ABSTRACT
The categorization of traditional musical genres in Korea reflects the lines of division in traditional Korean society. At the apex of the hierarchy was the royal court, which maintained a large staff of professional musicians and dancers for its lavish banquets and ceremonies. Outside the court itself, wealthy people supported smaller-scale chamber music and art song genres. For the common people, there were musical storytelling, farmers’ percussion bands, and various forms of folk theatricals. To some extent, differences of religion coincided with these social divisions. Confucian rituals, with their large orchestras and phalanxes of dancers, were practiced within the court, while at the opposite end of the social scale, shamanistic ceremonies used music in the local folk style. Buddhism, once the official state religion, lost much of its prestige during the Choso˘n period (1392-1910) when neo-Confucianism was adopted, and Korean Buddhist chant now comprises a variety of styles derived from temple traditions and from folk song. As the Choso˘n era drew to a close, Korean musical traditions were still being developed into new genres-sanjo instrumental solos, kayagu˘m pyo˘ngch’ang self-accompanied singing, and ch’anggu˘k opera-and much of this creativity continued into the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945), when the influence of Western-style music became pervasive. Thus the dividing line between traditional and contemporary genres is somewhat fuzzy, despite the current practice of separating kugak ‘national music’ from yangak ‘Western music’.
