Korean Music: Innovating traditional Korean music into Korean pop music

By Tee Lik Kent

24 OCTOBER 2020 - The music genres of the 21st century have become widely known resulting in it commonization. Korean music shares a lot of genres ranging from traditional to modernized K-POP music. Although, Korean pop music is a trend that has been taking over the world for many young adults, there is still a significant amount of people who enjoy traditional Korean music.

Many 21st century artists have innovated traditional instruments and elements into the trends we see today. Many popular Korean Pop music has incorporated traditional culture elements for example, “Arario” by Korean boy group ToppDogg has incorporated a mixture of traditional music instruments such as the p’iri and bamboo flute together with electrical instruments.

Additionally, the costumes that were used to film the music video included a hanbok which is traditional Korean clothing worn by males and females worn in a modern street look by the singers themselves. Many artists from the 21st century have started to blend in components and elements from traditional music such as gugak (national music) with modern dance style creating a new image and genre for the Korea music scene.

Nonetheless, many mixtures have been made up till today such as mixing folk music with western rock music which is highly reputed. Ssing Ssing are one of the many highly reputed bands who mixes Korean folks’ music with rock who expanded the Korean music scene after their magnificent performance in the “Tiny Desk Concert” which have over one million views in two months’ time leaving a deep impression on rock and traditional Korean music lovers.

Ssing Ssing in the "Tiny Desk Concert" Performance | Source:Korea.net