cases the drums are stationary and can’t move in the room. But following a line of energy in the 3 dimensional room would give the drums and its performer a 3 dimensional perspective where to project the sound.
“If you channel and follow the energy then it doesn’t matter if you play/move or not. There will be an aura that you can communicate to the audience.” What she said is the opposite of the idea of “producing” and “creating” in order to make an artistic statement during a performance. The musical non-action is equal to the musical action. In my practice I did the same on the drums. I imagined a line that flows in the 3 dimensional room and tried to follow this line musically when I was improvising. Also when I was not playing I tried to maintain the energy and tension.
That gave me another perspective of musical phrases. Even if you play in a stationary spot the musical phrases can be projected in the 3 dimensional room. If you maintain your focus on the flow of the energy, the tension can be communicated even though you don’t play on your instrument.
6.2.1. About
The instrument itself is a wooden round drum covered in leather. It is played with one hand (left) and one wooden stick (right). Soribuk is only played in vocal pieces and mainly in Pansori. In some rare occasions it is also played in instrumental pieces. Even though there are several other traditional percussion, string and woodwind instruments in Korean music, Soribuk is the only instrument (traditionally) that is used to accompany Pansori. The reason why it is the only instrument is unknown but my guess is that the sound qualities and frequencies of this instrument blend so well with the vocals so that it became naturally the best accompaniment.
Although Soribuk is a percussion instrument it is considered more as a vocal instrument that accompanies melodies, narrations and rhythmical talking in pieces that are 2 - 4 hours long.
6.2.2. Lessons and Research
Compared to the conventional drum set that has a minimum of 3 types of cymbals and 4 types of drums, the Soribuk is “limited” in terms of sound variations. However it was always fascinating for me that this “limited” instrument can accompany a 4 hour piece without getting monotonous. I experienced a Pansori performance that was 2,5 hours long and even though I couldn’t understand the content of the piece because it was in old Korean language the performance didn’t feel “limited” at all. For taking lessons I traveled to South Korea to meet my teacher Byunggil Choi in a city called Daegu. In my lessons with Byunggil I learned about some principles that Soribuk contains and the reason why it never became monotonous or limited. There we focussed on two aspects:
6.2.3. Melodic Qualities
In the lessons I learned about the melodic qualities Soribuk has. The rhythmic patterns this instrument plays are not seen as “rhythmic” but as “melodic” phrases that underlines the sung melody.
“Even though these (patterns) are technically rhythms you should see them as a second melody. The second melody is a supplement for the main melody. Sometimes the second melody can be supportive and sometimes it can be a counterpoint.” is one of things Byunggil described.
“Melodic playing” on Soribuk is not defined by pitches but by sound, timbre and attack. Depending on the musical situation the percussionist should be able to produce different sounds and timbres while playing the same note on the Soribuk. In order to do so, a percussionist has to reflect on tone qualities and how they can blend with the sung melody.
We did exercises where I had to play the same note on the Soribuk and produce introverted, extroverted, bright, dark, hard, soft, heavy, light, etc. sounds depending on the melody. Combining these different sounds in one pattern is considered as a melodic phrase. These exercises made me reflect on gravity and how moving with or against gravity can shape the sound and timbre of a note.
For me this approach and understanding of melodic playing on percussion instruments was very appealing because it feels organic. In some examples in jazz or experimental music melodic playing is mostly defined by pitches and the drums imitating or quoting them. In these cases the approach to melodic playing is literal which results in extending the drums with instruments that can play pitches.
6.2.4. Rhythms and their Directions
Another topic I was researching in my lessons was that rhythmic or melodic phrases can have different directions that can be projected in the 3 dimensional room. The same sequence of notes can have different variations of directions which give the sequence a different character.
“If you play musical phrases on the Soribuk you should always give them directions. Otherwise the music would be monotone. With directions you give them a goal where the music can move to. That is the point where the music gets lively.”
With this statement Byunggil underlined that a phrase or pattern should not be seen as a one directional sequence but almost like a living being that moves in the room. In our lessons we played single notes and whole phrases and directed them forwards, backwards, up and down. The awareness of directions gives the music a more “lively” character and a different form of expression. Blending and combining the movements of forward, backward, up and down creates tension and release that is constantly flowing. These movements and the interplay between tension and release informs the circulation of breathing in my project.
Imagining directions within a musical phrase happens in your mindset and is not something that can be “proven”. However, it is something that percussionists playing Soribuk practise and in my opinion (and other traditional Korean musicians) it is something that can be “felt” even though not “proven”.
For me, this awareness of projecting directions within musical phrases opens a different way to reflect and express musical ideas - a reflection that musical ideas can “move” and create through this movement of tension and release.
Playing with this understanding on the drums I gave the notes I played a direction. This widened my perspective of musical statements and how they can be projected in the room.
6.3. Pansori
In addition to the lessons in Soribuk, I also took lessons in Pansori in Berlin. In traditional Korean music playing, Soribuk and singing Pansori is seen as one discipline and unity. Therefore they can’t be divided musically. Percussion players who accompany Pansori have to learn how to sing and singers studying Pansori have to learn how to play Soribuk in order to understand the interplay between voice and instrument.
6.3.1. About
Pansori is a vocal genre that can be translated as “one person opera” or “one person drama”. Traditionally it is performed by one vocalist and one percussionist on Soribuk. In Pansori the vocalist tells and sings a story where the vocalist has to play different roles. The vocalist sings and plays the roles of the main characters and side characters which can be men, women, children, fictional and mythical creatures. On top of that the vocalist is also the narrator. The stories in Pansori are fictional and poetic and the purpose of Pansori is entertainment. It is not exactly known how old this genre is but it is said to be around 600 years. It is very rare to perform a whole Pansori piece due to its length. These days it is more common to perform the “highlights” of a piece which are famous and known.
It is not possible to transcribe Pansori pieces to the Western and traditional Korean notations system. Even though there have been new attempts, there is no system that has been successful. Traditionally, Pansori was taught personally without any notations which means that the teacher was the only source for learning a piece.
6.3.2. Lessons and Research
Compared to other Western vocal genres I personally consider Pansori as more rough and sometimes it is also very difficult to determine the tones of the melody because of some singing techniques which “distort” the pitches of the tones. Besides that there are parts in the melody that are partly spoken, partly sung and shouted that made it challenging for my ears to define the pitches and learn a piece. In my lessons with Sol-I I was learning some of the techniques and focussing on a few musical elements that are used in Pansori. Here we focused on the topics Bending Tones and Space between Phrases.
6.3.3. Bending Tones
One technique I have learned was how to bend tones so that the pitch of a tone changes slightly downwards and then back to the original pitch. My teacher Sol-I called it “pressing the tone down”. Here she also referred to an energy that “presses” the tone downwards and “pulls” it back which reminded me of gravity. You can achieve that through singing a “glissando” downwards and upwards and in other contexts you change the position of your mouth.
With bending the tones there are occuring quarter tones but they are seen as side effects and not as a musical aim. Quarter tones appear often in Pansori but they are neither systemized nor conceptualized. They are more “phenomenons” that result from bending the tones.
While doing the exercises, Sol-I always reminded me that it is not enough to bend the tones. I have to “feel” the energy that pulls the tone down, visualize it and exercise it with the body. Feeling, visualizing and using the body helped me a lot to reflect on the energy (gravity) that pulls the tone. It also made me aware how it can affect a tone and how it can be expressed musically.
6.3.4. Space between Phrases
Another aspect of the lessons was how the spaces in between phrases (non-action) are used in Pansori. The spaces between phrases are seen as “bridges” or “links” that connect two phrases musically. Even though there is a musical pause, the flow of the music continues and doesn’t stop.
The flow I am addressing here is a musical curve that directs the melody's progression. The curve moves upwards and downwards depending on the melody and in pauses these movements progress also through silence. They keep progressing in pauses to connect to the next phrase. It gives pauses a different meaning, purpose and value.
The pauses in traditional Korean music and dance are seen as an element that forms the music or dance before and after. All three teachers I was working with underlined the importance and value of the space between musical actions and said that it decides the quality of the music.
The awareness of the “neverending” flow made me reflect on the breathing aspect of my project: That breathing is a flow of energy that circulates in the music or in the room independently if there is a musical action happening or not.
7. Methods
In this section I would like to address the different methods I used to work on my project. I documented my playing with a video camera and analyzed it afterwards. Through working with a video camera I analyzed objectively what I did intuitively and emotionally. With the recordings I was able to see structures and point them out.
Playing was not only improvising. After I analyzed and recognised some structures I made exercises to practice and emphasize them. In this section I would like to address the different methods I used to work on my project.
7.1. Building a Foundation
In this part of the process I was practicing on the drums and tried to express the qualities of gravity and breathing. The intention was to build a core and starting point. In this phase I improvised with the characteristics of gravity and breathing and contemplated on how they can be expressed in a musical language. As an inspiration I referred to my studies from traditional Korean percussion, singing and dance and incorporated them into my playing.
Even though the characteristics of these two elements are diverse and complex I had to limit the characteristics to:
With Gravity / Against Gravity / Breathing Out / Breathing In*
*This simplification was necessary to organize my findings and to conceptualize them.
How these characteristics influence my playing covered two aspects: The musical actions and non-actions. In my project, the values of an action and non-action are equal and therefore I practiced so that the characteristics of gravity and breathing are audible and visible independent if I play or not.
I also incorporated physical movements I learned from traditional Korean dance into my playing. These movements were ongoing whether I produced a tone or not and therefore they amplified the pauses visually. The execution of these movements were improvised but reacting to gravity and breathing. That resulted in movements which were fast or slow, tense or relaxed, heavy or light and therefore causing an interplay between tension and release.
Incorporating the movements gave my playing also a performative layer that was not planned in the beginning of this project. In the feedback from my tutors and classmates I learned that the movements helped the audience to follow my music.
7.2. One and Two Hand Exercises
In these exercises I played one note over and over again imagining that this note is “pulled down” by the gravitational force and then where I did the same but imagining that the note is “fleeing” the force. Another practise was to do the same where I played with “filling the room” (breathing in) and “clearing the room” (breathing out).
Then I combined them and created an interplay between "pulling/fleeing" and "filling/clearing". I did this kind of exercises one handed and then both handed to memorize the feeling in each hand.
I started to play only on a floor tom to limit myself and focus on the exercises. The idea came from my tutors Niels and Lotte after we talked about my project. Their advice was very liberating because with this method I was focussing on expressing my intention on a limited set up without any distractions and therefore my musical expression had to be stronger.
7.3. Separation of the Drums
In the working process I separated the single instruments from the drum set and played them individually. The reason was to reflect on my concept on each instrument and to build a new relationship to them. I wanted to digest the musical frame I was researching and to make it musically clear on the single instruments I was playing.
Another reason was that the drumset and also drum solo performances have some clichés which were built over decades that I wanted to take my distance from.
The instruments I had focused on were: snare, floor tom and bass drum. Through detaching these instruments from the drumset I built a new relationship to these instruments and reflected on new musical statements they could express.
In this process, I reflected on what I associate the single instruments with and what other approach I would like to achieve:
7.3.1. Floor Tom
I have a background as a traditional jazz drummer and when I think about the floor tom I associate it with the jazz song “Sing sing sing”. The swinging rhythms played on this instrument in this song are “bouncing” and have also some kind of a “tribe” character. In popular music, the floor tom is generally used to play something pulsating because of its deep and drumming sound.
In my artistic research I was working with a more melodic approach so that the floor tom would have a “singing” rather than a pulsating character. This instrument has the longest sustain compared to the other drums (snare and bass drum) and therefore a greater potential to play diverse “melodies”.
7.3.2. Snare Drum
This part of the instrument is next to the ride cymbal, the instrument I practiced most on in my musical career. I practiced both classical and rudimental snare drum solos and spent hours per day improving my skills on the instrument. The first thing I would think about regarding the snare drum are rudiments and marching music. Compared to the floor tom the sustain of the snare drum is very short. Therefore my approach was a little bit different than the floor tom and I tried to work more with a “talking” character of this instrument.
7.3.3. Bass Drum
As a jazz drummer the bass drum was for me always something that marked loud accents or underlined the bass line with almost inaudible quarter notes. In big band music, the bass drum together with the crash highlighted the beginning and the ending of phrases. In my project, my focus was to highlight the melodic qualities of this instrument and focus on the hidden frequencies this instrument can offer.
Deconstructing these instruments and putting them together was a liberating but also challenging method to build a new awareness of each instrument. The drums are still seen as a percussive and pattern oriented instrument. With this working process I wanted to get out of this cliché and research how gravity and breathing can contribute to that. My approach to the drums and solo performance was to see the drumset as an melodic instrument that has “singing” and “talking” qualities. With this approach my aim was to widen our perspective of how the drums can be played.
7.4. Lessons in Traditional Korean Singing, Dancing and Percussion
Another method was taking lessons in Salpuri, Soribuk and Pansori, researching elements of these disciplines, practicing them, extracting them from the context of traditional Korean music and expressing them in the solo performance that is in the context of contemporary improvised music.
I spent many hours every day practicing these disciplines before I worked on the drums. There was also a period where I didn’t play the drum set. This was because I wanted to learn and digest the Korean elements before I began working on the drums so that I could avoid superficial attempts. I wanted to respect the traditional Korean practices and deepen my bond with the musical elements I was researching before I would extract them from their context and express them in my solo playing.
After this learning process I was reflecting on them and working on a way to express them in my context. The elements I was addressing are mostly aiming for the mindset and a specific way to channel and direct energy. Therefore, they are in my opinion, transferable to other musical contexts such as mine because they are not bonded to only Korean instruments with their melodies and rhythms.
In the transferring process I tried different musical motives (with and without a pulse) and different melodies (tonal or atonal) to express the elements of the three disciplines.
8. Considerations and Choices
In the beginning of the project my plan was to realize my project in different musical constellations: solo drums, trio and large ensemble. During the process, I realized that I needed more time to work on the solo drum performance so for this project I decided to conceptualize this project only for solo drums. In the future, I would like to extend this project to a trio and large ensemble.
However, I composed and recorded a sketch for one vocalist and two percussionists as an example of how I could develop this project in the future.
When I started working on the solo performance I included cymbals as well. But because of the natural characteristics of the cymbals my musical ideas were not properly represented on the cymbals and I was not satisfied with the musical results. In addition to that I had the feeling that I played some material out of a habit that was not reflecting on the project when cymbals were involved. So I came to the conclusion to reduce my set up only to the three instruments which communicated my intentions the best: Snare drum, floor tom and bass drum.
The voice in my performance I see more as an extension of the drums and not as a solo part that stands over the drums.
9. Context
In terms of solo drum performances I would like to position my project next to Etienne Nillesen (NED/GER) and Le Quan Ninh (FRA). Both of them work with a minimal setup where they use one or two parts of the drum set. To my knowledge they both work with improvisations and even though they differ slightly thematically, they inform my work in terms of artistic expression on minimal percussion setup.
Aesthetically, my project refers to Sol-I So (KOR/GER) and Jared Redmond (USA/KOR). Although they work with compositions, their musical choices regarding abstract melodies, rhythms and texture inform my project’s aesthetic choices.
When it comes to methods I would like to name Hyelim Kim (KOR/ENG) and Sori Choi (KOR). In their projects they use improvisation as the main language in their music to communicate with other Korean or non-Korean musicians. However, our projects differ aesthetically, as we aim for different sound ideals.
A musician that has the most similarities regarding aesthetics and methods is the drummer Simon Barker (AUS). He is also working with traditional Korean music and translates the elements into his drum playing. While Simon’s work has a large focus on the rhythmical aspects of Korean music through referring more to Korean rhythms, my music aims to recontextualize the material that I have learned from the Korean traditions and focus more on translating the philosophical aspects into my drum playing.
10. Artistic Outcome
10.1. The artistic outcome of this project is a 50-60 minute solo drum performance that reflects on the characteristics of gravity and breathing and uses it as extended musical language. The performance is played on a minimalistic drum setup consisting of a floor tom, snare drum, bass drum and voice.
10.2. In my music I work with tension and release that is triggered by moving with/against gravity and breathing in/out as a circulation of energy and flow. The energy circulates all the time whether I play or not and therefore I maintain the energy through the whole performance. My project values musical actions and non-actions equally and integrates silence in the musical phrases.
10.3. In the working process I avoided extending the drums with other percussion instruments to concentrate on the pure sound of the drums and research possibilities to reinterpret the drums without any outer modulations.
10.4. Even though reusing energy and creating an imaginary range of the energy is something invisible I learned that it still can be communicated with the audience.
10.5. Another finding is that the drums, although it is played stationary, can communicate a 3 dimensional character. While projecting the flow into the 3 dimensional room and following it, the performance gets more lively and agile. Giving the notes I play (or don’t play) a direction gave my music a new awareness of musical phrases - an awareness that musical phrases are circulation of energy that moves in the 3 dimensional range of your projection.
10.6. Melodic playing is not dependent on pitches. In my research I came to the conclusion that a melodic phrase can be achieved through movements going up/down and back/forth on the drums. It also can be achieved by changing the timbre of a phrase.
10.7. Besides that I worked on an artistic practice that reflects on traditional Korean music and dance and translated elements of it into the context of experimental and improvised music. It was very fruitful to take lessons in traditional Korean dance, percussion and singing. All three disciplines have the same understanding and value of gravity and breathing and express them in their own way: through movements, rhythms and melodies. Learning and practicing Salpuri, Soribuk and Pansori made me reflect on the characteristics of gravity and breathing from the perspective of traditional Korean music and guided my musical goals in my project.
11. Challenges
The main challenge in this project was the conceptualisation and translation of the traditional Korean elements to a Western experimental and improvised context. Even though gravity and breathing are universal terms it can get abstract in a musical context. They can be understood in many different ways depending on from which perspective (cultural, scientific, philosophical, etc.) you see it. My approach was inspired by traditional Korean culture and therefore linked to the Korean mentality and philosophy. Transferring Korean elements into my project also meant transferring the understanding of the mentality and philosophy and making it accessible and visible within my music. This was very challenging especially when I had to communicate my project verbally or in written form with a Western audience which hadn’t experienced traditional Korean music.
Another challenge was the visualization of the conceptual ideas on paper. The graphical scores I made are 2 dimensional and go from left to right. Therefore my scores don't cover the 3 dimensionality of my project that I talked about in the artistic outcome.
During the lessons with my teachers in traditional Korean music and dance I realized that there are certain “rules” that can’t be explained. For me, the problem was that I could feel that there are some “systems” and “rules” for how energy “behaves” in the Korean traditions but it was not possible to define all of it with my teachers.
During the lessons I also realized in the dialogues with my teachers that it is sometimes very difficult to see gravity and breathing as two separate things. Often my teachers didn’t distinguish between gravity and breathing as I have done in my project. They referred to them as Giun which can be translated in many ways such as: energy, spirit, atmosphere and feeling. That was challenging in terms of defining gravity and breathing separately and conceptualizing them in my project.
However, I also had to accept that at some point there are limits to define and conceptualize the characteristics of gravity and breathing with words.
12. Afterword
In this afterword I would like to use the opportunity and address more personal questions that occurred to me quite late in my project's process.
The questions:
Why traditional Korean music? Why is it important to me and to my project and
why is it important to research this music and present the results here in Europe?
The answer to why it is important to me and my project is simple and personal: It is because I would like to find a connection to my “original roots”. I was born in South Korea but grew up in Germany. At home everything was Korean while everything outside of home was German. Even though I grew up in Germany, was integrated and spoke German, I was unfortunately reminded sometimes that I was “not really German”. And because I grew up in Germany I was also considered as “not really Korean”.
Through traditional Korean music I found a way to define myself, connect to my roots and see how the Korean culture is resonating in me. Studying traditional Korean music and also spending time in South Korea over the years made me realize that I am neither German nor Korean but also at the same time I am both Korean and German.
The same goes for my music. Traditional Korean music is important because through this research and working on a new musical language, my music gets a personal identity and a personal story. Music that reflects on two different cultures that are coexisting as a unit in me and my project. Neither one culture nor the other but both cultures at the same time.
The answer to the other question why it is important to do this artistic research and share the results in Europe is more complex to answer.
In my project, I am talking about energy, flow and circulation. The term “energy” in music is nothing new and has been addressed for a long time. When I was studying jazz drums, my teacher liked to say: “Play with more energy. The energy is missing. This part has to be more energetic.” But in all those lessons they never defined what energy was.
In traditional Korean music and dance, the energy has directions like up, down, forward and backward, it has activities like “pressing down”, “pulling up”, “filling the room” or “emptying the room”. It also has characteristics like “dark”, “bright”, “introverted”, “extroverted”. Even though there are a lot of things that are still unexplainable and the existence of the Korean perception of energy is neither systemized nor conceptualized, it is still somehow defined and visualized in traditional Korean music and dance. There is a common understanding of it in both audience and performers.
And because the term energy is so defined in traditional Korean music, the music has a quality that is very unique.
For me, art and music should not only be for entertainment. For me, music and art should confront our knowledge and expectations. It should challenge our intellect and widen our perception. And therefore I undertook this artistic research and tried to create music that confronts and challenges our minds. Therefore I think it is important to do this artistic research with focus on traditional Korean music here in Europe.
With this project I hope to channel the audience's interests to traditional Korean music. Interests to the deep philosophy it hides. Interests to the different perception and approach of gravity and breathing. I hope that the fascination about South Korea will not only contain “exotic food”, “beautiful K-Pop stars” and “trending TV-series”.
I hope to start a conversation about exchanging values and perspectives and how they can coexist together.