The Korean people have made fine folk musical instruments for a long period of time, contributing to the development of music and dance of humans.
Among them is yanggum , or Korean zither that is played by striking or plucking its strings.
Yanggum dates back to the 18th century in Korea.
At first it was very small. It had wires stretched along a square wooden box and mounted on bridges. With the body held up in the left hand, it was played by striking a string with a beater made of bamboo in the right hand.
The wire strings produced clear, plaintive and unique tunes, but they had some shortcomings such as narrow pitch range, poor resonance, random persistence of reverberation and lack of free modulation.
In the 1960s yanggum underwent improvement, overcoming the shortcomings and gaining popularity as one of the folk instruments.
It is mostly made from spruce, Aceraceae meno and Acer triflorum .
The sound box consists of the front plate, back plate, front rim plate, back rim plate, middle rim plate, peg plate and wire pin plate.
When the instrument is played, a newly installed device prevents the sound from resonating unnecessarily longer.
The present yanggum ’s pitch range is wider than that of the previous one. The bridges are made of cast brass and the tones are adjusted with pegs.
The beater is made of elastic bamboo, with its tip attached with pressed wool.
The method of making yanggum has been put on the list of national intangible cultural heritage.
Jo Il Gyong, head of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office of the Korean National Heritage Preservation Agency
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