|
출처: 구구덩 원문보기 글쓴이: punuri
Reconstructing Icons:
The Recording Industry and the Representation of Folk Music in Korea
Roald Maliangkay
Leiden University, The Netherlands
The history of Korean records began in March 1907 when the American company Columbia brought out the first Korean record. It was a recording of folksongs from Ky?nggi province, performed by Han Inho and Ch
’oe Hongmae. The introduction of the new medium marked the beginning of an era in which Japanese and Western technology exerted a formidable influence on the standardisation and diffusion of Korean cultural items. Film, that other important engine of popular culture, was introduced around the same time, but since records were novelties that well-to-do Koreans could marvel at and experiment with in the privacy of their own home, their influence was more immediate. As with film, people were initially drawn to records because of the medium itself. Well into the 1920s it was technology rather than any artistic quality that constituted the primary entertainment factor. It is often said that at the outset of the recording era many people listening to a record believed it was the voice of a spirit, but at least in Korea these fears soon disappeared leaving only minor reservations as to whether recordings could leave the musical spirit intact. In the thirties, the record industry quickly developed into a major business for the Japanese. Not only did Japanese popular music become very popular, but Japanese companies also put out a significant arsenal of folk music recordings that in many cases set the standard of performing for many years to come. The impact was such that even after the liberation, the Korean companies chose to produce albums according to styles that closely resembled those of the colonial period. Records of folk music, in particular, bear witness not just to the iconic and musical legacy but also to the ways in which Koreans hoped to counteract it. This paper explores the placement of Korean folk music records on the market during the colonial period and the portrayal of folk music on the domestic and foreign markets shortly after.
1: Introduction.
The ways in which the early SP (slow play) record companies developed is not entirely clear. Studies are inconsistent regarding the dates and names of SPs and their production companies. What is clear, however, is that in their efforts to effectively target the Korean market, the record companies experimented with several different labels and sub-labels. The complexity is exacerbated by the fact that the issue numbers of records are not always logical. The reason for this probably was that the companies were unsure how the series would develop and wanted to allow for long series to run without having to use any, or too many letters in order to differentiate one series from another. The numbers usually started at some high number, such as 4000 and 49000 in the case of Columbia Records and Victor Records ? two of the four largest record companies of the colonial period ? respectively. A year after the annexation of Korea, a branch office of the Japanese Nihon chikuonki sh?kai (Japan Record Company), began to bring out albums under the name Ilch’uk chos?n soriban and Royal Record Nipponophone. The reason for the company to create the two labels are not obvious, since both labels put out the same kinds of music, with almost identical issue numbers. The Ilch’uk umbrella label carried the Waship’yo sub-label with an eagle symbol and the contours of Ky?ngbok Palace’s main gate in the background. Royal Record Nipponophone also used an eagle as a symbol, but after the company changed its name to Nipponophone in 1920, it replaced it with a yin-yang symbol, again printed over the contours of the Palace’s gate. The Japanese Nitto chikuonki sh?kai, meanwhile, put out records under the labels Nitto and Chebip’yo chos?n rek’od?, again with no apparent difference in music. In 1927 and 1928, Victor Japan, Columbia Japan and Polydor Japan also set up small branch offices in Korea. In the early thirties, they produced the first records using the electrical recording technology, which much improved the overall sound quality. Faced with the technological supremacy of its competitors, the Japan Record Company quickly entered into a joint venture with Columbia Records, a decision that caused its records to have three labels.
In the thirties, many other record companies came onto the market including Chieron, Okeh, Taihei, Kirin, Corea and Regal. Okeh, a label that sometimes had a picture of Ky?ngbok Palace’s pavilion on its records, was established in 1932 by Yi Ch’?l, a musician working for a silent film accompaniment group. Since Yi, who thus became Korea’s first indigenous record company owner, did not have his own production facilities, he relied on close cooperation with, among others, Ilch’uk. Okeh records were sold for one w?n only, half the price of competing labels, and this resulted in quickly increasing sales. Regal, a subsidiary of Columbia Records, was set up in June 1934 to follow Okeh’s example, but the records sold under this sub-label did not stay low for long.
Up until the thirties, some ninety percent of the records sold constituted traditional music, most of them produced by Ilch’uk and Nipponophone. The most popular genres were folksongs, p’ansori, sanjo (instrumental solo pieces) and what is probably best described as “comic storytelling” (chaedam, n?nsens? or s?k’etchwi). The selection of records offered by Victor, Chieron and Okeh was the most diverse, ranging from all kinds of children’s songs and folksongs to popular songs and comic stories. The most prolific recording artist around this time was folk singer and chaedam artist Pak Ch’unjae, who along with four kisaeng (professional entertainment girls) had been invited by Victor Records in Japan as early as 1906. In the first formative decade of Korea’s recording industry Pak was joined by other noted performers such as Yi Tongbaek, Song Man’gap and Ch?ng Ch?ngny?l. Then and later, in the thirties, when both sides of SPs began to be used for pressing, the maximum length of a record lay between three and three-and-a-half minutes of music per side, which meant that producers and performers had to make sure the pieces lasted between six and seven minutes. In some cases where the performance could impossibly be rounded up in that time, as in the case of p’ansori, the decision was made to let it come to an abrupt stop. From the early thirties onwards, when popular music began to take over, the problem of having to shorten performances became much less prevalent as most popular songs lasted 3 to 4 minutes. The extra time was given to the accompanying orchestras to fill.Most urban Koreans preferred popular music to folk music, in part because it quickly built up emotions using simple, mostly foreign melodies that were often considered positively modern, and because of its more individualistic imagery and frequent associations with a popular film. Perhaps one of the earliest examples of a screen version of a folksong that became a popular song through the new media was Arirang. In the thirties many silent films continued to be shown with simultaneous commentary, which tended to be provided by young men, whose popularity with women ? and kisaeng in particular ? was such that they may be regarded as Korea
’s first pop stars. As in the case of Arirang, the record companies tried to benefit from the fame of specific songs and narrators so that Koreans could relive the film experience as often as they wanted. Since the companies saw the sales of traditional music steadily decline, most of them, except for Victor and Okeh, began to focus primarily on popular music. The transition began with shin minyo or “new folksongs” that, presumably because they were first sung in theatres, were generally accompanied by Western instruments. The subjects of these songs were diverse, ranging from descriptions of sceneries, such as in S?ri s?ri pom param (The soft spring breeze), to a woman’s view on married life, as in Ch’oriptong (A young man with a straw hat). The majority of shin minyo, though, were about love, such as Kashiry?mnikka (Are you leaving?) and Nod?l kangby?n (The Nod?l riverside). Noted male singers of shin minyo included Kim Yonghwan (1912-1949) and Nam Insu (1918-1962), while among the acclaimed female singers were Wang Subok, S?nuils?n (1918-1990) and Yi Hwaja (1915-1953). In spite of the use of Western instruments, the faster rhythm and the Western melodic style of shin minyo, most of the songs continued to be sung in the compound metres (6/8, 9/8 or 12/8) that were typical of traditional-style folksongs. A similar genre, which came to be known as ppongtchak, was the first to be sung primarily along the duple patterns. This genre, which became popular around the same time, is exclusively accompanied by Western instruments and was hence onomatopoeically, and rather condescendingly, named after the sound of the bass and snare drums.Some shin minyo were also called yuhaengga (yuhaeng = popular, ka/ga = song), a term that seems to have been coined in the 1910s after a collection of songs called yuhaeng sogajip (Collection of short popular songs) came out in 1913. The only characterisation of this genre I have found is that by Yi Yus?n, who says that it comprises songs that maintain the direct character of ch
’angga, but are more refined. Ch’angga (ch’ang = singing) were songs based on hymns and Western melodies that first became popular around 1900. Korean writers and composers, many of who had studied in Japan or the West, eventually developed the songs. It was they who, following the patriotic March 1st movement of 1919, turned the songs into a popular genre when they used them to criticize the Japanese. Haktoga (Student association song), which was written by Kim Inshik (1885-1962), may have been the first ch’angga, though the exact date of its composition is unknown. Hwang Munp’y?ng argues that as a result of the ensuing censorship by the Japanese government, yuhaengga began to increasingly express feelings of melancholy. Unclear though the distinction may be, both Yi and Hwang regard H?imangga (Song of hope), which in 1923 was written by Hong Nanp’a, a former student of Kim Inshik, as one of the first examples of this style. It is songs such as these, sung in a composed semi-operatic vocal style with clear definition, which are generally referred to as yuhaengga. The fact that shin minyo are characterised as songs that are sung to the accompaniment of Western instruments is not always correct. Although this was generally the case during and shortly after the colonial period, in 1934, Okeh Records brought out a recording by Pak Puyong of Nod?l kangby?n, which, for the first time, employed both Western and traditional Korean instruments. Since then, shin minyo have been “re-invented” by recording companies who increasingly favour an ensemble using traditional Korean instruments. Of great importance with regard to this change are the three “holders” of Ky?nggi minyo, An Pich’wi (1926-1997), Yi ?nju (b. 1922) and Muk Kyew?l (b. 1921), who adopted t’ongsok minyo, and, arguably, shin minyo such as Han obaengny?n (Some five hundred years), Nod?l kangby?n, Arirang and Ch’?ngch’un’ga (Song of the bloom of youth) into their standard repertoire when they started working for record companies in the forties. They could be said to follow in the footsteps of Wang Subok and Yi Hwaja who also started as kisaeng and became well-known through recordings of shin minyo between 1935 and 1950.
2: Finding an audience.
Despite the steady growth of record sales throughout the colonial period, records remained a commodity that only well-to-do Koreans could afford. Although by the mid 1930s, most records sold for something between 1.35 to 2.5 w?n, the most basic record player still cost at least 25 w?n, which by then amounted to seven to eight times the cost of a radio, including the required license. The high cost of the machines may explain why an advertisement in the Tonga ilbo of 1923 boldly claimed that by purchasing a record player a family would not only acquire “what a cultured family needs”, but also nothing short of royal status. Since the record players that were produced and sold by companies such as Victor and Polydor were beautifully designed, I surmise that this, too, will have underpinned sales to some extent. Partly because the records were made of fragile Shellac, they were sold as delicate collectors’ items, and most record covers had two small holes in the top right corner for binding. In order to fend off the increasing competition from newcomers, the companies had to accurately market their products to make their records stand out from others. One way of doing so was by becoming associated with the right performers and composers and, particularly in the case of popular songs, films. Another way of increasing the value of a record was by putting enticing images on the cover, but surprisingly only Polydor did so in the form of a couple dancing to the “live” sound of a record player. In 1925, however, it appears that it was Ilch’uk who first came up with the idea of putting a sheet with the lyrics of Kim Sow?l’s Yukchabaegi inside the cover along with the record. All other companies quickly followed suit.
The song texts, which always included a small picture of the performer(s), measured some 13.5cm x 20cm and were printed on glossy high-quality paper. In most cases they consisted of only one sheet that was printed on both sides, but some comprised as many as eight pages. Sometimes, a music transcription was added or simple, amateurish drawings of sceneries or stage props that reflected the musical genre or the image invoked. From the late thirties onwards, Columbia began using larger pictures for popular music singers, which shows that the individual fame of popular singers served to underpin sales. The advertisements in journals and newspapers that were to entice customers to purchase a record above all promoted specific recordings and performers rather than bonus material. It was important to appeal to the customers through the music, as it was the record, rather than the packaging, that provided the experience. Because of the records’ production costs, the record companies were unlikely to take chances; the music had to be already popular before it was put on record. Since most companies turned out similar music, radical changes in the music would only serve the competition. Records were useful for the diffusion of Japanese music, but it was other media, such as radio, that provided the proper introductions and had the power to make or break specific music genres.
It is often claimed that the Japanese interfered considerably with Korean music. Hwang Munp’y?ng argues convincingly that because the Japanese were much involved in the writing and the arrangement of Korean popular music, the songs eventually came to be influenced by the similar Japanese enka In the Korea Journal of September 1962, it seems to be suggested that the Japanese influence also concerned traditional music:
Since there were no record manufacturing facilities here, the singers and instrumentalists had to travel to Japan to cut their songs into plates. This, plus the pressure exerted by the occupying Japanese, inevitably had an effect on the type of song popular in Korea ? many of which were popular songs strongly influenced by Japanese melodies.
It is unlikely, however, that the Japanese meddled to excess when it concerned traditional music. Japanese producers are unlikely to have had a thorough understanding of Korean traditional music or even any interest in doing so. Commercialism dictated that they employed performers with the largest possible audience. Since in the twenties it was still generally considered improper for women to perform on public stages, this meant that the record companies employed more men than women. When in the thirties pageants and fashion shoots turned women into public idols, the companies ? undoubtedly encouraged by the common use of women on the Japanese music scene ? reversed the situation and began to increasingly employ popular actresses and kisaeng. Magazines and newspapers, which avidly printed pictures of female stars, provided the necessary marketing. Women with relatively poor performing skills could now hope to make up for it with their looks. In the case of specific genres of folk music, such as the refined songs (chapka) from Ky?nggi province and the northwestern (s?do) area, or Kayag?m sanjo, the scattered melodies for the twelve-stringed Korean long zither, a preference was increasingly shown for a female performing style. Influenced perhaps by the success of geisha artists abroad, this may have been coined by the notion that the music’s elegance would be best expressed through female musicians, regardless of whichever gender had originally transmitted it. Such a preference is not uncommon. Martin Stokes notes:
The boundaries which separate male and female and assign to each other proper social practises are as “natural” as the boundaries which separate one community from another. Musical practises are no exception ? it is as “natural” that men will make better trumpeters as it is “natural” that women will make better harpists.
3: The post-war years.
After the war, Korean companies had to start from scratch. The first to set up business again were Tomido and Star Records. In the late fifties, when LPs first appeared on the market, they were followed by King Star, Shinsegi (renamed Shinsegye in the early seventies) and Oasis. In the sixties several others were established, including Chigu, Taedo, Universal and Taehan. In the fifties and sixties the market for records did not change much. Folk music remained unpopular as many people craved for songs that addressed the misery of daily life, be it through a melancholic or a light-hearted, uplifting melody. In terms of the way they marketed folk music, the new companies did not break with the pre-liberation period either. Colourful SP covers, however, now provided clear physical evidence of the changes that had occurred: group performances were rare and, as with popular songs, individual singers took centre stage. The fact that Ky?nggi minyo were almost entirely represented by noted female singers was particularly odd considering their teachers had all been male. Meanwhile, the continuously growing popularity of soundtracks ? most of which still in the popular Japanese style ? still hampered sales.
From the early sixties, however, Koreans began to look for ways to remedy the increasing dominance of Western and Japanese cultural icons. One of the most successful ways in which they achieved this was the 1962 Cultural Properties Preservation Law. The law did not merely see to the protection and promotion of cultural traditions, but by appointing some versions of an art and ignoring others, it shaped the way many traditions were transmitted and interpreted. Genres that belonged to or were similar to those appointed were now put on record, with much emphasis on the aspect of tradition and the individuals representing them. The Korean government, meanwhile, increasingly used nationalist propaganda as a way of mustering support for its economic and political plans. Its efforts to revive traditions were portrayed as a way of recovering from the cultural destruction by the Japanese. This, I surmise, will have induced sales at least to some extent, but its effect on the popularity of folk items will have been negligible compared to that of the populist Minjung movement of the seventies. Another way of competing with foreign icons was reinvention and imitation. The latter might also be called a form of reverse Orientalism: the portrayal of a Korean cultural item in a way that resembles other already internationally acclaimed forms of Asian culture, so the Korean item can borrow from their success and claim some of it its own. Some album covers provide evidence of Asian melting-pot imagery that record companies hoped would appeal to buyers. In this respect the cover of Taedo Records’ Korean Folk Songs 2 (TLM 6008) is particularly interesting. With its picture of a young woman sitting on the floor playing the kayag?m with her hair tied up and clad in an unusual traditional dress with a wide sash tied around the middle, the image strongly reminisces that of a geisha playing the koto. The cover of Universal Records’ Han’guk kagok chip 2 (Collection of Korean Lyric Songs 2) is another example of an image that seems to connote Japanese rather than Korean culture. It shows two middle-aged women sitting on the porch of a large wooden house with their hands on the floor reading a newspaper wearing white traditional dresses with a modern design. More common than Japanese connotations, however, were the misrepresentations ? or reinventions ? of Korean traditions. Because in the case of folk songs, for example, the image of a man or woman singing strenuously was considered unappealing, they often used the picture of a female dancer beating a drum with a big smile on her face. To this category also belong Universal Records’ Han’guk kagok ch?njip 4 (Complete Collection of Korean Lyric Songs 4), which shows a beautifully made up Korean girl in a colourful traditional dress holding an old earthen pot on top of her head in front of an old hut, and Shinsegi’s Han’guk minyo chip 3 (Collection of Korean Folksongs 3, SLN 10603), which shows a young girl performing a fan dance wearing a shaman outfit on the steps of a Buddhist temple.In the seventies, when Western records began to be imported in huge numbers, the images used on covers began to be composed freely. Due to the success of the cultural properties protection system, however, the covers of folk music became more serious using only the actual performers and duller backgrounds. Pictures of singers in action, however, are still hard to find.
4: Conclusion.
Korea’s first recording companies made no deliberate attempt to influence the imagery of folk music, but they eventually used text sheets, images and album covers to exemplify and connote specific ideals and emotions. The effect of the albums was both standardising and exclusive. Some genres were elevated and expanded; others left mute without any form of representation. To argue that the Japanese exerted an enormous influence on Korean folk music is correct to the extent that they eventually caused it to become unpopular. Such a view, however, requires a proper definition of both folk and popular music, since the distinction between the genres becomes very unclear towards the end of the colonial period. By that time, composed folksongs and popular songs had not only become popular with Koreans as a means to subtly express their daily sorrows, but they had also become part of the standard repertoire of many folk singers. Simple, unaccompanied folksongs of course also continued to be sung by the people. They expressed the feelings of the Koreans much more strongly because they could do so anonymously. Yet this was the age of individualism and of images, which meant that apolitical folksongs were reliant on the medium of radio just as much as they were on albums. Popular folksong singers could make a living for themselves, but other, nameless folk genres virtually disappeared from the scene.
The enormous influence of Japanese culture was felt for many years after the liberation, as Japanese popular culture remained a source of inspiration. The fact that Korean records were now considered part of a global industry was evident from the fact that all titles were given both in Korean and English. Because it was Koreans who now ran the film and recording industries, both performers and producers will have enjoyed the freedom to experiment with the music and images that they now had control over. A sorrow lack of resources, however, dictated that they followed popular demand; performers of traditions that had been virtually erased during the occupation still had little chance of returning to the scene. Arguably, this was given to some of them during the Park Chung Hee administration (1961-1979), but the system of stringent censorship and propaganda it set up dealt another blow to others. To what extent performers and producers influenced lyrical and stylistic changes on records during the fifties and sixties and to what extent it became government policy is unclear. This, I hope, will be established through further study as well as critiques of this paper.