Tag Archives | Nongak

Bang a Gong with Korean Farmers

Inspired by this video, you will grab a gong and join Kiorean farmers in their Nongak.

Korean musicologists generally acknowledge four types of traditional music from Korea — courtly, aristocratic, scholarly, and religious —  and three kinds of Korean court music — aak (Chinese/Confucian ritual music), hyangak (purely Korean), and tangak (a combination of Chinese and Korean court music). There are also many  folk styles, such as:

sanjo: a completely instrumental music, performed with shifting rhythms and melodies on instruments such as the gayageum.
pansori: a theatrical form of music performed by one singer and one drummer. The singer tells one of five different stories but individualizes the telling with jokes and social commentar,y, and
nongak (“farmers’ dance”): a public form of percussion performed by twenty to thirty performers, most often in a rural setting.

Enjoy!