▲ The cover of Chunmong. Provided by auction.co.kr
What do people think of when they hear the word gukak, Korean traditional music? They might imagine a scene where elderly performers dressed in hanboks sing or play musical instruments to a slow beat. Many people regard gukak as tedious and boring. However, there is a fusion gukak, which appeals to the fans of contemporary music. On May 7, Choi Min Jee released her debut album, Chunmong, another term for spring dreams or happy dreams. What did she dream about on one spring day?
 
Chunmong can be categorized as indie music. Although typical Korean indie music singers sing while playing acoustic guitar or keyboards, Choi Min Jee accompanies her singing with a haegeum. She is a talented musician who majored in Traditional Korean Music at Seoul National University (SNU), where she studied haegeum, a Korean traditional string instrument with only two strings, that makes a sad and mournful sound.
 
The sad and mounrful sound of haeguem harmonizes with Choi’s clear, appealing voice. Her voice sounds like the haegeum and the haegeum sounds like her voice. This perfect harmony consoles the listeners. Chunmong is her first album, and it lives up to listeners’ expectation.
 
The songs on the album are not easily recognizable as gukak, but instead sound like contemporary Korean indie music. Moreover, her clear voice and relaxed falsetto are very different from the gukak singing style. However, in the latter half of the song, listeners can feel some sense of gukak. Evident are some technical skills of gukak such as light vibration on her voice and some archaic Korean expressions like “~roda,” “~nani,” and “~hanora.” These elements of gukak are mixed naturally with her style of music. It is admirable that she reinterprets gukak from her modern viewpoint.
 
On the album cover, a woman in a hanbok softly holds a bunch of gypsophila. Gypsophila in the language of flowers, symbolizes “pure of heart, innocent mind.” It seems that Choi includes that message in her songs, which are simple and honest. Song topics include her loved ones and nature, in
particular, flowers. Furthermore, the bottom of her hanbok is a crimson skirt, and the top is a fashionable white blouse with short sleeves. By matching the old and the new, her attire suggests that the album’s music is also a fusion of the past and the present.
 
In general, the melodies on the album are very romantic and relaxing. They give listeners a feeling of refreshment. While listening to her songs, a scene is drawn where a girl takes a load off her feet to the wall, looking at the peaceful view in spring. Choi once said in an interview, “I always think that my
listeners can be healed by my music.” Her songs can console a listener in the right frame of mind.
 
Chunmong has only four songs. The title track, “It Is Spring,” is a peaceful song that makes listeners comfortable. It well expresses the fresh feeling of a spring day with its slow tempo and simple lyrics: “I’m a flower because I love spring; I’m spring because I love flowers.” Not only the lyrics, but also the melody is very sentimental and appealing.
 
Choi Min Jee is a creative musician working to reinterpret gukak through modern popular music. She hopes to bridge the gap between gukak and the public. “I’m not going to add elements of popular music to gukak. It’s actually the other way round when I perform or write music,” she said in an
interview. Choi is well playing the bridging role between modern and past as she wishes.
저작권자 © The Granite Tower 무단전재 및 재배포 금지