pachelbel

January 19, 2008 8:14 PM

Canon in D: Korean Breakdance stylee! No apne balian styles here yo.
posted by parmanparman (24 comments total)

That would have been better without the beatbox and dancers.
posted by oddman at 8:37 PM on January 19, 2008

If it's noon in New York it's 1981 in Korea.
posted by Dizzy at 8:39 PM on January 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

obligatory pachelbel rant link
posted by flatluigi at 8:48 PM on January 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

Considering the melody they were using, it's more like 1681.

This is good stuff. Using modern (relatively speaking) American and traditional Asiann instrumentation to play a classical European theme is a win as far as I'm concerned. Anybody else have any good musical mix-ups of three or more disparate cultures?
posted by ErWenn at 8:50 PM on January 19, 2008

Rob Parovanian is amazing.
posted by parmanparman at 8:57 PM on January 19, 2008

Ya, I like the cultural mash-ups. That was pretty slick.
posted by your mom at 9:08 PM on January 19, 2008

Original link neat, pachelbel rant still has me giggling. Good show all around.
posted by Stunt at 9:50 PM on January 19, 2008

@dizzy, err...the retro hip hop shits global. where you been?
posted by cazoo at 10:10 PM on January 19, 2008

whoo that rant was faboo.
posted by cowbellemoo at 10:52 PM on January 19, 2008

This is good stuff. Using modern (relatively speaking) American and traditional Asiann instrumentation to play a classical European theme is a win as far as I'm concerned.

You and I have precisely opposite views on this.

By the way this is a commercial...not even sure what for, but it's on all the time.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 11:42 PM on January 19, 2008

To clarify, this kind of slick, recombinant multikulti project strikes me as artificial and corporate, more the product of a board meeting than of a vibrant and existing artistic community.

There's a "gugak" (traditional Corean music) radio station here, but it's completely dominated by fusion, watered-down music that has lost the best of all its constituent parts.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no purist, but this is mere grafting and superimposition, a mule rather than a fertile offspring.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:12 AM on January 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

cazoo:

1) I'm 45.

2) I live in Worcester, Mass.

Hope that clears things up!
posted by Dizzy at 3:34 AM on January 20, 2008

Yeah, there are a lot of cultural mashups that I like, this isn't one of them. I mean, cmon, has anyone just played Canon in D without messing with it? That's what I'd like to know.
posted by Deathalicious at 6:05 AM on January 20, 2008

Deathalicious: I tried my best. Unfortunately, I was in sixth grade, and didn't really know how to play the violin.
posted by danb at 7:01 AM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

As Joseph Guri says, it's a commercial, for a developer of high-rise residential condos (site here if you can read Korean). The ad very helpfully tells you to use the search term "이편한세상" if you want to find more things like this.

I have to say I liked that they attempted this kind of mashup. It shows an open-mindedness towards the outside world, a willingness to mix it up, that was rare in the 1980's. That said, Pachelbel's Canon in D wouldn't have been my first choice of music.
posted by needled at 7:50 AM on January 20, 2008

For those of you interested in cultural mashups, consider checking out the Korean movie Untold Scandal. Choderlos de Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons is transplanted to 18th century Chosun, but with aristocrats still behaving badly. The soundtrack features a mix of both Western and Korean classical music.
posted by needled at 8:15 AM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

would have been nice if the focus was on the dancers rather than the slick production.
posted by desjardins at 8:38 AM on January 20, 2008

Ha, this just reminds me how when I was a kid I wanted to learn how to play the gayagum really bad for some reason and my mom thinking it was the most ridiculous thing she ever heard. Her exact reason for dissuading me was to half-jokingly say, "Only gisaengs play the gayagum, I have no idea why you'd want to learn how to play that when you could just take piano lessons like everyone else." (Interestingly, I just saw that the subtitles say that the gayagum team is from a women's university, so I wonder if it's laboring under the reputation of being a women's instrument.) I don't think that was everyone's attitude towards traditional instruments, and I hope not, but now looking back I wonder how many people in the older generation being of the more "practical" mindset might've discouraged their kids from learning traditional instruments to learn more "useful" ones like piano or violin. Kind of the same idea for making music in general, where you can probably still hear older people use the derragatory term "ddandara" to refer to musicians when their kids say they want to make music. And if they say they want to do hip-hop? Oh boy...

I don't know what the ad agency's reasoning behind making this ad was but I think it'd be interesting if they were trying to juxtapose the idea of "useless" traditional with "useless" hip-hop against the backdrop of more "accepted" traditional music that everyone knows and probably learned to play at some point of their forced piano/violin/flute lessons life.
posted by kkokkodalk at 10:03 AM on January 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

needled: I particularly enjoy the director's reasoning behind making "Untold Scandal." I think the effort to do fusion with gugak is sort of an attempt to breath new life or interest into something that people tend to think of as just soundtrack to traditional films or something fringe that only hardcore traditionalists like people from Cheonghakdong would be interested in or something. It's kind of an awkard catch-22 for traditional Korean music where people either want it to remain encapsulated in its traditional state even if it means not as many people will be interested in itbeond a novelty factory or trying something new and risking people thinking it just sounds like some weird watered-down hybrid.

Remember when "Hayeoga" came out and it was supposed to be like a blend of rock, hip hop and traditional music? That was pretty fuckin' awesome. Man, I loved that song, and I wasn't even the biggest Seo Taiji fanboy either, but I will karaoke that whenever I get the chance.
posted by kkokkodalk at 10:39 AM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Joseph Gurl, Deathalicious: I understand where you're coming from. This was far from the best cultural mash-up I've seen. But there are certain genres, gimmicks, and styles that always increase my personal enjoyment of art and entertainment. One of those is mixing different styles that I'm already (at least slightly) familiar with. In this case, the novelty takes what is essentially a mediocre performance and raises my enjoyment up to where it puts a smile on my face. If the performance had otherwise been total crap, then it might have only raised it to "meh." If it had been quite good, then I'd've been raving like a maniac and trying to find tickets to the show (I would have been very disappointed to discover it was only a commercial.)

Incidentally, the other gimmicks that instantly increase my ability to enjoy things include:
science fiction or fantasy
actual science
mathematics
Bruce Willis
funny song lyrics
multiple melodic lines (fugues, etc.)
cyclic story lines (usually via time travel or prophecy)
Bruce Lee
songs covered in different genres
plots reimagined in different settings
martial arts
Bruce Campbell
posted by ErWenn at 10:46 AM on January 20, 2008

I wasn't too excited about the music, but the athleticism of the dancers was impressive. How much training would it take to hold your hold body up with one hand like that.
posted by rottytooth at 12:47 PM on January 20, 2008

I tried my best. Unfortunately, I was in sixth grade, and didn't really know how to play the violin.

Actually, my rendition of Pachelbel's Canon in D got me the "Most Improved" award in high school orchestra that year. Sadly, I improved from hyper-suck to mondo-suck.
posted by dirigibleman at 8:00 PM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I like:

1) Breakdancing
2) Beatboxing
3) Covers
4) Cultural and musical Mashups

And yet I still turned this off after 30 seconds.

Blech!
posted by bpm140 at 11:18 PM on January 20, 2008

12 frames a second isn't enough for most things breakdancing.
posted by asok at 4:46 AM on January 21, 2008