Samul Nori
Korean four-piece percussion music adapted in 1978 from outdoor farmer's-band ritual into a concert-stage art form.
What it sounds like
Samul nori is performed by four musicians on four percussion instruments: kkwaenggwari (a small handheld gong), jing (a large gong), janggu (an hourglass-shaped two-headed drum) and buk (a barrel drum). The four parts interlock in fast, additive rhythmic cycles drawn from the old outdoor pungmul tradition, but compressed for indoor concert use. A typical set moves through several named rhythmic movements, accelerating across the piece until the closing section runs at ferocious speed.
How it came about
Samul nori was created on February 22, 1978, when percussionist Kim Duk-soo and three colleagues — Lee Kwang-soo, Choi Jong-sil and Kim Yong-bae — staged a stripped-down indoor version of pungmul (Korean farmer's band music) at the Space Theatre in Seoul. The word means literally four (samul) things played (nori). The form spread quickly through universities in the 1980s as part of the broader minjung cultural movement and is now taught in Korean schools.
What to listen for
Listen for the kkwaenggwari player as the leader — the small gong cuts through the texture and signals tempo and section changes. The janggu carries the most rhythmically dense part, often subdividing the beat into uneven groupings of three and two. Sections accelerate by clearly demarcated steps rather than gradually.
If you only hear one thing
Kim Duk-soo's SamulNori ensemble's Record of Changes is the canonical studio document. Any of the late-1970s Space Theatre concert recordings show the original four-person configuration intact.
Trivia
Kim Duk-soo has performed samul nori internationally for more than forty years and was a key figure in the music's inclusion on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list under the broader heading of nongak, in 2014.