일제강점기 동요의 운동적 의미와 장르적 특성 고찰

Abstract

Any study on original children’s songs must be based on understanding its early development within historical and cultural context. Through original children’s songs, its early founders including Pang Chŏng-hwan 方定煥 and Yun Kŭg-yŏng 尹克榮, have attempted to nurture the hearts of ‘children,’ understood as a modern and precious concept in the Korean society. Since a song for children tends to be simple in terms of words and melodies, it can deliver a message very clearly and effectively. Such characteristics of children’s songs have made it a very useful tool for carrying messages of ethnic liberation and public enlightenment. Children’s song movement in the Japanese colonial period, being influenced by a variety of contemporary discourses centering on the issue of children, have been continuously created and transmitted along various social networks. Therefore, composing a children’s song was more than just for ‘singing,’ but took the role of expanding the song into a ‘song movement.’ Within such historical background, original children’s songs have continuously shaped the characteristics of children’s songs of Korea and have formed the basis for today’s original children’s songs seen as a musical genre. However it also has some limitations unique to most original children’s songs. Since producers of the songs, as creative subjects, are adults, communication is one-sided and the musical idiom and form are stylized, using the basic lyrical form of Western music. In other words, attempts to compose music more freely, using a variety of musical expressions which reflect the words and meaning of the text as well as children’s bodily movements, have not yet been made. The scope of present paper is limited to originally created children’s songs. However, more researches and a change of perspective on children’s songs and children in general are needed for teaching and composting future children’s songs in Korea.