Music of South Korea

The Music of South Korea has evolved over the course of the decades since the end of the Korean War, and has its roots in the music of the Korean people, who have inhabited the Korean peninsula for over a millennium. Contemporary South Korean music can be divided into three different main categories: Traditional Korean folk music, popular music, or K-pop, and Western-influenced non-popular music.

Korean traditional music

The first evidence of Korean music is old, and it has been well documented by surviving written materials from the 15th century. Traditional Korean music was brought to heights of excellence under the Lee kings of the Joseon Dynasty. Imperial Japan's annexation of Korea suppressed Korean music from 1905 to 1945. A brief post-war period rewakened folk and patriotic music. By 1951, Korea was split into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or North and the Republic of Korea or South Korea, from which emerged two different approaches to music. Korean traditional music includes kinds of both folk and classical, courtly music. Folk includes genres like sanjo, pansori and nongak. The three types of Korean court music are aak, hyangak and dangak.

Music of Korea

Traditional Korean music includes combinations of the folk, vocal, religious and ritual music styles of the Korean people. Korean music, along with arts, painting and sculpture has been practiced since prehistoric times.

Two distinct musical cultures exist in Korea today: traditional music (Gugak) and Western music (yangak).

See Music of South Korea and Music of North Korea for more information on contemporary Korean music.

History

Proto–Three Kingdoms of Korea

The Korean traditional music of proto-three kingdoms period is not known much, while some historical records of China write that people of Buyeo, Goguryeo, Dongye and Samhan drank and danced in their harvest festivals. Those texts also say that Korean tribal states habitually worshiped to the heaven, dancing and drinking several days as an agricultural rite.

Samhan

The oldest records about Korean music appear in the Chinese historical text, Records of the Three Kingdoms written by Chen Shou (233-297). It says that Mahan people made rituals in May and October without a cease of dancing for a few days. The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty during Sejong the Great says that Samhan had its own style of music but without musical instruments.

South Korea

Coordinates: 36°N 128°E / 36°N 128°E / 36; 128

South Korea ( listen), officially the Republic of Korea (Hangul: 대한민국; hanja: 大韓民國; RR: Daehanminguk,  listen) and commonly referred to as Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The name Korea is derived from the ancient Kingdom of Goguryeo, also known as Koryŏ. Highly urbanized at 92%, Koreans lead a distinctive urban lifestyle with half of them living in the Seoul Capital Area, the world's second largest city with over 25 million residents and a leading global city with the fourth largest economy, rated in 2016 as the world's most livable megacity and safest city to live in. Highly mountainous, Korea is a popular winter sport destination in Asia, hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing at 1st century BC. One of them, Goguryeo, ruled Northeast China, parts of Russia and Mongolia under Gwanggaeto the Great. Since their unification into Silla and Balhae in the 7th century, Korea enjoyed over a millennium of relative tranquility under long lasting dynasties with innovations like Hangul, the unique alphabet created by Sejong the Great in 1446, enabling anyone to easily learn to read and write. Its rich and vibrant culture left 17 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Korea was annexed by Imperial Japan in 1910 due to its strategic and central location, after whose surrender in 1945, it was divided into North and South Korea. A North Korean invasion lead to the Korean War (1950–53). Peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the world's 10th largest defence budget and strong global alliances. In 2016, Korea was rated as the world's safest country to live in, with the lowest crime rate.

Culture of South Korea

The contemporary culture of South Korea developed from the traditional culture of Korea which was prevalent in the early Korean nomadic tribes. By maintaining thousands of years of ancient Korean with influence from ancient Chinese culture South Korea split on its own path of cultural development away from North Korean culture since the division of Korea in 1948. The industrialization and urbanization of South Korea, especially Seoul, have brought many changes to the way Korean people live. Changing economics and lifestyles have led to a concentration of population in major cities (and depopulation of the rural countryside), with multi-generational households separating into nuclear family living arrangements.

Literature

Prior to the 20th century, Korean literature was influenced by Classical Chinese literature. Chinese calligraphy was also extensively used by Koreans for over one thousand years in Korean literature. Modern literature is often linked with the development of hangul, which helped spread literacy from the dominant classes to the common people, including women. Hangul, however, only reached a dominant position in Korean literature in the second half of the 19th century, resulting in a major growth in Korean literature. Sinsoseol, for instance, are novels written in hangul.

South Korean (disambiguation)

South Korean may refer to:

See also