Korean oboe Taepyeongso awakens me again

My dearest wish that music exists with me in every moment in my life is bitter. It makes me to imagine what kind of music I will listen at the moment of death.

Since some time ago, I repeatedly recall the image of me passing away, listening to trumpet performance while lying in the bed. Be it performance by Miles Davis, Chet Baker, or Submotion Orchestra, it will be great. As I started listening to Miles Davis, I came to be engrossed in his husky vocal tone, which comes to nag in high pitch tone like a new born baby as if it dislikes the earthly world when unsatisfied. The music soothed the mind with smooth plaintive sound, but it was due to the Frames that I started linking the trumpet with the moment of my death.

Ireland rock band led by Glen Hansard, the main character in the movie "Once," had already carried the movie’s original sound track “Falling Slowly” in their 2006 album. Unlike the movie version that is guided by gentle folk guitar performance, “Falling Slowly” in the Frames is the genre of rock in which performances of electric guitar and music band give impetus. Muted trumpet (performing technique, in which the performer switches sound by blocking the trumpet’s bell segment) emerges at three minutes and 27th second. Sound in peril continues to flow penetrating overflowing sound of string music, and the music band could be likened to a glimmer of hope amid a sinking ship and motion sickness.

Last week, I added the taepyeongso (Korean conical oboe) to the group of musical instrument that I deem appropriate for the moment of passing away. Sound of the taepyeongso resonated with me deeply about three times as if hitting me in the head with a hammer during my life. The first was of course “Hayeoga” performed by rapper band "Seo Tae-ji and Boys." I mean the horrifying segment, at which the song that flows with e-minor focused on a repeated passage of "mi" scale using the sixth string of the electric guitar instantly switches to E major, when the linking segment “Am I returning as I am / returning” starts and the taepyeongso emerges together with "sol#" scale.

The second is the moment when I saw “Time of Extinction” by Jambinai. In this grandiose music that is performed at b minor, lower key than that of "Hayeoga," guitarist Lee Il-woo hit the open string of the guitar with his right hand, and blows the taepyeongso in his left hand to start performing "mi" scale that sounds ominous.

Daechwita, or Korean royal military marching music, which emerged at the closing segment in the "Skies of Korea" concert at the National Gugak Center on Saturday, awakened me again. I watched anew the same musical instrument that I forgot from the performance of “Lim Hyeon-jeong and the National Gugak Orchestra” at the National Theater of Korea on Friday. Taepyeongso that emerged at the latter half of the “Cheon – heaven (composed by Jeong Il-ryeon),” which was first performed on the day, seemed like a girl who is wandering in the forest formed by wooden bodies of other musical instrument. She was unraveling the red skein, while heading out of the forest.

imi@donga.com