Murphy News Service audio story by Hyun “Cora” Jung
SCRIPT:
Chunggong, a U student group plays traditional Korean percussion music: Samulnori
REPORTER: With the spring finally visiting the campus and everybody enjoying these beautiful days, a University of Minnesota student group Chunggong plays Korean traditional percussion music called Samulnori to celebrate this perfect weather. Chunggong is a student group playing Samulnori and was founded in July 2014,
Gyoyeon Kim: to inform Korean traditional music to campus community and Twin Cities area, according to Gyoyeon Kim, the founder of Chunggong who is studying psychology at the University of Minnesota.
REPORTER: So this is Samulnori music Chunggong plays, which was derived from the Korean traditional folk genre.
Samulnori is based on the music people played in
Jisoo Back: the rice farming villages in the past.
REPORTER: This is Jisoo Back, the vice president of Chunggong, studying neuroscience and psychology at the University of Minnesota. She is explaining how people played samulnori in the past.
Jisoo Back: So after having a good harvest, the community members wanted to celebrate the harvest, and they would basically gather in the town square I guess, and do acrobatics and different dances and also have Samulnori people played.
REPORTER: So currently Samulnori is the modern version of what was played in the past.
Jisoo Back: So for us since we have to perform inside, the modern version is less quiet and is more easily accessible. And we play sitting down while as in the past it was very loud and everyone was running around celebrating the harvest.
REPORTER: So the Samulnori the word itself, SAMUL, stands for the four objects and NORI stands for the word play. So it can be translated as “a play with four things.” Samulnori is consisted of four different musical instruments and interestingly they all represent
Jisoo Back: different weather conditions that are necessary to have a good harvest for rice farming village.
REPORTER: The four objects are changgu, buk, ching, and kwaenggwari. The changgu is an hourglass shaped drum representing the sound of the rain, the buk is a drum associated with the clouds in the sky, the ching is a big gong representing the sounds of the wind, and for the last one, the kwaenggwari is a small gong associated with thunder and is usually the lead instrument.
Jisoo Back: So as we play altogether, as a part of Chunggong group, we represent all the weather conditions, working in harmony to create a great harvest condition for the rice.
REPORTER: So, maybe it is OK to give Chunggong some credit for this perfect weather we enjoy these days as their music may have brought us good weather? Chunggong is now recruiting new members for the next semester and will present their music for the Phestival of Nations on April 29th at the Mayo Auditorium. If you want to ask them to perform for your events, contact them at [email protected] or facebook.com/chunggong.
REPORTER: For Murphy News Service, I am Cora Jung.
