Gueum daseureum 口音다스름

Muak is the traditional Korean shamanic music performed within gut (ritual) ceremonies to invite, appease, and send off deities and ancestral spirits. It is an ecstatic, participatory music that combines chant, dance, and instrumental ensemble performance to induce trance states for the shaman (mudang) and the community. The sound world centers on piercing double-reed oboes (taepyeongso/hojok), bamboo and reed flutes (daegeum and piri), two-string fiddle (haegeum), zither (gayageum), and a powerful percussion battery—small hand gong (kkwaenggwari), large hanging gong (jing), hourglass drum (janggu), and barrel drum (buk). Melodies move in modal frameworks such as ujo and gyemyonjo, while rhythm unfolds through cyclic changdan patterns like gutgeori, jajinmori, and semachi. Vocal delivery is declamatory and improvised, often recounting mythic narratives (e.g., bonpuri on Jeju) and blessing formulae.

Korean folk music (minyo and related traditions) encompasses the vernacular songs, percussion ensembles, narrative epics, and ritual pieces that grew outside the court in villages and marketplaces across the Korean peninsula. It features cyclic rhythmic patterns (jangdan), pentatonic modal systems such as pyeongjo, ujo, and gyemyeonjo, and distinctive vocal ornamentation (sigimsae) that conveys the affect known as han (a bittersweet, often plaintive sentiment). Core idioms include minyo (regional folksongs like Arirang), pansori (long-form sung storytelling), sinawi (shamanic-rooted ensemble improvisation), and pungmul/nongak (outdoor farmers’ percussion), performed on instruments such as gayageum and geomungo (zithers), haegeum (spike fiddle), daegeum and piri (flutes/oboes), and the four samul percussion instruments (kkwaenggwari, jing, janggu, buk).