Title: When our Mother Smiles
Artist: Lim Chi Ye
Culture: North Korean
Instrumentation: Oungum, string backing-track
I found another piece of North Korean music using traditional instruments, but it did not include a title or artist. Both of these videos feature a North Korean instrument called the, Oungum. This instrument is a pear-shaped, lute type instrument with 4 or 5 strings. It can be played using one string at a time or using chords in a fast strumming manner.
This is something that I have never heard before, and am glad that I came across this style of North Korean traditional music. The upside to authenticity is that the students get the "actual" experience and can understand a little better what that culture goes through to make their music and how it is made. The downside to trying to be authentic is that many times we do not have the time or the resources to do so. While music such as this could possibly be recreated on another stringed instrument in our culture it would not have the exact same timbre and feeling as it does on this oungum instrument. At a minimum, we can show our students model videos and listening tracks of authentic world music, even if when we rehearse music or do live examples we have to use non-authentic instruments. It is not the most ideal scenario, but we could cover more cultures this way and give our students the opportunity to perform during class.
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteThat is a great point you make about showing our students/modeling the authentic culture through listening exercises even though we may not be able to provide authentic instruments for them to experience. Perhaps this experience could offer more authenticity than a modified song or lyric that loses its context. At least by providing modeling and authentic performances to actively listen to while using the engagement tips from our readings, we could provide an environment for our students to explore and create authentic experiences with the world music that they can transfer their prior knowledge to and perhaps assimilate into their previous learning. It seems that immersion is the only way to experience authenticity and by seeking the lesson planning the best achieves that immersion is the best we can offer. Thank you for sharing!
Amber Watkins