[SAMUL NORI] is now the one of traditional Korean Cultural music style. When people play Samurunori, they use four kinds of drums with dancing, walking, and singing. It is the unique style of music using all of the body.
Originally, Samul Nori was from the name of the group leaded by Kim Duk Soo who created new style of music using the Korean traditional instruments, and now the name of the group took place of the name of the style of the music itself.
The four drums people use when playing Samul Nori, are all have names from the nature.
One is called "Chin" is made from metal, the form is round and the edge is bent circle and played using the hand and stick: which means Wind. And the drum called "Puk" is made from wood and animal skin played with rather thick wood stick: which means cloud, the other drum called "Chang" is also made from wood and animal skin played with 2 different types of sticks which are very thin: means rain, and "Kengari"is made from metal like cymbals: means thunder.
When playing them, "Chin" creates the sounds like winds, "Puk" sounds like growing clouds, "Chang" sounds like rain sometimes hard / sometimes soft, and "Kengari" sounds like thunder. They are instruments Korean culture has invented from the interests about the nature.
Climate in Korea must be relate to details of creating such drums. In Korea, the weather is rather wild or rugged, as seeing those trees beside of streets are thin and twisted. In such hard climate, people might have been put their mind or feeling upon that hardness.
Those traditional songs which are sung with those drums, are so emortional ones. (Also can say same thing in Japan. There are emotional traditional songs which are sung especially in west coast to north in Japan.) And those songs are sung in the nature like near by the river, or in the forest. When you listen those songs, you are listening with sounds of the nature itself, and the images created by those instruments combined.)
People playing Samul Nori are communicating each other with sounds. It really is amazing to see their conversation. The sound they create and use as communication is the way they talk and get knowing each other. Sometimes those sounds created by them are so heated and sounds excited, almost even you might doubt if they are fighting or arguing each other. But they are just confronting or facing sincerely and honestly, and the conversation isn't be any fight or arguing. That is expressing their minds, and being equal to face each other on the same stage of the music. As I enjoyed watching their play, after the frioso, it looked like they slowly got tired from talking and expressing, went to chat of andante, stopped quietly, and finished with the smiles of dolce.
My friend I loved to hang around with in my hometown once gave me the chance to join the stunning workshop held by CandoCo Dance Company in 2007, which became very important remembrance and experience in my life now. At that time she, my friend, was teaching English at a school for children with disorders, and she was one of the organizer who invited CandoCo to give a workshop at the school, and I went to join there.
There was a Japanese dancer at the workshop, her name is Chisato whom you can see in the promo video below, and I had a chance to dance with her then. I was a bit nervous at first, but in a good way that I expect something special, so I had tried to be sensible and also be opened as much as I can. The members of CandoCo kept telling to listen others by heart and body, but it seemed rather hard to everybody, since we are all different individuals, and that made the workshop extremely interesting too. At the very last part of the workshop when I danced with the Japanese dance member Chisato, her way of dancing was so sensible than I could expect, and also her way seemed it's describing her very upstanding personality that makes her more beautiful and so that talented. She moved extremely natural when I touched her on her shoulder, without unbalancing her body. It was so beautiful, it was really like she is listening by all parts of the body as same as her heart.
I thank my friend (she is also very nice person), who gave me the chance to join this workshop. Today, I found this video link below, and reminded that experience and decided to write.
Lapping of the waves distantly meet the ear. Huge kites catch the wind and become tiny dots float in the move of the air far up high. Bali is the island people live with the ancient gods in forests and plants or as mythecal animals in deep forests still lively exist in their hearts. In this island, Gamelan ripples randomly from any directions where you stand, and Kecak sympathetic in the people each other. Tones colorfully surround the land and the people sometimes to heal, and sometimes to incite and channel. In Bali, your body will be more sensitive easily to feel like something from nature always reminds us to sense the vibration of the waves of the air on ourselves. It's like the excited molecules create the huge waves of vibration stir in the atmosphere on our bodies invisible, and which we can imagine almost like it is actually sensible even it is not like those sensible vibrations we can feel as a sound by our eardrum membrane.
Arun has been going around the globe healing people by the vibration in the waves that creates sensitive sounds. When he was 19 in his hometown in Rome, Italy, he already had decided to start his journey to quest for the arcana of the world and people's minds. Since then that he headed for every direction in the globe for the quest, he had lived in Paris, London, Prague, L.A., Bangkok, Tokyo, and so on, any places in the world he had lead to. Where I have met Arun was in Bali, Indonesia, the island of the sounds and waves that he was on the way of his new inner journey there. When I reminds the companionable and upstanding Arun, I always have a vivid recollection of the scenery in the gathering dusk or gloom in Ubud, which is famous as an artists' village. Because the night is the time the true sounds from the nature come out to be sensible, which is usually hidden behind the noises of the bikes and cars in daytime. Those are the sounds from the trees, beasts and birds, or Kecak by the frogs... When I walked down with Javanese friend Yono in Ubud, he looked up to the silhouette of the Monkey Forests melting into the dusk, which have now deserted feel, and said "Scary, scary, eh? I feel like bogle with the white face is coming out..!!" then he imitated drolly the white face bogle flirting with his arms and legs to blow away the scary emotion. Actually it gave me small surprise when I saw him clowning, because the darkness of the night only appeared to be extremely beautiful but no scare to me. I smiled with him and laughed together. It was pleasant and beautiful to see that he has the mind to sense awe in the nature which we can easily lose or forget in the modern life. Arun was living in a beautiful handmade country house by the Monkey Forests.
Here I will write about something I've read about Japan Railway in Tokyo... has they gone insane...? It's long prologue in this article... but you can just skip it, and approach directly at the bottom of the line, or just click some high-lighted links about the details.
What do you think of "Blue"?
Human have been given specific meanings or symbols to the each color to describe, for example the color of yellow can describe danger or poison, and the color of green for nature or ecology, Red is love or warm, etc. What does Blue mean then? Probably Fresh, Relaxation, of course can mean Water, or Cold images. Apparently all these description of meanings and symbols are in regard to the colors in nature. Many of poisonous living thins has yellow color on their body, all the leaves in the forests are in green, and you blush your cheeks when you feel love, also when you feel warm. For Blue, the color of ocean or sky makes us feel relaxed, rivers or oceans are usually cold.
We already have basic common descriptions giving colors specific meanings or symbols for that reason, In vice versa, we also can be affected our feelings by the colors just as we are affected by the weather or wall color of room.
There exists a method of "color therapy" to help sometimes people or especially kids with special needs. Even scientifically there are still no evidence of concluding the color exactly can be effective to the people's mind and there are only reports of results as persistence statistic, probably most of people can agree of the theory of effectiveness of each color just by the experience or education we have gone through. In this theory, Yellow can be effective to make people bright or open or hopeful, Green is something between of Yellow and Blue, and it means Green can be effective to take balance between hot and cool, or excitement and calm, or chaos and cosmos. Red can be effective to make people energetic, or sexually. There is a report that tells it is a result of experiment with children with special needs by wall color of room. According to the report, children were more relaxed and calm when they were in a room of Pink colored walls. ... This is the result, as a statistic, and I still do no know how accurate that experiment was, so wouldn't mention anything about it. And also I do not know how pink it was, was it more like red? or White, or do not know if there were also adults in the room or not. Anyway.
I can of course understand the effectiveness can be seen if it was wall of room with environmentally coordinated, because I certainly have experience that I was affected by wall color, and I can imagine that I do not like black or gray color of wall for my living room etc. But... I still cannot understand the logic of thinking to expect suicide prevention by putting the blue LED lights above the platforms... it seems just... odd... don't you think so???
By the way, that blue of the LED lights reminds me of something I recently saw, and I knew it, it's a photo of nuclear reaction by Taryn Simon from TED.
Nuclear Waste Encapsulation and Storage photo
(just to mention, but i'm not criticizing anything about Nuclear, i'm just talking about that color of Blue from it)
I also searched the "Cherenkov radiation", and it might be one of natural reaction in the universe, but obviously it cannot be created easily by nature on our earth we know, as it's not common to our eyes. That blue light is because of (commonly) electron travelling faster than the others' speed of light in a material. Well, have you ever seen similar kind of light in the nature? If it's yes, maybe in deep sea animals like squid, or maybe poisonous mushrooms in the night. Other than these exceptions, that kind of light doesn't look like natural color at all.
Yes, in principal, blue might effective for making people's mind calm and relaxed, but this blue... it is absolutely not that kind of blue, and also about it's by LED lights... speechless. There is an example of people's behavior who had seen such a color of blue. It was in Goiania in Brazil. People who had seen the powders of bright blue color, they thought the powders have magical power and put those powder on their body. And they became sick of course, because that powders were source of nuclear radiation, and 4 people had died so unfortunately. (which is pity that the tool from a hospital to cure people, had eventually killed or affected to suffer, because of lack of treatment of waste materials in hospital...) ...so, as you can see from this accident, it tells us that color of blue was certainly not natural to any people who had seen it, they thought it's magical, and unnatural.
