OO Discs 
Jin Hi Kim : Living Tones (SKO,1995)****°
Jin Hi Kim introduced the komungo, an ancient Korean bass zither originating from the 4th century with silk strings (plucked with a bamboo stick) to a wider public. Jin Hi Kim first studied in South Korea as one of the few accepted students at the national high school for Korean traditional music where she studied court and folk styles of singing, drumming, and bamboo flutes (both vertical and transverse), and selected the komungo as her major instrument. Then she studied further with National Living Treasures from The National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts in Seoul, as well as with Korea's leading ethnomusicologists, receiving a Phd in Korean traditional music from Seoul National University in 1980. Then she moved to the US where she studied at the Conservatory of Music in San Fransisco for one year, the San Francisco Music and Art Institute for another year, then transferred to Mills College in Oakland, California, where she studied for two years and received an MFA in electronic music and composition in 1985.
She has made some orchestral chamber pieces, some multi-media pieces and improvisational pieces, with avant-jazz musicians and worked with ethnical crossover ideas of improvisation with diverse other exotic instruments. I preferred to start with this work because it also showed her classical background, and showed more or less some possibilities of that classical core, especially on the first track. The other pieces reveal the deeper understanding of possibilities how to combine Korean traditional music with certain Western contemporary ideas on tone and melody.
What has been said about what is ‘Living Tones’ :
“A philosophy of music and the compositional concept that she developed over the past twenty years called "Living Tones." "living tones" (sigimse in Korean word), is an essentially Korean concept of music, with which Jin Hi Kim makes manifest the foundation of her compositional path. Kim explains that "the conceptual basis for living tones, which is the essential element in Korean traditional music, is that each tone is alive, embodying its own individual shape, sound, texture, vibrato, glissando, expressive nuances, and dynamics. "Living tones" can take on a dramatic weight that makes music rich." Essential to the concept of living tones is that "the precise timbral persona of each tone generated is treated with an abiding respect as its philosophical mandate."
"Kim began her study of traditional Korean music at the age of 13, and she believes there is now a convergence in different eras and that the centuries-old Korean court music philosophy, based on cosmic principles, and Western concepts, such as atomic theory, fractal geometry and chaos aesthetics, co-exist in living tones. Korean court music is often structured in hetero-phonic orchestration, irregular and organic phrases and microtonal shadings. In the fractal world, the shape of triangles, squares or lines is not important, just as the scale, pitch and melody are not so important in the living tones concept. Fractal geometry focuses on broken, crinkled, wrinkled and uneven shapes (living tones). The microscopic structure of self-similarity (infinite variety) and the haphazard of group (organic phrases) are the essence of being. Kim aims to fuse the old Korean and the new Western concepts in her compositions.”
The first piece, “Nong Rock” (nong refers to sculpting tones, rock the outcome of them) is performed with the Sirius String quartet, was originally commissioned for the Kronos Quartet, with Mary Rowell and Laura Seaton on violin, Mary Rowell on viola and Mary Wooten on cello. The challenge that was taken was to combine the western twelve-tone system with the pentatonic scale in between. With a Korean melody, smooth rhythms and interval that stabilize between two worlds, new harmonies are found of this stabilisation point in orchestrated and tonal harmony form. Then new accents are added with the komungo leading, and the String quartet responding with orchestrated grandeur.
The second piece, “Tchong” (=timbre) for daegum, a Korean transverse bamboo flute with bamboo paper membranes, and different flutes by Robert Dick, interacting in an improvisational, somewhat free way. It shows colourful changes and pitches of the flute playing. There’s awareness of duets with dialogues showing tonal differences and harmonies but there are also melodic improvisations.
On “Yoeum” we hear the well-known Korean court-music style by kagok singer Whan Kyu-Nam combined with baritone improvisations and overlapping repetitions in western-operatic style by Thomas Buckner for the western part. The title refers to microscopical textures, while improvising on meeting syllables and vowels with its own time signatures and vocal style variations.
The last piece, “Piri Quartet” is writen for three piri, the 1500 year old Korean oboe, played by three South-Korean players, combined with the western oboe and English horn played by Joseph Celli. It was inspired after hearing the first of three piri virtuosi Chung Jae-Guk playing. The two other players were Park Jong-Sol and Yang Myung-Sok. It is weird but nice to listen to too which has short moments reminding me of a kazoo concert, but goes to lots of directions with indeed a feeling living tones with dialectic and harmonic improvisation and interactive composition, some surprising sounds combined with logival harmonic combinations.
