CHANGO WALK started from a setback
Interviewer: Then the 1st CHANGO WALK has begun, how was your journey?
Choi: Since I had never kept walking or sleeping alone with a tent before.On the first day, I moved from Tokyo to Tsurumi Park and tried to put up a tent to sleep, but I was scared and couldn't sleep at all. Same for the second day.I arrived at Enoshima after a few days, but this time the wind was too strong to stand the tent. I couldn't sleep and I was at the limit of fatigue.I started triumphantly, but I reached the limit of my physical strength in about 4 to 5 days. I took a rest at the house of an acquaintance in Chigasaki. I really thought it was saved my life.
Interviewer: You had dying at place just an hour or two away by train from your house.
Choi: Yes.I sent the water heater set and all unnecessary things back to my house. Even so, it was naturally tough to walk nearly 30km a day in the sunshine, but I was saved by Janggu.
Regardless of your physical condition or feelings, hitting the Janggu naturally encouraged my body and let me move forward. I was encouraged when it was hard. Whenever I could quit, but I couldn't stop because my body moved by my own rhythm. My negative feelings gradually disappeared and it helped me a lot.
Re-encounter with Janggu
Interviewer: Is it a characteristic of Janggu as a music instrument?
Choi: I think it is difficult to walk while playing with flutes, guitars, Japanese taiko drums, and other musical instruments. During my trip, I realized once again that Janggu is a traditional musical instrument suitable for movement.
Korean shamans have inherited the ancient rhythm called Mudang (Shaman) sometimes call Janggu "Andemi" in Sanskrit.
Some of the various cultures in the world are completely indigenous, while others are influenced by and mixed with the cultures of other regions, and many of them are shaped in that area.
I can't say which instrument has the roots of Janggu in the history of musical instruments, but there is a fact that drums similar to Janggu have been played in India for a long time, and there was a trade on the Silk Road. Therefore, the world view expands when I think that culture, musical instruments, and rhythms also traveled between East Asia.
Janggu is said to be a musical instrument derived from a drum called Seyogo(slim wast drum), which was used by traveling musicians in the past. If the instrument is big, it's difficult to play while moving. The Seyogo is an instrument that has been improved specifically for "movement and performance," and I reconfirmed in the CHANGO WALK that the elements are packed into the Janggu. As an aside, the statue of King Kinnara at Sanjusangendo in Kyoto also has a slim wast drum.
Drums in India and Pakistan: Dhol (left photo)
Statue of King Kinnara Kyoto
Sanjusangendo Kamakura period (right photo)
Interviewer: Since the Janggu is firmly attached to the body with the waist strap and shoulder strap, it feels much more united with the drum than kind of marching drum. The balance of the body is stable, and when you beat it, you feel as if you are making sounds from yourself, rather than from the drums. I felt that way when I walked while hitting the Janggu together.
and, how did you search the rhythm and sound unique to the local terrain and environment in the CHANGO WALK, as you felt in Kumano?
Choi: When I met a land or person I had never touched, I was checking every step to see what kind of harmony I could make with my body and Janggu. How to walk on asphalt, how to walk on sandy beaches, mountains, paddy fields, riversides and forests, cities. How do you musically interpret and tune your situation? How well do you adapt to your environment? In the mountains, you would choose trekking shoes over beach sandals.
Confirmation factors include scaffolding, local environment, weather, time, presence of people, feelings and physical condition at that time. Physical condition is also a big factor in a walking trip. Naturally, my legs hurt when I walk all the time. And it made me I got the idea of trying to make the walking style = rhythm that makes the right foot work (laughs).
Interviewer: If you walk all day every day, that's right ... Is there anything that left an impression on you?
Choi: After all, it's an old Tokaido around Hakone. It is a cobblestone mountain road that has remained since the Edo period, and the shapes of the stones and rocks are different one by one. The road from Lake Ashi to Mishima (Shizuoka Prefecture) is particularly impressive. It was a tough climb until then, but after that, it will be going down. It's a slippery and unstable road in the first place, but in 2009 it rained the day before and the road was too slippy. Through trial and error, I realized that it was safer to run through rather than slowly step.
Actually, Korean rhythms, especially Samulnori, are said to be aggressive rhythms, and it seems that they cannot be expressed in Western music. I couldn't get it in the sitting. However, by hitting while running down the road in Hakone, I noticed the "rolling rhythm" completely unintentionally.
Hakone Former Tokaido Cobblestone An old road where you can walk along the mountain road that connects Hakone to Mishima while stepping on the paved stones and rocks.
Another thing to mention is the downhill route "Osuna bashiri" after climbing Mt. Fuji. As anyone who has been to it knows, if you can slide down well, you can get the speed of a moped. And one step is over 3m. One step, 3m! At that time, for the first time in my life, I was able to hit two shots in the air. It's like hitting while flying.
It's impossible in a normal environment, and even with that sense of speed, then I was really surprised at the high mobility of Janggu as a musical instrument that can be hit while running. I realized that it's a much more dynamic instrument than I think.
Mt. Fuji Osuna Bashiri: Gotemba Route From the 7th station of the downhill to Tarobo, the entrance to the Gotemba, it is called "Osuna Bashiri" because of its thick volcanic ash. After the Hoei volcanic eruption (1707), the accumulated volcanic ash is soft like a cushion, and you can descend at high speed.
Interviewer: What's interesting about Choi is that you can take in what was born naturally while accepting the environment, rather than learning the technique with cheap tricks.You are really good at listening to the voice of an instrument.
Choi: I don't know what the correct answer is, but I think the biggest reason is that I wanted to access the origin of the rhythm. There are various theories about the rhythm I'm hitting in the first place, but it seems to go back hundreds of years ago. I will try to imitate the lifestyles of such old people, especially the means of transportation. Feel the roots of the rhythm that was born in the days when people were walking and moving, without bicycles, cars, or trains. I would like to imagine how the ancestors experienced and learned the rhythm. I think it's really an act of drawing and drawing a map with rhythm and sound.
Interviewer: Draw a map of sound for a total of 2500 kilometers. It's an amount of information that can't be imagined from the seemingly simple appearance of just walking while hitting a drum.
Choi: That's right. When it comes to concerts at a live house, the main thing to match is "making music" such as pitch and volume. However, when I'm walking outdoors, I think that the object to be tuned will have various factors such as the condition of the scaffolding, the climate and the environment, and the sense of scale will further expand. This is something that you can't see at all unless you try to feel it, but that's why I feel that exploring something there leads to developing a sense.
After going through the CHANGO WALK, I think that it has become possible to deal with scenes such as this rhythm for such lands and this rhythm for this performance. I think this is the reason why I have laid the foundation for the current drumming dance. In the first place, if you can't hit while walking, you can't dance, and the upper body is linked depending on how you move your legs, so it's difficult if you don't use your legs properly. At the CHANGO WALK, I was trained fiercely about that.
Rhythm born from "land"
Interviewer: It seems that the physical changes were huge with each CHANGO WALK.
Choi: The muscles on the buttocks developed tremendously on the way from Hakone to Kyoto, where there are many mountains. Then, the following year, on the journey between Kyoto and Hakata, I lost weight all at once. There were many sandy beaches along the way in the Sanyo region, so I guess my body adapted to it. I thought this was an interesting phenomenon. If the body changes, the rhythm will naturally change.
Interviewer: So you could get closer to the "land rhythm" that Dr. Lee Chang Seup was trying to convey.
Choi: Really so. When exchanging between percussionists about where the rhythm comes from, it makes sense to say, "It comes from the local language and dialect." So where does that dialect come from? I think it's the climate and the shape of the land. Is it a sandy beach, a plain, or a mountainous area? The influence of the shape of the land on people is tremendous, and I thought I could get those ideas through the CHANGO WALK.
Rhythm born from "people"
Choi: Then, the most intense thing was meeting local people. When a musician meets an interesting person, I think that there are usually many people in the same industry or related people. But when I'm walking around, there are a lot of interesting people who can't predict or don't understand. I think it's a great asset to meet those people and start talking about "Why are you playing drums in the first place?" And to communicate with them in various ways. You can also see that the dialect changes little by little as you move.
In 2009, when I passed through a village in Shizuoka, it was the day of the annual village festival that I was stopped by saying, "If you're hitting a drum, hit it here today! "Shishimai, Lion dance, was coming from the neighboring village, so she wanted me to hit drum together and make it more lively. At 7:00 pm, a musical accompaniment corps with a large speaker on a minitruck arrived. Somehow a flute player was absent, and today they will perform Shishimai while playing a CD instead. I wondered what kind of local musical accompaniment CD? I waited for the turn while being interested.
The CD started with the shishimai with the signal "Let's go". It wasn't the Hayashi CD that rang in the countryside. It was "I was born to love you" of "QUEEN".
Do you dance shishimai with this? Do I drum with it ? In response to the question, he said, "Because it's completely improvised." During that time, QUEEN songs were playing all the time. I passed the surprise and laughed.
On that day, I remember the words of the grandmother in the neighboring village who kept me at the house and asked me to hit the Janggu. "People in the neighboring villages are flashy and don't understand at all (laughs) . The people on the other side of the pass are completely different from the people in this village, and the words they speak are a little different, but it's good. It's lively. Drum is a lucky charm, so please cherish it. "
I often heard stories like "people over there is ~" at the mountain passes in various places, in front of and beyond the river. "The drums over there are completely different from us" or "The sound of the flute is something different". It sounds strange to someone who doesn't understand the situation, but from the perspective of each local person, "we feel the identity of living in the land as ourselves." I felt that those identity also was an essence that created rhythm.
Interviewer: As you walk slowly, you feel that the differences in people's temperaments between regions are often reflected in the rhythm and that this is due to the shape of the land and the historical background. It's easy to put it in words, but I think it's really amazing that you felt it on your skin.
Choi: When I meet a certain person (town), I meet and touch next to it, next to it, and so on, like a string of beads. I want to take in what grows in it as nutrition for my art. I think the journey to find it is the Chango Walk.
From Tokyo in 2009 to Seongju, South Korea (paternal hometown) in 2015, I met a lot of people and had a lot of conversations. What I felt most strongly there was "the smell of the land: taste". Of course, each person has his or her own personality, but the speed and tension of speaking are divided by region, and each has its own unique "taste."
If you fly abroad, people speak different languages, so it's easy to understand the taste. In my case, what kind of rhythm can I hit on the spot while accepting the gradation of changing land odors that I feel in a slow-moving walking trip? While focusing on that, I was advancing the journey of hit and hit step by step.
As a drummer, instead of playing the rhythm that I made completely original, I make music based on the rhythm of the land, region, country, or ethnicity, so I talk in each land. The "taste" that I felt is the basis of my music-making. I feel that the fragmentary extracts that I felt in each land are crystallized one by one and gradually piled up on the "SOL-JANGGU" that I beat and dance.
At the end
Interviewer: Thank you very much. Why you choose a Janggu, and why you do Janggu walk? I was able to approach the root of Choi's activities. At the 2015 CHANGO WALK, he will then sail from Hakata to Busan to reach his grandfather's hometown, Seongju. Sea, mountains, rivers, plains, villages, towns, countryside, cities, asphalt. Carrying a backpack, walking around various lands, aiming for the ancestral roots, and searching for the origin of Janggu. After returning to Japan, he continues to expand his activities, such as climbing Mt. Fuji and walking through Sanriku. Choi expands the map of the sound with his own feet along with the rhythm of the drum. You can see the record at that time from the video documentary.
Choi: Thank you. In February, I made a PV that can be said to be the culmination of Korean drum player Choi Jae Chol. It is music that expresses the things and feelings that I felt in the CHANGO WALK entioned in this article, and the characteristics of the instrument and rhythm called Janggu, so please have a look it.
CHANGO WALK 2015 VIDEO Documetary
CHANGO WALK MUSIC VIDEO