[Watching Korean dramas and talking about Korea] "Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol": Korea's "Piano Craze" and "Piano Man" Craze (Revised Full Version)

Combining popular actress Go Ya-ra, Lee Jae-wook, who is known as "Hyun Bin's successor", and Kim Joo-hun, who played the boss of the publishing house in "It's Okay to Be Insane", the new Korean drama "Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol" launched by KBS , based on the popular Korean drama formula of "Yan Zhi plus wealthy family" in recent years, compose a love song between a pianist and a high school student.

The protagonist Lala (played by Gao Yala) is a pianist who has been playing the piano since elementary school, but she experienced family changes on her wedding day. Not only did her father die, but even her fiancé was dragged away by her prospective mother-in-law on the wedding day, and her life fell to the bottom. However, by chance, Lara gets the help of Xiaojun (played by Lee Jae-wook), a runaway high school student, and Doctor Cha (played by Kim Joo-hun) who has been paying attention to her. Not only does she open a piano classroom, but everything seems to be turning around.

When it comes to the piano classroom in the play, the biggest feature is probably that the students are almost "not children". Interestingly, whether the screenwriter is intentional or unintentional, this seems to be an unreasonable setting, but it is the current trend in Korea. Today's [Looking at Korean Dramas and Talking About Korea] will talk about the history of Korean piano learning, as well as the recent upsurge of "Piano Man".

Basic items in tutoring Nearly 40% of Korean elementary school students learn piano

Not only Taiwanese like to let their children learn talents, but also Koreans. Among them, playing the piano is the most basic. According to a survey conducted by the non-governmental organization "Consumer Public Welfare Network" (소비자공익네트워크) at the end of 2019 among parents in metropolitan cities including Seoul, Incheon, Daejeon, Daegu, Busan, and Ulsan , 37% of elementary school students will be in class After tutoring to play the piano, the popularity is second only to English and mathematics. The monthly cost of learning the piano falls on an average of 127,000 won, which is about NT$3,200.

Another small poll (about 1,000 respondents) conducted by the polling company "Korea Gallup" in 2016 showed that the piano is the most musical instrument that Koreans can play (15%), and women are even more 1 in 10 can play the piano (22%). Overall, the percentage of the population who can play the piano has nearly tripled in 2016, compared with 8% in the 1994 survey, and the research team even estimates that 44% of Korean women will be able to play the piano in 10 years.

In addition to playing a wide range of music, being able to combine with various musical instruments, and being generally considered to be easier to get started with, various reasons not only make the piano known as the "king of musical instruments", but also the most popular musical instrument in the world (the second is the guitar). ). In Taiwan's professional music education system, it is even stipulated that one of the two musical instruments (major and minor) to be studied must be a piano. However, the piano is a Western musical instrument after all. How did it enter Korean history and even become a key role in remedial education?

Missionaries introduce the first piano to the Korean peninsula 120 years ago

Like the first piano in Taiwan, the first piano in South Korea was also introduced by Western missionaries. However, compared to Taiwan, where there is no clear record, South Korea can even find photos of that time.

Porters in traditional costumes carry pianos that are thickly wrapped on bamboo poles. In 2012, at the forum "The First New Cultural Relics Imported from South Korea from Samunjin Ferry—Pianos" held in Daegu, it was announced that the pianos were transported 120 years ago. Black and white historical photos, and further confirm that this piano that appeared in Daegu in 1900 was the first piano to set foot on the Korean Peninsula .

"At that time, the missionary couple found 20 to 30 porters, and it took three days to transport the piano from the port to their home, and each porter was given a daily salary of 10 cents in US dollars, which is equivalent to the current 100,000 won (about 100,000 won). NT$2,500).” Son Tae-ryong (손태롱, transliteration), a representative of the Korean Music Literature Society, added that the piano was used to help missionaries teach the Bible, but a year later, the piano was lost on its way to Busan. unknown.

Not only the piano but also the accordion and similar instruments came to Korea as missionaries, and as they began to appear in everyday life, the first pianist on the Korean peninsula was born.

The first pianist Kim Young-hwan laid the foundation for Western music education

Time goes back to 1893, before the piano appeared in Korea. Kim Yong-hwan (김영환, 1893~1978) was born in Pyongyang. He was deeply fascinated by this keyboard instrument because he saw missionaries playing the accordion when he was in church. After Chongsil Middle School (숭실중학), he also officially began to learn the piano. Since Korea was under Japanese occupation at that time, Kim Young-hwan went to Japan a year before graduating from middle school, and then successfully became the first Korean student at the Ueno Music School in Tokyo, specializing in piano.

Kim Yong-hwan, who returned to China in 1918, entered the Yanxi Academy of Music, which had no music department at that time, and served as the music minister. Not only did he donate a grand piano to the school, but he even organized a choir, laying the foundation for Western music education on the Korean Peninsula at that time. Not only did he devote himself to education, he was also active in the music industry as a pianist and solo accompanist, and translated many foreign songs.

According to Dongguang, a magazine published in the 1930s , Kim Yong-hwan even entered Deoksugung Palace to perform congratulations in front of the palace on the birthday of Gojong, the 26th monarch of the Joseon Dynasty. With his efforts, the educational model of orthodox Western music in Korea was established, and he also cultivated such as Lee Aine (이애내, 1908~1996), the first Korean pianist in Germany, and Kim Won-bok, a veteran who has played for more than 80 years. (김원복, 1908~2002) and other master figures.

The piano boom after the economy took off, a symbol of the middle class

With the introduction of classical music by Western missionaries and the establishment of the foundation of music education, it is not enough to make the piano an entertainment for the common people. In the late 1970s, South Korea's growing middle-class population also contributed to the culture of piano learning, and even made the piano a symbol of middle-class women. According to a 1991 National Statistics Office survey, the middle class owns a piano as high as 13.4%, almost the same as owning a car.

Not only did it represent the middle class, there was not such a diverse cram school ecology at that time, and it also contributed to the development of the piano industry. Since the tutoring programs at that time were not as diverse as they are now, most of the tutoring classes could only learn taekwondo in addition to the piano. Under the circumstance of limited options, the number of piano students could be expected to increase, which also brought the piano tutoring class into a golden age. .

Not only did it represent the middle class, there was not such a diverse cram school ecology at that time, and it also contributed to the development of the piano industry. Since the tutoring programs at that time were not as diverse as they are now, most of the tutoring classes could only learn taekwondo in addition to the piano. Under the circumstance of limited options, the number of piano students could be expected to increase, which also brought the piano tutoring class into a golden age. .

According to the Industrial Production Statistics Annual Report and the Korea Statistics Office, piano production continued to rise starting in 1977, and reached its highest point in 1991. It wasn’t until the IMF financial crisis in 1998 that it began to plummet. Some tuners also said that because the piano industry was hot during this period and the people’s pockets were relatively deep, although the pianos produced were relatively expensive, the quality was better than the products after the financial crisis. relatively high. However, while the piano industry was in decline, Korean pianists began to gain recognition in the international arena.

After the financial crisis, Korean pianists became famous in international competitions

Taking the most representative international piano competition "Chopin Competition" as an example, in the list of Asian pianists who won the Chopin International Piano Competition in 2005, Lin Dongmin (임동민, 1980~) and Lin Dong The brothers Hyuk (임동혁, 1984~) first broke the record for Koreans in this competition with a tie for third place; then in 2015, Zhao Chengzhen (조성진, 1994~) even won the championship in one fell swoop.

Like the Hallyu wave that swept the world, the good performance of Korean pianists also brought domestic attention to Western music. Among them, Zhao Chengzhen's competition record album even ranked 35th on the list at the end of 2015. The idol album also set a sales record for domestic Korean classical music albums with nearly 90,000 copies.

However, in order to explain the "Piano Man" phenomenon of the surge in the number of middle-aged male piano students, in addition to the "piano tutoring boom" in the 1980s and 1990s, and the good news of international competitions in recent years, the influence of film and television works cannot be ignored.

Film and television culture drives the trend of "Piano Man"

If you want to vote for the favorite Taiwanese movie of Koreans, "The Unspeakable Secret" will definitely appear on the list. In addition to setting a record of NT$33.45 million that year, it was even released three times during the recent wave of fragmentation caused by the epidemic. Speaking of the climax of this film, it is the scene of music students fighting the piano, and Jay Chou's handsome appearance of playing the piano has fascinated not only Korean women, but also men.

Men who have experienced the "piano tutoring wave" and have begun to enter middle age, although they have learned piano in the past, often ended up being nothing, but "The Secret That Can't Be Said" touched those childhood memories. In addition, in many variety shows and Korean dramas, the piano has become a tool for men to show their charm, and more or less middle-aged men who "interrupted their studies" have regained the idea of learning the piano. In addition to hoping to enhance their charm by regaining the piano, some people also said that they chose to start learning the piano again because they wanted to make good use of time and relieve stress.

According to piano cram school practitioners, including the 2007 "Untold Secret" and the 2016 Hollywood movie "Love You More and More", they have all brought back the trend of picking up the piano. Influence, perhaps implying connotation and art, is gradually being valued by modern Koreans.

Different from other works, in "Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol", whether it is Lee Jae-wook or the grandfather who started piano lessons in order to remember his deceased wife, they all started to play the piano due to various factors when they were adults. Just like the Korean national MC Yoo Jae-suk, who started the drum learning journey at the age of 47 in the reality show "What to Play", whether it is "Piano Man" or "Liu Flash", such works may also become "live". The best propaganda of "Grow old, learn from old" gives more people the motivation to build their dreams bravely.

References:

매일 경제/ 초등학생평균학원2.3개다녀…월평균사교육비30만∼50만원

조선일보/ [아무튼, 주말] 아이보다어른, 그것도성인남성이더배운다… '피아노맨'의귀환

한국민족문화대백과사전/ 피아노

한국민족문화대백과사전/ 김영환 (Kim Young-hwan)

영남일보/ 한국최초피아노112년전대구에있었다

Reading Music / Stars of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland

한국갤럽조사연구소/ 봄에생각나는노래, 악기연주에대한조사

YTN / 석조전에울려퍼진고종의애청곡'몽금포타령'

MBC / 대세는피아노맨?… 피아노배우는직장인남성늘어나

나무위키/ 조성진(피아니스트)

조선비즈/ 해리포터다시틀고, 알바생줄이고… 극장가'극한버티기'