Today’s Enlightening Entertainment will be presented in Korean, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Thai and Spanish.

It’s a pleasure to see you, loving Supreme Master Television viewers! On today’s Enlightening Entertainment, we are going to find out about pansori, Korea’s time-honored traditional song.

The thin and falling leaves of Sinpo Harbor are flying away.

Pansori is a Korean musical drama which delivers the myths that have been orally passed on from olden times to the audience, by a drummer and a singer through songs, story-telling, and gestures. The hundreds of years of joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness experienced by the Korean people are engraved in pansori; it has thus been carrying the most widely known Korean stories and the vibration from the deepest part of the heart.

Pansori is a story led entirely by two persons: a performer and a drummer. It’s a musical story. It’s led by songs, which may run for three hours if short and seven or eight hours if long. That is quite a long time. It’s a musical play performed alone with songs, facial expressions, and theater. It has ancient stories, sharp satire, and sometimes very sad stories, thus is the best art form that can really contain humans’, and especially Korean people’s, feelings.

The content of pansori encompasses moral lessons. There are five kinds of traditional pansori that have been passed on up till now. Among them, Choonhyangga discusses true love, and Shimchungga talks about self-sacrifice and filial piety. Heungboga tells of brotherly love and compassion to animals, and Soogoongga talks about loyalty to the king and wisdom to overcome crisis.

If you have rice, give me just one bag. If it’s barley, give me just two bags. If it’s money, give me three coins to save my family who are starving to death. You save us. Brother, please save me.

How can one be not filial to one’s parents while learning Shimchungga, which has such a good meaning? How can one be unfaithful to one’s husband while learning Choonhyangga? How can one lose brotherly love when one listens to Heungboga? Soogoongga is about a servant’s loyalty to his king, and Jeokbyukga is about the trust between friends. So, these five kinds of pansori contain three fundamental principles and five moral disciplines of Confucianism. So these are probably inherited and very meaningful.

As you have seen, pansori has a very unique vocalization. Pansori’s vocalization is not coming from the head or throat, but it is a deep sound soaring upward from the abdomen.

Pansori doesn’t do musical expression with beautiful sounds, but it uses the vocal sound of the human itself since the Beginning. It has the sound of real nature, sometimes very rough, sometimes very soft, sometimes hugely thunderous as if to pierce the heavens really.

The chief boatman pointed with his hand and said that that village with the cloudy sea over there is Dohwa-dong village. Shimchung is dumbfounded.

The scale of pansori is not a 7-note scale. It’s based on the Korean traditional scale system.

The basic melody of pansori, or southern province music, is “Mi…” And additionally “La...” “Mi” is a thickly vibrating sound. “La” is a stretching sound. “Do-ti” is one turning sound. These are the basic melody. This is the basic scale.

Pansori unfolds stories with songs, speech, and movements. Expression by song is called “chang” or “sori.” Explanation through speech is called “aniri,” and expression of a situation and emotion with movements is called “ballim.” Aniri explains the situation, informs about changes during the drama, and adjusts the tempo of emotions.

The rabbit survived and came back from the life-threatening danger at the underwater palace. Then, you ought to behave gently now. But born frivolous, he is overjoyed with his survival, jumping here and there, brushing ears with feet. What a sight you are!

In addition, the characters’ emotions and actiosn in the play are expressed by ballim (movements) while doing chang (song) or aniri (speech).

I am so free and relaxing like Taoist hermits. I hear my friends, the little cuckoos’ and many birds’ singing. They seem to greet me after returning to my homeland from the underwater palace!” Rabbit is jumping down, left and right, to here while chomping on wild grapes and gooseberries that he enjoyed before.

In ballim, which shows physical gestures, a fan is an essential element.

The role of the fan is the symbolizing of an object, nature, and all expressions. All kinds of sounds of nature, sounds of humans, and artistic meanings are expressed, all with a fan.

For example, rather than just saying a bird is flying in some way, I can express it like this. Same goes with expressing the fall of snow. So, you cannot do pansori without the fan. Supreme Master Television viewers, allow me say hallo in pansori: May you be healthy and your family full of blessings. See you again.

We will be right back to continue learning about Korean pansori. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television. Come here. Let me carry you on my back. Come here. Let me carry you on my back. Love love love, My love. Love love love, My love. Oh, you are my love. Go there. Let me see your back. Come here. Let me see your front. Toddle along. Let me see how you walk. Smile big. Let me see your teeth. Oh my love!

Welcome back to Enlightening Entertainment. Pansori was recognized globally for its uniqueness and excellence, and so in 2003was designated as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In South Korea, pansori was designated as Important Intangible Cultural Asset Number 5, and has been preserved since then. The most important characteristic in preserving and continuing of pansori is that there is no music sheet.

Other world music have musical notations. But our pansori has no musical notation. Pansori is limitless, unrestricted and exciting. That’s our pansori.

Because there is no musical notation, students learn it by following the teacher’s singing. This method of verbal imitation and remembering from deep inside the heart is still used today. This is the Park Dong-jin Pansori Initiation Hall, located in Gongju City, Chungnam Province. Students are seated in front of their teacher learning pansori one-on-one.

He is coming to say goodbye.

Good. But “is coming” should sound like this. Make it bouncing. Again!

He is coming to say goodbye.( Okay.)

Barring other people by keeping left and right

Your tone is too high. The voice should be lower. Got it? Do the aniri part.

Barring other people

Barring other people

I began to learn at age three, and at age five, I began to learn formally, and now it has been five-six years. Difficult part is the sound of turning with vibration.

Memorizing is challenging. Many parts are Many parts are confusing too. When I do a high sound, I have to raise the sound up with all my energy. That is my weakest part.

Pansori is originally sung alone. But the students of Park Dong-Jin Pansori Initiation Hall prepared a group pansori performance specially for Supreme Master Television viewers.

Mountains and streams are rough and the forest is thick. Every valley has snow and the peaks have wind. There is no flower or tree fruit. No more parrot or lovebird, so there should be no bird sound. But, the soldiers who perished in the Jeokbyuk war became birds, singing and lamenting to the general. I hear sound of various birds at each tree top. For how many years the soldiers in distress have been away from their hometown.

Since a young age, students try to polish their voices and perfect their own unique voice. Pansori training is very strict and rigorous.

If you do pansori every day, you will have a hoarse throat. As time passes, you will recover a clear throat. But when you continue practicing, you will again have a hoarse throat. Then clear again. You have to clear it doing the practice, not by stopping the practice. You clear the throat by continuing practicing and repeating it thousands of times. And then you may get a good-sound pansori. You can feel some vibration of pansori. You need to get that sound.

When students reach a certain level of pansori practice, they go to the waterfall and practice for a long time to improve the capacity.

Why do we go to the waterfall in the deep mountain? When we first go there, the waterfall sound is so loud, so we cannot hear our own voice. We practice hard there. Then, we can hear our voice, not the waterfall.

As the waterfall sound is so big, my voice should pass through the sound.

The highest level of pansori is called “Attaining Sound.” It means that one has gotten the sound of all the world and can release it as is through one’s being, this being the highest level. To attain this level, pansori practitioners would practice alone in the mountains for years.

Even when you make a bird sound, you have to make it the same. For a waterfall sound, thunder sound, and the sound of a door’s paper sheet shaking from the wind, all those sounds have to be expressed correctly. We say that you attained the sound if you get all the sounds and do exactly as they are.

The sound coming through a person vibrates deep in the heart of other people. The sound is from within the human, but becomes one with nature. That is the best sound that pansori seeks. The diligent and ceaseless efforts to attain the best sound is very much like the journey of a spiritual path.

It’s now almost time to close the program. Let’s enjoy the last part of Soogoongga. It is performed by Mr. Jo Sang-Hyun, the former Chairman of the Korea Pansori Preservation Association, a National Human Cultural Asset, and pansori master singer.

The god of the mountain bestows the miraculous medicine to the turtle, touched by his loyalty to the dragon king. The dragon king recovers immediately, and that was the beginning of a peaceful reign. Listen, people of the world! Even these animals remain faithful to their king and the nation. How about our humans? We should also be filial to our parents and loyal to our nation. Who knows after that? Since you must feel uncomfortable here after sitting so long, and my throat feels hurt too, I’ll stop here. When you return, may your homes be filled with blessings! Who knows after that? We’ll end here!

Thank you for watching today’s Enlightening Entertainment. Words of Wisdom is next after Noteworthy News. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television. May the most beautiful sounds uplift your life.