East Asia consists of three main countries that have similar values when it comes to music. Personally, Korean is the most familiar music to me after music in the United States because I was born in Korea and I am a Korean-American. Music in Asia has different types of meaning and there is a different type of culture behind it.
According to the Garland Encyclopedia, in East Asian music, each note that is played is extremely important. The single or subtle note can mean so much to the song or to the music. A lot of the Asian folk or traditional music was instrumental. This was played during poems, novels, onstage and much more. The music was significantly more quiet than other music.
Music and theater correlate in the music of East Asia. These two are extremely important together because music was always needed in the theater. This correlation started with the Japanese kabuki that existed, the Chinese opera and the Korean pansori in East Asia. These were some examples of how music and theater influenced each other. This was truly important to East Asia and it is still important today.
Japanese Kabuki
Korean Pansori
Chinese Opera
These are some examples of how music is correlated with theater in East Asia. Although the history of music in Asia is very traditional and it involves folk, music in some parts of East Asia have become culturally intact with the rest of the world. To this day, there is modernized music that exists in Asia. Personally, I am most familiar with the modern music in South Korea.
There is this movement from South Korea, known as the Korean wave. The Korean wave, also known as, the Hallyu, is a wave that has started this tradition of Television dramas, pop music, video games, clothing, food, language and much more. This wave is spreading all across the countries in Asia and even in the United States. This wave is continuing to grow more and more each day throughout the countries in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world.
This is a popular Korean drama that is a part of the Hallyu
Famous group of musicians named, 2NE1 who participates in the Korean wave. They have even been able to work with people from the United States while touring in Japan and other Asian countries.
Music in East Asia obtains a religious aspect of why music exists. Music also was culturally founded for entertainment especially in the theaters and performance areas for Asia. This is quite different than the other countries that we have examined so far. East Asia and Africa have reasonably different types of music because music in Africa can be seen as more critical and essential in ceremonies while the Asian countries are more directed towards entertainment. Meanwhile, east Asia and the United States have a somewhat similar look on music historically and even in the current time when considering the Korean wave.
Music serves a different purpose everywhere and anywhere we go. This is fact because each culture and each country has a different way of viewing the value of music. Music can serve as entertainment for some countries, cultural and religious factors for other countries, or music can simply be music and sound. Once again, there is no wrong or right to how music functions. While researching about all these different countries, it makes me ponder on the value of music today. When we consider the music that occurs in the modern days, so much meaning is lost not because there is a right and a wrong to the way we view music, but because we take advantage of all the technology that we have and the core of music is not recognized a lot of the time. Often times we forget that we once had only vocals and hand made instruments to express the music that we desire to. This blog is truly helping me to see the different cultural backgrounds of where music came from and I hope that these posts may enlighten you with new thoughts of what music truly is to you.
Good work Sarah! By reading your blog posts, I get the sense that all the countries in different continents have different meaning toward their music. Also, how the music plays an important role for their cultural backgrounds. You talked about the Korean wave, but there is also the korean style music wave, 'idols' that effects Korean culture these days. Just a thought! :) Good job though!
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