Korean music is an ancient art form
and there is written material documenting its history,
dating back to the 15th century. Today we can still hear
examples of Korean traditional music as well as modern
Korean pop music, also called K-pop.
Korean traditional music
Korean traditional music can be divided into Korean folk
music, aristocratic chamber music, Korean court music
and religious music:
Religious music is based on Buddhist and native shamanistic
rituals. One example of 
Korean
religious music is sinawi or shinawi, which is music improvised
by a musicians ensemble during shamanistic rituals.
Korean folk music includes: Dongbu folk songs that are
mostly simple and bright songs, but their style varies
according to the region they originate from; Pansori,
also called Korean Opera, is performed by one singer and
one drummer and the lyrics tell different stories; Nongak,
which is a rural form of Korean percussion music performed
by twenty or thirty drummers together; Sanjo is instrumental
only music that combines rhythms with melodic modes.
Court music is a music form whose origins can be traced
back to the beginning of the Choson Dinasty in the XIV
century. Korean Court music includes: Aak, imported from
Chinese ritual music; Hyang-Ak, purely Korean performed
with Korean string instruments and a Korean oboe called
piri; Dang-ak that is a mixture of Korean and Chinese
influences.
Aristocratic chamber music was aimed at entertaining
members of Korean aristocracy informally and it can be
either entirely instrumental, or sang by male and female
singers in a style called kagok.
Korean traditional musical instruments
Korean traditional musical instruments are divided into
three categories: string, wind and percussion instruments.
String instruments include: gayageum (a 12 string zither),
geomungo (six string zither), haegum (vertical fiddle
with two strings). Some traditional Korean wind instruments
are: daegum (a transversal flute) and piri (cylindrical
oboe). Percussion instruments include: large and small
gongs and janggu, an hourglass shaped drum.
Korean pop music
Korean pop music firstly originated in the 1940s 50s
and the oldest type of Korean pop music is teuroteu, which
was born during the Japanese invasion and is a kind of
foxtrot. 
Teuroteu
is popular among elderly Koreans, although a contemporary
singer, Jang Yoon Jeong, has recorded a couple of popular
teuroteu songs.
In the early 1970s a genre of Korean music, called tong
guitar developed. Tong guitar was inspired by American
folk singers like Joan Baez. Norae undong developed in
the early 80s and is a form of Korean rock music with
politically and socially aware lyrics.
Nowadays, Korean pop music, also called K-pop, is inspired
mainly by R&B and hip hop and it has become very popular
around eastern Asia. This increasing popularity of K-pop
in Asia has been called the Korean Wave and it emerged
in 2004 in Japan, thanks to popular TV dramas such as
Winter Sonata, Stairway to Heaven or Daejanggeum.
Boys and girls bands, such as Baby V.O.X.,Fin.K.L., g.o.d,
H.O.T., Shinhwa, Sechs Kies, and S.E.S. were very popular
in Korea at the end of the 90s and now R&B and hip
hop are gaining more and more popularity. Some Korean
hip-hop musicians are MC Mong, 1TYM, Rain and Epik High.
Other popular Korean artists include Lee Jung Hyun and
Kim Hyun Jung and more.
Koreans and the western opera
Koreans also enjoy western style opera and many Korean
opera singers have become internationally famous in the
world of opera. The National Opera Group was estabilished
in Souht Korea in 1968 and La Traviata by Giuseppe verdi
was the first western opera to be performed in Korea.
Famous Korean opera singers include Jo Su-mi, Hong Hye-kyong,
Shin Yong-ok, Kim Yong-mi and the baritone Ch'oe Hyon-su,
who won top honours in the 1990 Tchaikovsky Musical Competition.
Many Korean students travel to Europe, especially Italy,
Spain, France and Germany in order to study opera and
improve their operatic skills.
