Whether it was by attempting to theorize and actually organize the regional characteristics of nongak’s rhythmic cycles, or participate as performers in a kut pan [kut ritual gathering] for several months in order to learn the rhythms associated with shamanistic music, these performers’ efforts are testimony to tears shed during the learning process.
As a result of these valiant efforts, not only have the stereotypical myths about the triteness, monotony, and noisy clatter of nongak (and other traditional percussion music) been completely shattered, but [we hear] the rhythms that have long lived within our minjung [people]—this elegance has entered into hearts today and awakened our own voice. (Ku 1983, 98–99)
In the English-language publication Koreana, Korean musicologist Han Myung-hee [Han Myŏnghi] echoed this nationalistic sentiment but placed the SamulNori phenomenon in a more sociohistorical context:
By the end of the 1970s, many Koreans had come to an important point in the process of self-awareness, which included growing interest in Korean Studies and the traditional performing arts. Politically the power structure was pressing heavily on the people’s consciousness. Tear gas–filled university campuses, anger, frustration and low morale characterized the consciousness of citizens. It was during these times that SamulNori made its debut and spread its message through the seeming madness. The music provided an antidote to the heartbreak of the era. But interest in the music was not momentary. The music provided a release, an experience of group ecstasy and a way, through nostalgia for the past, for us to find ourselves. (Han, Myung-hee 1993, 35)
To Suzanna Samstag (an important figure in the story of global samul nori), what appealed most about the SamulNori quartet were the electrifying performances. On hearing a particular arrangement for four changgos (“Samdo sŏl changgo karak”) in 1982, Samstag recounts that the music “literally tore through my body” (Lee, Katherine In-Young 2004, 37). The four musicians were more or less equal in terms of their training. Onstage, this synergy of talent sometimes resulted in the young musicians trying to one-up each other. The audience became spectators to what was transpiring in performance; witnessing this explosive “turf war” left one breathless with anticipation. Samstag admitted that she was similarly impressed by the physicality of the dancing and the sheer athleticism of the performers—who despite being thin were at the top of their form.
Another “foreign” opinion of the budding quartet came from Beate Gordon (1923–2012), former director of programming at the Asia Society. In an interview I conducted with Gordon at her New York apartment, she mentioned the course of events that led her to invite SamulNori in 1983 to be part of an Asia Society–sponsored tour. Gordon explained that she had heard about the group only indirectly, from a fellow presenter who had observed the quartet perform live at PASIC (Percussive Arts Society International Convention) the year before. Since she was keen on bringing in talented performers from Asia for her series, she decided to take a chance. The risk proved to be one well taken:
I thought they were superb. I think that their virtuosity, their technique was so thoroughly embedded. I mean, it was just unbelievably strong. You didn’t really have to worry about them at all…. In German, one says, er sitzt, “it sits.” It’s in there, it’s solid. And they had that.
They were very much the thing that I thought would communicate. And they had that tsuchikusai [in Japanese, “rustic earthiness”] thing about them. And I thought that this would come through very strongly, and it did. People were enraptured by them. (Beate Gordon interview, November 23, 2010)
Gordon’s sponsorship of SamulNori in 1983 under the auspices of the Asia Society tour stands as the singular launch pad for SamulNori’s entry into the “world music” scene in the 1980s. The tour also bore SamulNori’s first internationally issued recording, Samul-Nori: The Legendary Recording by Original Members, in 1983 on the Nonesuch label.42
As evidenced by the sponsorship by powerful individuals such as Kim Sugŭn and Beate Gordon—impresarios both dedicated to the performing arts—auspicious encounters helped to facilitate and propel the SamulNori quartet’s development and rise to fame from 1978 until 1993, the year when the quartet disbanded. Modeled after the same tenets of Kim Sugŭn’s Konggan Project that aimed to reevaluate Korean culture and history in the face of modernization, the Samul-Nori quartet negotiated an emphasis on the traditional and regional roots of their own musical research collaborations with a changing urban audience. It was in the Space Theater’s culture of innovation that they were given the creative license to undertake such an endeavor. In the process of researching the regional rhythms of p’ungmul, they increased the likelihood that native Koreans would find familiar elements in the sounds of their arrangements. But it was also the “foreign” audience’s enthusiastic reception of their dynamic performances as a quartet (in the “classic” line-up of Kim Duk Soo, Kim Yong-bae, Lee Kwang Soo, and Choi Jong Sil) that proved to be a key component in the launching of the quartet and, later, the genre.
TWO
The Dynamics of Rhythmic Form
The word “dynamic” can take on many different meanings in English. We often use it as an adjective to describe people. A person with a dynamic personality is someone who is full of energy and vitality. A dynamic person leaves a lasting impression on others; she is active, quick with ideas, and commands a presence. We also use the term to describe processes of change. A dynamic economy is one that bustles with activity. It has exhibited significant change, perhaps in moving from import-led to export-driven, or in the larger shift from an agricultural to an industrialized economy. While this does not preclude the inevitability of hiccups and downturns, a dynamic economy is more commonly associated with indications of further development and growth. Here, “dynamic” signals active change and progress. And along similar lines, in academic discourse, the term dynamic can also describe “a force that stimulates change within a system or a process.”1
In music, there is a common usage for the term, which can either take the form of a noun or an adjective. Dynamics refer to the acoustic volume of a sound. Dynamic contrast in musical performance means performing at higher and lower levels of volume. Or, in other words, it is simply the contrast between loudness and softness. Composers incorporate dynamic markings in the score to indicate the desirable dynamic level for a passage. Dynamics are relative, rather than absolute designations for volume or amplitude. In standard notation for Western classical music, a marking of pianissimo followed by a fortississimo would instruct the performer to render passages in contrasting levels of amplitude—one passage played very softly and another delivered at an extremely loud volume.
Other fields also claim the word “dynamic.” In physics and classical mechanics, dynamics refer to the study of motion and the forces that produce it. In linguistics, dynamic verbs describe actions, whereas stative verbs describe a state of being. Sociologists and psychologists consider group dynamics to analyze social group behaviors and processes. And computer scientists deploy the term in relation to programming, systems, and web pages. While many more examples can be summoned, the point to draw out here is that there is a constellation of meanings for “dynamic.” The common ones include motion, change, action, energy, and volume in sound. Even despite the word’s multivalence, we know intuitively what dynamic does not mean. Dynamic does not mean static. Nor is it dull or monotonous.
I spend time parsing these different meanings because “dynamic” is a word that is commonly used to describe samul nori. First, it is a strikingly frequent descriptor found in books, CD liner notes, programs, newspaper articles, and concert reviews. It is also a word that many people have used when describing their own first encounters with a live samul nori performance. Third, as I explain in chapter 3, South Korea’s first national slogan—Dynamic Korea—became sonically linked to the genre in the early 2000s.2 After many years of hearing this word