북한가요의 모범이 된 ‘사향가’ 연구: 혁명가요와 타 장르로 확산된 획일화

Abstract

Music in North Korea is just another mean to support their ideology. Kim Il-Sung said that music needs to serve politics, and that the principal role of music in its art form is to create songs that empathize with the republican’s emotions. Such remarks by Kim support the prominent connection between music and politics, and had him be called as a musical politician or a political musician. The principles of the music scene, dictated by Kim Il-Sung include theories such as "Vocal Music before instrumental music", "Text before melody in vocal music", and “Adapted to the enjoyment and feeling of the people of Chosun". This shows already, what strategies it wanted to manipulate with music. Music isn’t meant to be enjoyed by people, yet it is meant to force very specific ideas into people and make them believe it. One of Kim Il-Sung’s famous quotes is “Music without politics is a scentless flower, and politics without music is politics without a heart.” While he is praised for this quote, the quote only goes to show that his secret operation to uniform the people was indeed true. Abusing music as a political weapon only became worse when Kim Jung-Eun, who was raised as a composer, took over the regime. “Memory of the homeland” is a popular song in North Korea, which was composed during the first Kim generation. The melody of this song is reminiscent of "Nearer, my God, to Thee" (1856) by Lowell Mason and is equipped with similar characteristics of a pre-existing Korean song called "Autumn Colors" (1916). This song seems to be considered as presenting all the so-called "revolutionary songs" in North Korea, so a lot of songs from later times resemble it. The main features of this theme and many others have in common with the Korean people ordinary melody figures that arise certain feelings as melancholic, docile, humble, and bitter. In summary it can be said that the North Korean dictators forced their composers to write songs with similar melodies and expressions as the song "memory of the homeland" with the intentions of keeping their people obedient to the regime. These songs were written to force praiseful ideas towards the dictators into the people's minds. North Korea's music serves only as a method to create uniformity in people and to force ideas into them.