Pansori

Last Thursday I attended a special seminar about Korean Folk Songs or pansori. The lecturer, Prof. Park Youn-Ho, was not only a very talented singer, but he also brought with him a warm and bright atmosphere. He spoke of how one could distinguish pansori from various regions of Korea, by the way they sang. Around the Kangwon province, songs had a nasal-y sound. Around the Seoul area, songs had more power coming from the throat. In the South, around the Cholla province, songs are sang from the belly. Interestingly, the pansori originating in the Taebaek mountain range, the songs were sang with a rolling sound, kind of flipping up and down. This made me think of how the geography correlated with the style of singing in Korea. As if the land of Korea were the body of a human, the style of the North is to sing from the upper parts of the body and the style of the South is to sing from the lower parts of the body. Also, the style of the mountain range, the backbone of Korea, is to sing with a rolling sound. Prof. Park could sing it all. I have to say, it was pretty sweet.