Concept, Practice and Repertoires of Traditional Improvisatory Music of Korea

Abstract

The concept of improvisation, opposed to composition, has largely been developed in the Western art music tradition. Developed from a small fraction of materials of the world's music, it could hardly be universally applicable. The Harvard Dictionary of Music, for example, defines improvisation as the art of performing music spontaneously, wilhout the manuscript, sketches, or memory ... the art of introducing improvised details into written compositions ... (1969:404) and it goes on to state that the great art of improvisation has been lost, since it is no longer practiced by composers and survives chiefly among organ viJtuosos (Ibid.) What the dictionary's definition concerns is doubtlessly the Western art tradition up to the late 19th century, and the definition is inoperative in other culture's improvisatory music, such as Indian raga, Korean sinawi and American jazz. While recognizing different degrees of performer's creativity in composition and improvisation, Nettl asserts that juxtaposing them "as fundamentally different process is false, and the two are instead part of the same idea(1974:6)."