Buk (drum) - History

History

The buk used for court music are usually fixed with nails on the rims, while ones used for folk music are usually tied up with leather straps to form the shape. Performers in the court music usually beat their buk with bukchae (북채, a drum stick) on one hand or two hands together, while drummers in the folk music commonly beat their buk with it on their right hand as hitting the other side of the buk with their bare left hand. A while ago, even jong (종, bell) was referred to as "soebuk" (쇠북, metal drum) and included in the buk category.

Buk have been used for Korean music since the period of the Three Kingdoms of Korea (57 BC – 668 AD) in light of mural paintings in Anak Tomb of Goguryeo (37 BC – 668 AD) and records of Book of Sui on the kingdoms, Goguryeo and Baekje (18 BC – 660 AD). In the 3rd of Anak Tomb, two types of buk are depicted in the paintings titled Juakdo (주악도, 奏樂圖, "painging of playing music") and Haengryeoldo (행렬도, 行列圖, "painting of marching") such as ipgo (입고, 立鼓) and damgo (담고, 擔鼓) respectively. The ipgo is a buk that performers beat as standing, while the damgo is a buk that drummers strik as carrying it on their shoulder.

During the Unified Silla period (668 – 935), daego (대고, 大鼓) or keunbuk, meaning "a big drum", was used along with a percussion instrument named bak (박, 拍) in a music played by Samhyeon samjuk (삼현삼죽, 三絃三竹) which comprises samhyeon, three string instruments such as geomungo, gayageum, and hyangbipa and samjuk such as daegeum, junggeum and sogeum. In the Goryeo period (918 – 1392), as dangak and aak were introduced to Korea from China, a lot of buk such as janggu, gyobanggo, jingo began to be used for the court music.

In the Joseon period, scores of buk were used for the royal court music including janggu, jwago, yonggo, gyobanggo, jingo, jeolgo, nogo and others. Among them janggu was also used for folk music, and later became the most commonly used instrument.

While there are twenty types of buk used in the present Korean traditional music, most commonly used buk are jwago to perform Samhyeon yukgak (삼현육각, 三絃六角), yonggo for marching music, gyobango for bukchum (북춤, drum dance), beopgo for Buddhist ritual ceremonies, sogo used by Namsadang, and street musicians, soribuk or called gojangbuk for pansori, maegubuk (or called nongakbuk) used for nongak, and motbanggo used by farmers as working.