CHAPTER XXIV
MUSIC AND POETRY
IN spite of the evidence to the contrary borne to our ears on every summer breeze, Korean music is not a myth.
The sounds seem peculiar and far from pleasing, because we do not bring to them the Korean temperament and training, but the more artificial Western ear. We complain because they do not " keep time " ; but why should they ? There is no analogy for it in nature. The thrush does not " keep time," and the skylark, that joy of Korean waste places, knows nothing of art. It is a question whether music, as a pure expression of feeling, should be hampered by " time " any more than poetry should be hampered by rhyme. There are times when both rhyme and time are necessary adjuncts, and even Korean music frequently shows a rhythmic succession of notes which closely approximates to what we call " time."
Koreans like our music as little as we like theirs, and for the same reason. It means nothing to them. Our harmonies seem to them like a veritable jargon of sounds, but they take genuine pleasure in that indescribable medley of thumps and squeaks which emanate from a Korean orchestra. To us it seems as if there were no rhyme or reason in it, but in truth every note is produced according to a fixed law. There is a distinct science of music here that has been in existence for upwards of fifteen hundred years. Every note and cadence is produced according to a specific law. It only illustrates what is true of all art, that we must bring to it a trained sense in order to appreciate it.
