The choral music of Chong Jong Yeoul: A review and guide to Korean pronunciation

Lee, Sinhaeng

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116169 Copy

Description

Title

The choral music of Chong Jong Yeoul: A review and guide to Korean pronunciation

Author(s)

Lee, Sinhaeng

Issue Date

2022-06-29

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Megill, Andrew

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Megill, Andrew

Committee Member(s)

• Moersch, Charlotte
• Yeung, Ann
• Takao, Makoto Harris

Department of Study

Music

Discipline

Music

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

A.Mus.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Korean
• Choral
• Korean Choral Music
• Chong Jong Yeoul
• Chong
• Jong Yeoul

Abstract

Learning and performing music from various cultures has become essential as a musician and educator. Western Europe’s musical tradition reached worldwide and has created musical nature and environment in different areas of the world. It has developed in a diverse way along with the culture and history. For example, the notation system from Western music replaced the traditional notation system of Korea, Jeong-gan-bo, to perform Korean traditional music. It is thus crucial for choral musicians to respond to the demands of varied and diverse repertoires beyond the scope of European composers to include music from other parts of the world that reflect diverse communities, languages, ethnicities, cultures, and genders. Since the essential value of choral music is text, studying language is crucial, and understanding the meaning and sound of language is especially significant. Korean choral music has been composed, played, and learned worldwide, particularly in the twenty-first century. Still, accuracy and consistency in pronunciation have been poor due to different decisions of romanization made by different publishers, and many compositions have yet to be made available in romanized formats; for example, the choral pieces of Dr. Chong Jong Yeoul (b.1967) are not published in general and include no romanized alphabet for rehearsal and performance. Without such aid, most singers prove unable to master Hangul, the Korean alphabet. Hangul is the native writing system of the Korean language. This is an artificially created alphabet made up of distinct consonants and vowels. The combination of two to four consonants and vowels creates sound, and there is sometimes an altered sound that requires further guidance to define its sound. This study aims to provide basic information on Hangul so that non-Korean speaking musicians can easily access it, even if the Korean lyrics presented are not a romanized alphabet. Since Hangul is not a part of the Roman alphabet and would therefore be unfamiliar to most readers, this dissertation discusses Hangul’s function and introduce consonants, vowels, and phonetic alterations along with a number of Chong’s works. This way, readers can achieve the ability to read, understand, and produce the sound of the texts of Chong’s compositions. This paper reviews five of Chong’s choral compositions. Through analysis, I also introduce how Chong conveys the lyrics’ hidden meaning in his works and how that can be best expressed in performance; this poetic analysis helps singers engage with the text alongside aligned musical elements. For the interpretation of Chong’s compositions by non-Korean speaking musicians, the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is introduced. Since certain pronunciations in Korean interfere with the music’s resonance, pronunciations that are beneficial for vocalization are introduced. This dissertation draws more on empirical insights than it does on the pedagogical. Since IPA symbols are widely used in the dictionary manual, readers must have an existing knowledge of the system. This study is intended to aid and provide examples to performers in making independent pronunciation decisions for Korean text-based compositions in their original form. Furthermore, I expect the readers to adopt this guide to reach out to more Korean choral compositions without the romanized alphabet yet, by their own earned skills throughout this dissertation. If the language is the reader's only barrier to understanding this repertoire to the reader, this dissertation will help broaden their eyes to the choral music of Korea, across various genres, from the sacred Mass settings to Korean pop arrangements.

Graduation Semester

2022-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Sinhaeng Lee

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