earticle

한국어

I am going to examine the late Dr. Jang, Sa-hun's theoretical study on Korean music from the point of the pitch, the length, the colour and the texture. In the Choesin gukak chonglon ("The Introduction of Korean Music", 최신국악총론, published by Segwang Music Press, 세광음악출판사, 1985), one of his representative works, Dr. Jang had already shown his ideas on the four points of Korean music, which I just mentioned the earlier. The pitch system of Korean music has five steps such as elementary tone (tuning tone), tone system, scale or the mode, the tori (토리) and the melody. Dr. Jang insisted that the minor third interval existed between the elementary tone of A-ak (아악) and Hyang-ak (향악) had not been found at the times of King Sejong when Akhakgueheom (악학궤범) was published, around 15th century, in Choseon dynasty. Dr. Jang described well the scale and mode of the Jeongak (정악, Court music) and Minsokak (민속악, Folk music). His scale theory tends to be appeared as modulation (변조). Tori (토리) includes the scale, the function of the tone, the type of the ornamentation and a method of the melodic progress. Dr. Jang described an interval, Yoseong (요성), Toeseong (퇴성), ornamentation, finale, and melodic type, while he was explaining the mode of the Minsok-ak (folk music, 민속악). This method is regarded as the major concept of the tori(토리). However, his explanation is not enough to identify scale, mode, tori(토리) and seem to fail to explain the concept correctly. I think that's his limitation. As for the research related to the melody, Dr. Jang explained the melody of finale. Also, he mentioned the method of inserts an ornamental tone in the major tones of melody. However, in my view, he lacked full explanation of the melody. The length of tone consisted with five steps such as beat, meter, Jangdan (장 단), rhythm and melody. Dr. Jang's study about the length of tone told us only about Jangdan (장단). Among this, the section of Maehwajeom Jangdan (매화 점장단) is worthy to discuss. However, this, too, is a simple explanation. I think more research should have been done than this. There is no particular thing to be discussed in Dr. Jang's study of the tone colour, except the research of the change of the vowel by the song. (변모음) However, I think even the change of the vowel is not enough to be paid attention because it is Dr. Jang's personal opinion. Dr. Jang's research on the result of texture in Korea music is somewhat inconsistent with each other so there is no form to be explained under the same level. In summary, the characteristic of Dr. Jang's theoretical research on Korean music was the fact that it was an analyzation used by a real music and that he had drawn some musical rules out of it. I think that it was possible because he was a Geomungo(거문고) player. One hand, however, the theatrical thesis is not clear enough while his musical analyzation seemed to be successful. But, more importantly, his studies has still had a great influence on Korean music theory.