Trot (music)

Trot () or Ppongjjak () is a genre of Korean popular music, known for its use of repetitive rhythm and vocal inflections. Originating during the Japanese occupation of Korea in the first half of the 20th century, trot was influenced by many genres of Korean, Japanese, American, and European music.

Trot has been around for almost 100 years and its distinct singing style has been continuously evolving. Trot music developed in rhythms during Japanese colonial rule. After the liberation of the Korean peninsula and the Korean War (1950–1953), artists such as Lee Mi-Ja, Choi Sook-ja, Bae Ho, Nam Jin, Na Hun-a, Joo Hyun-mi and many others helped to make trot popular. With the rise of K-pop from the 1990s onwards, trot music lost some popularity and was viewed as more old-fashioned. However, from the 2000s onwards, young trot singers such as Jang Yoon-jeong, Hong Jin-young, K-pop singers such as Super Junior-T, Daesung, MJ and Lizzy, renewed interest in the genre and popularised it among young listeners.

Although the genre originated before the division of the Korean peninsula, it is actually now mainly sung in South Korea; the associated pop culture, together with nursery rhymes, new folk songs in North Korea were categorized as "Enlightenment Period song" (계몽기 가요). It is no longer composed as propaganda music has since displaced other musical forms.Choi, Cheok-ho (2001): "So-called People music in North Korea", pp. 64-71. PDF (in Korean) (최척호: "북한의 음악: 대중가요", 통일경제, 2001 (5·6).Unification Ministry: Music in North Korea (in Korean). Those songs were only orally recorded. It was intentionally revived during Kim Jung Il administration: in the late 2000s, Korean Central Television aired a TV program that introduced those "Enlightenment songs".

Etymology The name "trot" is a shortened form of "foxtrot", a style of ballroom dance that influenced the simple two-beat rhythm of trot music. Except two-beat rhythm, trot and foxtrot do not share any other notable characteristics.Lee, Yeong-mi (revised 2013): "Trot" in: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture via internet. (in Korean) (이영미: "트로트", 한국민족문화대백과사전).Oxford Grove Music Online under keyword 'Korea' edited by Robert C. Provine, Okon Hwang and Keith Howard.

Characteristics Rhythm

The trot is known for being composed in a two-beat rhythm, also known as the duple metre. In its early days, trot music was often composed using the pentatonic scale and minor keys. This pattern is called an anhemitonic scale or anhemitonic pentatonic scale, which was characteristic in Korean 'Gyeonggi-minyo' and other folk music such as early Japanese enka.Also some of K-pop's song uses the pentatonic scale, see Lee Sang-uk (2016): "The Continuation and Variation of K-pop Musical Styles", in: Sungshin Women's Uni. Journal of Humanities 34, p. 362. (in Korean) (이상욱: "K-pop 음악적 성향의 지속과 변이", 성신여대 인문과학연구 제34집, pp. 353-394 KISS). The pentatonic scale consists of five degrees: of the natural major scale, the 4th and 7th degrees are omitted, and to form the pentatonic minor scale, all these 5 degrees will descend 3 degrees. Before 1950, the pentatonic minor scale dominated in popularity; however, the pentatonic major scale had started to become more popular.Lee, Jun-hee (2015): "Extension of Trot in 1940-1950 years", Journal of the Asian Music 38, pp. 75-94. PDF (in Korean) (이준희: "1940-50년대 트로트의 확장: 장조화의 도입과 변용", 동양음악 제38집). ref b: p. 84-85. After the Japanese occupation, trot music was composed using the heptatonic scale and major keys. In trot music, lower tones are generally sung with vibrato, while higher tones are sung with the flexing or turning technique called 'kkeokk-ki' (literally means flexing, ).

Kkeokk-ki

The 'Kkeokk-ki' technique may be better explained by the gruppetto ornament of Western classical music theory. A note is figured as if it had been split into two or four subsidiary notes. And the voice is inflected to these imaginary notes: e.g. one quarter note is split into four sixteenth notes: (1) one in original pitch, (2) one in upper pitch, (3) one in lower pitch and (1) one in original pitch again (see below image, the example measure is from Na Hun-a's "물레방아 도는데", "Turning Waterwell"). Kkeokk-ki happens in the transition between two notes in the original pitch. For ordinary listeners, it is not easy to quickly perceive the subtlety of this technique. However, any trot singer can hardly do without the elaborated effect of Kkeokk-ki.

Lyrics

Most of trot's lyrical content is based on two popular themes, although they vary with the times: 1) love and parting, 2) longing for a sweet home. Some see the origin of this sentimentalism in "colonial tragedy". But that may well be related to the ancient tradition of resentment or deep sorrow () in Korean culture.About the term 'Han' see Daniel Tudor (2012): "Korea: The Impossible Country", Boston, p. 121. Elegiac song texts with minor scales are the most common. In addition to the elegiac rhythm and the content of the lyrics, the 'new stream' in the theater (), introduced in the 1910s from Japan, has also contributed to the fact that trot is dominated by the moods of compassion and pain. Because the pieces of this 'new stream' frequently dealt with themes such as the family tragedy, love affairs—the best pieces were "Janghanmong" (), "Cheated in Love, Cried of Money" (); the great hit song "Don't Cry Hongdo" (홍도야 울지 마라) sings just the tragic story of the piece "Cheated in love, Cried of money". So it is understandable that many Koreans tend to be sad or compassionate when they hear trot songs. Sentimental words like 'crying' and 'leaving' have been consistently the most popular. But speech levels, which are recognizable at a sentence's final ending in Korean, have changed with the times; since 1990 the sentence in the low-level of politeness () is often used.Jang So-won (2015): "Text analysis of writing style in Korean popular music," Text linguistics 39, pp. 283-311. (in Korean) (장소원: "한국 대중가요 가사의 문체 분석", 텍스트언어학 39호).

Performance Trot music is mainly performed by one singer or at most a duet. It is rare for a trot singer to play any instrument while singing. The playing of the instruments has something of an accompaniment function. The song usually being played by an orchestra or a big band as accompaniment. These use mostly backing vocals, usually consisting of 4 female vocalists, but rarely of mixed vocalists. The trot music shows often include a group of dancers. Thus, a typical broadcasting band orchestra for trot consists of instrumentalists, chorus, and dancers. Of course, it is possible for a singer to perform a song accompanied by one or two instruments; e.g. Joo Hyun-mi sings in her YouTube channel, accompanied only by guitar and accordion.She sings directly in a simple studio exclusively for YouTube viewer. Ju Hyeon-mi channel (YouTube). Apart from the talent of a singer, the composer plays an important role in the success of a trot song. Since there are few trot singers and songwriters, a trot singer often gets his or her own singing style with the composer who always prepares a song for release with the singer.

Naming

The name trot has been widely used since the 1980s, even though the designation itself dates back to the 1950s. In the 1920s the name yuhaeng-changga () was in use;Kim, Byeong-seon (1990): "Studies on Changa in the time of Enlightenment in Korea", (Doctoral dissertation, Jeonnam University). Retrieved from RISS. (in Korean) (김병선: "한국 개화기 창가 연구", 전남대학교 박사학위논문). this name comes from the fact that yuhaeng means "trend, fashion, popular", and all sorts of western music, e.g. hymn, nursery rhyme, folksong, etc., as well as Japanese enka, which were introduced to the Korean people at the end of the 19th century, were called changga; ref a: p. 53, ref d: p. 62. popular music in the western style was called yuhaeng-changga, later abbreviated yuhaengga ().

The trot is sometimes referred to as seongin-gayo (), which means "music for adults". Trot also has a newer name, jeontong-gayo (), literally "traditional popular song". Calling trot jeontong-gayo may implicitly refer to national self-confidence and give people a sense of self-esteem, so that the uncomfortable suspicion of foreign origin would be eased. The name daejung-gayo (), or "music for the public", has been used historically for trot, but it is a wider term for all sorts of popular music, so K-pop for example, also falls under the label of daejung-gayo. Additionally, instead of teuroteu (), the term teurot () is occasionally seen in written Korean.

History Origin Trot music originated in Korea during the Japanese occupation of Korea. It is believed that trot's closest ancestors were Japanese enka. After the liberation of the Korean peninsula, however, trot has continued on its own path.Lee Ju-won (June 2015): "A Comparative Study of Korean and Japanese Popular Music - With a Focus on 1945-1950", Japanese Studies Vol. 64, pp. 75－98, KISS. (in Korean) (이주원: "한・일 양국의 대중가요 비교고찰: 1945-1950년을 중심으로", 일본연구 제64호). ref a: p. 75, ref b: p. 88. There is an investigation showing that the songs that were published in Korea and Japan between 1945 and 1950 used in both countries pretty much the same amount of duple metre rhythm in a minor scale. It is sometimes asserted that trot's origins can be traced to siga (), a traditional form of Korean poetry, although this only partially explains origins since it is relevant to poetic and lyrical aspects only.Bak Cheol-hee (revised 1995): "Siga" in: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (in Korean). (박철희: "시가", 한국민족문화대백과사전). Some suggest that trot could have been influenced by Korean folk music, which does have some resemblance to trot's vocal inflections, even if Korean traditional music's rhythmic structure differs from trot's fixed duple metre. It was true that a genre of Sin-minyo (new folk song, ) was in circulation in the 1930s;Full description about the Korean traditional Minyo and Sin-minyo see Kwon Do-hee (December 2014): "Industrial Folksong and the Popular Music in Modern Era", Journal of the Asian Music 36, pp. 167-223. PDF available. (in Korean) (권도희: 근대기 상업민요와 대중음악, 동양음악 제36집).Lee, Yeong-mi (October 2006): "Inherit of traditional music", a paper presented at 'The 3rd World Congress of Korean Studies' PDF available. (in Korean) (이영미: "전통가요 계승 대중가요의 흐름과 양상들"). but this music was simply modified versions of traditional folk songs e.g. Arirang or 'Taryeong' songs accompanied by Western instruments.

It is an old controversial issue whether trot originated during Japanese colonial rule and thus is not a genuine Korean popular music. This problem has caused quite a stir twice. Once the government took a position in the 1960s that the supposedly 'Japanese-tinged' songs suffered at the hands of the censor. The second discussion took place by the musicians and cultural critics in the '80s, called the 'Ppongjjak debate'.

'Japanese-tinged' censorship