Reinterpretation of Sanjo’s Aesthetics: “Difference” and “Repetition” of Sanjo, or its “Deterritorialization"

Abstract

This research investigates how “sanjo,” a Korean musical genre or style invented and shaped during the 19th century, is evolving in modern times. Sanjo is an instrumental solo music that adopts sorrowful improvisatory melodies of Namdo sinawi and the energy and sensibility of Korean music. Sanjo was first performed by Kim Chang-jo (1865-1919), and for over 120 years it has evolved as numbers of musicians play the music with different instruments and generated different schools. Now, it is known to be one of the most representative musical traditions of Korea with its fixed form, established convention and repertoire. It became an intangible cultural property of Korea. The musical style of sanjo, which converts a principle of similarity into heterogeneousness through the variations in beat and rhythm, is understood to derive its aesthetics from both “difference” and “repetition.” For instance, the performing techniques of sinawi that sanjo had also adopted for its musical production, make difference by altering the tempo, varying the strokes on the instrument, and changing the width of vibration, but such alterations or change continues repetitively. Difference and Repetition by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze is a useful text to analyze the aesthetic characteristics of sanjo. This research analyzes the sanjo music of geomungo maestro Kim Yeong-jae and gayageum maestro Hwang Byung-ki with Deleuze’s philosophical concepts of “difference,” “repetition” and “deterritorialization.”