Sophilicity

Getting into the rhythm of blogging more during my free times before and after work, and I think I also have a better idea of post content - Let me know what you guys think!

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Talking about opportunities, I gained an amazing opportunity last month to be able to work on the production of two Korean music videos. You may ask, how did I get this opportunity? Well, I was lucky enough to be suggested by one of my friends at K-Online Television (Don't forget to check out their new web series teasers "To Korea, With Love" here), thinking I would be a suitable candidate. Originally, I was thinking of offering the role to other friends, but decided I would probably regret missing such an opportunity - And I'm glad I decided to opt into helping out!


If you hadn't already read the title of this blog post, then I'll have to let you know that one of the artists who I was assisting in their MV was none other than DAZE. Just for my readers, I'll give you guys a little background information on him. DAZE is an artist under Unique Tunes Records. He first released his debut EP called "Young Love" on December 6th, 2016, in which he had composed, programmed and wrote all the songs himself. Following his first debut EP, he released his second EP called "Friday" on April 13th, 2017. He was born on February 22nd, 1993 (making him currently 24 years old (International Age)) under the name of Gil Min Woo. The concept of his music can be described as "Chill-Out R'n'B" and his music has been compared to a combination of DEAN and Heize (I found this funny because DEAN + Heize = DAZE). Check out his tracks below varying from his debut EP "Young Love" to his 2nd EP "Friday".

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For this particular production, we produced his debut MV for the song "Friday". His song "Friday" signifies his relationship with a girl. The day, Friday is considered a meaningful day, a day in which all his memories are reminiscent. Friday was their special day, and every Friday since his breakup he looks back to those memories time and time again. I really enjoyed listening to this song, it was a song I couldn't get sick of despite how much I'd listened to it over and over again.

For the MV, I only worked on the studio parts of the MV due to my work schedule. I mainly focused on lighting and did some minor directing for some of the shots. I think the one thing we were worried about during the production was the language barrier, as DAZE was only able to speak Korean although he understood a bit of English. Fortunately, Hyungmin (the executive producer at Unique Tunes Record) helped translate instructions along with Ray Hill (from KIMOXAVI).

Behind the scenes of DAZE's (@daze_0222) upcoming "Friday" MV ~ Stay tuned for his 2nd ep and MV release. - ⭐️ 13 April 2017 ⭐️ - Don't forget to check out @sp.ry the crew behind the MV - it's been amazing working with them for this production ☺️

A post shared by Sophia Tang 🐼 (@sophilicity) on Apr 5, 2017 at 4:45am PDT

It was quite a simple set up done in a photography studio in Hammersmith. We had two lights focused on DAZE with the main camera placed in between. Despite the minimal amount of equipment used in the shoot, I appreciated the various low-budget techniques which we used for the production. I hope that within the future we will be able to upgrade and produce bigger productions with better equipment and more.

The final MV only featured a minimal amount of studio shots, you can find them at "2:18-2:39". Check out the final production below:



Also, I am so happy to find that the MV has reached over 100,000 views in less than a week! You can also find my name being credited in the description box for lighting and as a special thanks from the UK ^^

Don't forget to check out the Director's cut which has recently been released!



Overall, it has been lovely working with Unique Tunes Records for this production. A special thanks to DAZE, Ray Hill and Fatal Dope (of KIMOXAVI), the executive producer, Hyungnim Kim (of Unique Tunes Records), our lovely director and cameraman, Maisie Duff and Michael East (of SP.RY Productions) and of course, Freya Bigg of UnitedKpop. You've all made my time during this production an amazing experience, thank you for your kindness and I will never forget it!

Don't forget to follow DAZE for updates on his latest tracks and more. Just follow/like/subscribe and more below:
DAZE's Soundcloud
DAZE's Facebook
DAZE's Instagram

Thanks for reading! Tune in next time, to find out about the second Korean MV I worked on last month!

Better late than never right? I'd been meaning to post about this concert for ages but so many things were in the way and not gonna lie... Procrastination was one of the causes,.. LOL.

But in all seriousness, this was actually the first K-HipHop concert I went to watch, and personally I'd actually not known much about Sik-K before. However, after the concert I found myself quite addicted to some of his songs, and actually got into K-HipHop in general after the concert.

So just a little bit from me to you about Sik-K!

I'd actually came to know about Sik-K more after I attended the concert. Some of you may recognise him from the TV show, Show Me The Money. He participated in the 4th season (which I have yet to finish). Sik-K is most known for being a member of Yelows Mob and is otherwise recognised under the name "Young Hot Yellow".

Last year, on the 20th of July, he released his debut album, FLIP which gained a lot of attention amongst the K-HipHop scene. He has also collaborated with various artists ranging from Jay Park (Alone Tonight) to Gaeko (Ring Ring).

Moving onto Yelows Mob, you will find that this crew is compiled of various members including Sik-K. The main members of the crew can be found tagged below:

#yelowsmobbin

A post shared by YELOWS MOB (@yelowsmob_official) on Nov 27, 2016 at 2:28am PST

From what I know, the crew includes the Groovy Room producers (Park Gyujeong (otherwise known as GroovyPark) and Lee Hwimin), the twins, Jung Sungmin and Jung Gwangmin, Sik-K, Mac Kidd, Lee Gwangmin (model), Naeezy, Baek Jaehoon and Lee Thomas.

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As for the concert. I was fortunately able to have an opportunity to work as press via my blog. I got to see Sik-K and Yelows Mob during an exclusive press opportunity before the concert. They were really cool guys, but whilst I was waiting to see them, I managed to feature in KpopSteve's video vlog of the concert! You can find me at from 0:40 to 0:45, just check out below:



One thing I had to say in regards to the organisation of the concert was the fact, usually for press, you have the opportunity to stand at the front to take photos, but because of the venue, Dingwalls, we were placed on the sides of the concert which made it quite difficult to take photos. Also, I found that the press area wasn't only for press, as people could easily just walk up and stand in the area. It wasn't exclusive and by the end of it, I sort of just gave up trying to take photos or film. I mainly focused on filming the event rather than taking photos as it was quite difficult to take photos. You can check out the video clips below (PS: I apologise if the sound is a bit dodgy):

Sik-K - Rendezvous



Mac Kidd - OMG




Sik-K x Mac Kidd - Baby We Are




Sik-K x Mac Kidd - Bravo



Mac Kidd - Ice Hoe




Sik-K x Mac Kidd - Act Different



Sik-K - Cha Cha



Sik-K - Don't Play




Sik-K - Habibi



I can't remember whether I stated this before, but I'll just mention it again. This is my own personal opinion, but I really disliked the fact that people were shoving phones up in Sik-K's face. He wasn't able to have his own personal space and at one point nearly fell off the stage. I thought this was incredibly dangerous and the fact that the fans could not respect his performance but felt the need to constantly have phones in face - Yes, I understood I filmed the performances, but to be able to be up close to an artist should be lucky enough. Sigh...

On a more positive note, despite not knowing much about Sik-K before this concert, I really enjoyed his music. My personal favourites was his performance of Rendevous, Habibi and Don't Play from his FLIP album. I have also developed a liking of his song "Alcohol"... I feel it has a very relevant effect in my lifestyle these past months, and even the MV itself describes the state of the alcohol... Too well... I'll link the video below for you to understand aha!



I think if I ignored all the other negative aspects, I would have to say I really appreciated the music. Sik-K creates an awesome performance and I'm glad I was able to attend his concert!

Thank you for reading! I hope I'll have another opportunity to see Sik-K and Yelows Mob live after having the opportunity to listen to more of their productions. Hopefully I'll be able to update soon!~

So I've been telling myself these days that I should really get back to blogging, but I've been trying to decide on the kind of content which would be easy to write about on a regular basis. Would anyone be interested in a weekly post about the dramas and music I've been watching and listening to? I've been trying to accommodate work life, social life and more, but it's been more difficult than I had thought... Sorry for the inactivity-- RIP.

Moving on! Last month, I attended a clubbing event hosted by Young Bros in London. I've been to a couple of K-Pop clubbing events in London however this particular concept interested me a lot. The concept was formed of two different aspects: 

1. Touch Me Concept

2. Traffic Light Party

The "Touch Me" concept was basically completed through the use of stickers. Once you entered the event, after you claimed your wristband (I'll explain the wristband concept in a moment), you would walk down the flight of stairs where you could pick up stickers from the table available. There was various stickers available, but the main ones were the "kiss me" stickers or the "touch me" stickers. Although this concept may seem questionable as such, there were rules implemented to avoid any harassment. I remember seeing different groups of friends and each time they would be sticking more stickers on me, but the stickers themselves kept falling off at times... Although... I remember coming back home and each consecutive day after the party, I would find a new sticker from my outfit... Oh dear...

Moving on to the "Traffic Light Party" concept, Earlier on I was talking about receiving wristbands at the entrance. As you walk in, you can opt between 3 different types of wristbands. This is to represent your relationship status. I thought these were cool, but the problem with these wristbands were that they were hidden in the dark. For those wearing long sleeves, it might also be difficult to see the wristbands, and I'm sure a heard a few people being hit on despite the colour of their wristband (but then again... I'm sure this happens a lot anyways...). As a suggestion, I feel like they should implement the use of glowstick wristbands as they would be more prominent in the dark unlike the wristbands. 

Onto the actual clubbing experience! I arrived at the club around 11:30PM/12AM, and already the place was quite packed, but throughout the night, I found it very difficult to move throughout the venue. The popularity of the event was unreal! There was a lot of music played which I enjoyed ranging from popular K-Pop hits to K-HipHop additions. The music choices played throughout the night were one's which you could dance to (I've had issues in the past where DJs have played songs which are very difficult to dance to, so I'm glad they considered this) - heads up to the DJs! However, I found by the end of the night, they were playing upbeat songs. By this time, majority of us were drained from dancing all night so I'd hoped for slightly more chill songs to end the night.


As for the venue, I appreciated the size of the venue despite how many people there were. Drinks were quite expensive at the Opal Bar so I'm glad I made a decision to predrink, although at the end there was quite a lot of bottles being distributed around due to not hitting the minimum spend limit.



I personally enjoyed the night more as people started leaving, as I was able to actually dance. It was a struggle trying to be aware of not hitting someone whilst dancing or having to stop dancing to let someone through.. I feel there should of been a tighter restriction on how many people were allowed in, as it could be quite uncomfortable at times just trying to squeeze past or even dance.

A post shared by Sophia Tang 🐼 (@sophilicity) on Mar 20, 2017 at 5:29am PDT

However, I was thankful to be able to see all my friends at the club, it was definitely an event which many people wanted to go to. I even found myself reuniting with old friends and more.

Thank you to Young Bros for providing us lit tunes to dance to with an awesome concept, and Opal Bar for your service! It was my second time at a Young Bros event and my first time at Opal Bar and I appreciated it very much! PS: Thank you for the photos!

Don't forget to subscribe to Young Bros for upcoming events! They provide clubbing events around Europe from the UK to Poland to Germany and more~ Check out the links below!

Young Bros Facebook
Young Bros Instagram
Young Bros Website

Thank you for reading! And I hope to be posting much more soon!~

If anyone of you actually remember, I took part in the 10th K-Pop Academy programme late September 2016! Sorry for such a long hiatus but I didn't think it would be right to leave a blog series incomplete~

I was actually really looking forward to taking part into class. I've had various opportunities to try out a hanbok before if I'm perfectly honest, I've actually known much about it.

Injoo Lee, founder of Moon Lee artwear presenting us a lecture about K-Fashion (Hanbok). Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

 The class this time was taken by Injoo Lee, a London-based contemporary womenswear designer. She founded a brand for herself called Moon Lee artwear, which was established in 2015.

You can check out some of her designs and works below:

https://www.moonleeartwear.com/

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Moving onto the class~ Let me give you guys a bit of information which I gathered from this class!

What is Hanbok?
Hanbok is the traditional clothing for Koreans as is acknowledged as the beautiful, cultural treasure of Korean. "Hanbok" means "Korean clothing" and has a history of over 16000 years.

What is the Hanbok composed of?
For women, the basic composition of the hanbok is the jeogori (‎저고리) which refers to the top, along with a chima (치마) which refers to the skirt.

For men, the basic composition of the hanbok is similar to the women however instead of a chima, the jeogori is paired with a baji (바지). The baji refers to trousers.

Other additions to the women's hanbok can include the daenggi (댕기) which is a traditional Korean ribbon added to the end of a women's braided hair. Along with the norigae (노리개) which is a typical Korean accessory added to chima (치마). It can also be attached to the goreum (‎고름) of the jeogori (저고리) which are the coat strings.

Whilst other additions for the men's hanbok can include the gat (갓) which is traditional hat worn along with the hanbok - although this was only seen to be worn during the Joseon period. It was restricted to only men who had passed their gwageo (과거) exams. These were the civil servant examinations which took place during the Goryeo and Joseon eras. Men were also seen to wear durumagi (두루마기), which is an overcoat, worn over as the top-most layer for their hanboks. In current times, the durmagi (두루마기) is usually worn for formal occasions.

Lee Junki wearing a gat (갓) along with his hanbok - Did anyone watch him in Moon Lovers: Scarlet Ryeo? The feels-

History of Hanbok
The baji (바지) was usually worn by men and the chima (치마) by women, however in mural paintings dating back to the Gorguyeo (otherwise known as Goryeo) kingdom shows that there is no distinct difference in the hanbok between the sexes.

During the Goryeo kingdom, as a result of the influence from nearby Mongolia, traditional design of jeogori (‎저고리) underwent a change, adopting shorter lengths and narrower sleeves.

Whilst in the Joseon kingdom, women's jeogori (‎저고리) in particular were being worn shorter and tighter than previous periods - a decisive turning point leading to the gradual transformation of the hanbok.

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Lesson over!! Did you learn something new today?

The variety of hanbok pieces available for us to choose. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

After our lecture, we were shown a demonstration on how to wear a hanbok. Our lecturer for the day, Injoo Lee selected candidates from the audience to show us. We had Charley and Yi-Ling for the girls, and Michael for the boys - although Michael was the only boy in our class but that doesn't mean he didn't receive just as much love... Even more to be honest aha!

Charley wearing the women's hanbok. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

Michael wearing the men's hanbok. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

Once the demonstrations were completed, we all headed off to pick our hanboks. The group who worn last week's contest (where we had to perform Arirang as a group, the best performance was awarded first choice of the hanboks the following week) headed up to pick their hanboks. Then the rest of us went to collect our hanboks and get dressed!

Irena getting ready in her hanbok with Marta assisting her. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Of course we all had to have a photo session with all of the students aha! From selfies to photographer moments, it was a great laugh! -cough- time for a selfie spam -cough-

The previous week, we were all given plain fans to go home and design, so as you can see, me and Jamila decided to design our fans, mine with cherry blossoms with my name written in Hangul, whilst Jamila designed hers with various women in different hanbok styles.

Me and Lisa - Lisa ended up wearing a men's hanbok because they ran out of women hanboks aha!

Me and Kira, also wearing a men's hanbok - but that jawline tho- ahaha

Group selfie, featuring Kira, Drew, Yi-Ling, Lisa and myself!

Natasha, Yi-Ling and myself! Yi-Ling wore a royal robe from the demonstration, but she's gone without her crown and wig in this picture aha! I heard it was quite heavy...

And of course, we did take a couple pictures which show our outfits better!

I'm sure whenever I wear a hanbok I'm usually attempting not to trip over the skirt...

Top row (L-R): Irena and Jamila Bottom row (L-R): Zeinab, Lisa and myself.

After our own individual photo sessions, the staff made us split into two halves and form a catwalk. We each went up and walked the catwalk with our hanboks and as we got to the end, we were made to pose for the camera. For some of us, like myself, we dragged another to walk the catwalk with us aha! I decided to walk with Lisa~

Yass Jamila~~ Slay gurll!! Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

On the other hand... Me and Lisa were in laughing fits that we couldn't even do the catwalk properly... And although this wasn't captured, we ended our catwalk with a straight dab LOL. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

After the catwalks were complete, we proceeded to get individual pictures taken of our hanboks. I'm gonna post my squad's photos ahaha!

I couldn't find a picture for Kira, but this one is on pointe!!! Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Lisa being cute and sending her hearts to you ahahaha. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Tasha wearing her elegant black hanbok~ Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Deciding between two pictures of Drew was a struggle aha! She's looking super cute in this! Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Jamila constantly looking amazing in her hanbok along with her fan~ Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Last but not least, myself~ You can't really see my hanbok properly because I blocked it with my fan like an idiot lmao. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Ahahaha although there's quite a few of us caught off guard, this group are such a lovable bunch, this picture pretty much summarises a lot of our characters a lot! Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

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Homework of the Week!

I hope you enjoyed my next blog entry! I'm nearly half-way through my blog series~ Next up, K-Cuisine! Check back soon, to read more~ Thank you for reading!

I completely went on a hiatus over these past couple of months, but I didn't think it would be right to leave my blog forever... I was planning to go straight back into blogging but it's been so long I didn't know how to throw myself back again! But don't worry I actually have so many posts coming for you! I promise you I haven't died guys - Well not just yet... OTL

(I mean if this guy hasn't probably tried to kill me everyday - Yeah ready to expose myself, I am a BIG fan of Jungkook from BTS (-cough- T R A S H -cough-) - RIP when he performed Rainism for the End of Year shows :))) Why is life so hard... If you haven't seen the performance imma link it here because I appreciate... and when I say appreciate, I mean APPRECIATE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WOxFTrFw70)

Anyways... My last blog post was late October... Jesus it's been at least 5 months- But I think I'm going to go back to being more personal so my writing style might change a tad bit for you guys to get more personal with me and my life!

How about a little insert of my life from me to you?

I'll try to keep this short as I can because I don't want to spoil too much of the content for my upcoming posts aha!! (By the way, I say short, but my short is on another level...)

OCTOBER

If any of you guys have been reading, I was attending the K-Pop Academy at the Korean Cultural Centre in London (Damn I seriously need to catch up with that blog series... Got a bit lazy there didn't I-- RIP - Seriously, they've already started the 11th K-Pop Academy and here I am...). 

Moving on... I also had a chance to attend the Sik-K concert in London ran by Beatcraze. I went as press and managed to get some pretty cool footage - So hopefully you'll be seeing a blog post about that soon!!

I'd also managed to attend a dance show ran by DGC! I was working as a photographer at the time and it was a pretty lively experience - I'd actually never been to one of their dance shows before but the talent shown, there were some phenomenal performances! You can check out my FB album with all the photos I took from the show - just click the link below:

DGC Dance Show Photography

Did you also know, that there have been numerous K-Pop/K-Hip Hop nights going around in London. I managed to attend my first one in October located in Surya! Hosted by Arpeggios Entertainment (the company who brought MYNAME and HISTORY to London!). It's been amazing so far, to subscribe to more of these nights (unfortunately you've got to be 18+ - Sorry young ones!), check out the links below to find out more~

Young Bros Facebook Page

Asian Nights London Facebook Page

And of course, I took the opportunity to go to Comic Con in October. There's not much I can say about it since I've attended lots of times, but it never fails to be filled with numerous cosplays and many attendees aha~

NOVEMBER

If I'm honest, I spent majority of this month just working as I was preparing to leave to South Korea at the end of the month, however I did manage to do a couple of things this month... I mean other than eating-

Remember K-Pop Academy? Well, I actually graduated from the academy in this month but along with the graduation I also got to attend the K-Pop Friends Reunion hosted by the KCC. (I will take the chance to explain more when I get round to finishing my K-Pop Academy blog series... Eventually...)

2 days before D-Day (aka. my flight to Korea) I actually got to attend a concert in London! I think this actually had to be the first concert... Which I actually paid for... LOL. But I got to see CRUSH live! Unfortunately it was the second date - I cry, I heard DEAN and Miso etc. attended the first concert but I got the second date... Sad that the set was so short, but I got to appreciate CRUSH's voice - I was totally singing the entirety of "Don't Forget ft. Taeyeon", like CRUSH pass me the mic because I will sing the Taeyeon part for you :') I ended up on a binge of CRUSH songs after the concert aha...

Other than that, I actually left for South Korea for 2 weeks from the 30th of November - I was planning to excite you guys with a vlog but it failed after landing in Korea... However, I do have quite a few things to say and share with you regarding my trip to Korea - And thus another few blog posts to share with you guys~ But I'm gonna leave you with a little hint below regarding my Korea stories... Huehuehue...

DECEMBER

Let's be honest, I pretty much spent about 2 weeks of the first half of December in Korea - and do I regret it... Nah. It was lit, but more information soon...

Otherwise... I didn't actually do much in December without spoiling my trip to Korea-- But it was amazing either way... From drinking times to clubbing times to much food - Food is love, food is life.

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JANUARY

And thus after my trip from Korea... Did I become quite a party animal... I had the chance to check out the clubbing scene quite a bit around London, varying from Ministry of Sound to even clubs near home... Such as PRYZM.

OH! But I can say for one thing, later than ever, but HAPPY BELATED CHINESE/VIETNAMESE/LUNAR NEW YEAR! If you didn't know already, I'm actually half Vietnamese and half Chinese, so we celebrated the new Lunar New Year on the 28th of January - How did I spend it? I actually spent it Asian clubbing at a PlayKrown event-

The work life has been pretty hectic otherwise so that's probably my only excuse to my long hiatus for the lacking of blogging...

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FEBRUARY

I've actually had some pretty exciting opportunities during this month. And I can definitely say I've eaten pretty luxuriously as well - To think I finally managed to tick off another one of my food bucket list places, Duck and Waffle!

Throwback to Sunny's birthday celebration at Duck and Waffle ❤️ - The traditional Duck and Waffle dish is definitely a recommendation at £17 per portion. - #sophilicityeats

A post shared by Sophia Tang 🐼 (@sophilicity) on Feb 21, 2017 at 11:38am PST

I actually spent about 2 days working with some Korean artists who came all the way from South Korea, and it was an exciting experience which I hope to share more to you in the future~ I will definitely be sharing with you the music videos I helped create with an amazing team - Shoutout to Maisie and Michael especially! More information soon~ Hint: One of the artists has been compared as a mixture of DEAN and Heize! (Thus I feel I need to insert a song from them because their collabs are lit tbh-)

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MARCH

And here we are, hello March! I hope this can be the month were I will share with you all my experiences - Hopefully some of them can be exciting for you guys to read~

Thus... I will attempt to be more productive this month with my blogging and I hope you guys reading can deal with me a tad bit longer aha!~

How should I end it? How about something that you rarely see ever? A selfie -coughs- Instagram promotion -coughs- You should follow me tbh, I post lots of food -coughs-

A post shared by Sophia Tang 🐼 (@sophilicity) on Mar 2, 2017 at 3:48am PST

Aha I'm getting there I promise-- More like me writing up blogs at midnight because that's the best time my brain decides to productively function for blogs, but hey-ho! Although... My dad is questioning my ability to function and why I can't be "normal" and sleep early... Enough about me, moving onto Week 3 for K-Pop Academy!!

If I'm honest, I was quite hyped for this! Reason being is because I really enjoy singing as a hobby so I thought it would be a great chance to learn another genre of music. I heard the previous week that we would be singing and let's be honest... There were a lot of mixed responses aha...

I came to the class not knowing much about Korean traditional music other than Samulnori and the Gayageum. How do I know this? Well, I recently attended a Chuseok event where there was Samulnori performers which was very intriguing to watch. Also, I know about the Gayageum instrument because of the K-drama, "Heartstrings" featuring CNBLUE's Yonghwa and Minhyuk as well as Park Shin Hye. Although it may not be the best drama, I really enjoyed the characters and the fusion of modern band instruments with Korean traditional instruments. You can check out a clip of one of the Heartstring performances below:

Before I get side-tracked... Let's return back to the main purpose of the post aha...

Our lecture for this week was held by Anna Yates whom is a PhD student in Ethnomusicology from SOAS. Her assistant, Damiola Eniola has an MA in Musical and Performance Composition from SOAS. Damiola accompanied Anna during performances, playing the drum otherwise known as the "buk" in Korean. Anna taught us about the different Korean music types and much more. Here's a quick summary of what I gathered from my notes.

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

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SUMMARY

K-Traditional music is collectively known as Kugak.

Court music is determined as "elegant music". The musical instruments and melodies incorporated into court music were imported from China in the Tang (ehhh my surname) and Song dynasty. Usually, if there was a new king, thus began a new principle - meaning a new dynasty determined a change in the musical system.

Folk music, better known as "minyo" which means "folk song" were performed during work and play time. However folk music then led to professional performances on stage.
There are different sounds for different regions:
- Seodo minyo - nasal voice, wide vibrato
- Gyeonggi minyo - clear and clean voice (usually quite high)
- Namdo minyo - tight throat and chest resonance

Pansori is known as storytelling through song.
There are 5 core stories, which last up to 8 hours long.
Pansori has links to shamanism which originally was only for lower class entertainment however was later "upgraded" for nobility. This was completed through incorporating Chinese literacy references and philosophical ideas.
However, pansori requires long years of harsh training to be able to obtain the right voice.

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I hope you found that interesting to read. It's quite a lot for a "summary"... But being the person I am I have a tendency to write a lot... Even for a summary.. Oops.

Moving on, we began to learn how to perform the famous "Arirang" piece. However, there are many variations to Arirang, so we performed the "Jindo Arirang" from the Jindo County in South Jeolla province. We first had to learn the different tones varying from the core tone to vibrating tone. It was quite difficult but I think it really helped reading the music sheet and seeing where the notes were placed on the scale to see where a note needs to be dropped or held etc.

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

After we had learnt the gist of the piece, we all stood up and were all given a fan each. This was the prop we would be using to assist us with our performance.

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

After we had learnt how to incorporate hand gestures with our fans we began to split off into groups. The winning team would be awarded with an opportunity to pick hanboks first as we would be studying K-fashion the week after. I remember trying to loosen my fan so much by swinging it back and forth especially as one of the movements involved opening and closing the fan gracefully (after a week my fan was a lot easier to open and close but it wasn't when I needed it... T_T)

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

It was difficult trying to maintain the tones throughout the piece, I think a lot of us struggled with the first note for the verse. Or we had trouble trying to work out how long to hold certain notes whilst attempting to pronounce the Korean words in the Arirang piece.

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

Before we knew it, time had ran out and we were all getting seated to perform to one another. We were the last to perform despite debating when we should put ourselves up to perform. Either way, it was quite a fun performance! The winners had a special trump card for their performance, They decided to incorporate a wave effect by combining all their fans together which make it very unique from everyone else's. They definitely deserved to win, and their pronunciation and tones were on pointe!

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

I feel like as each week progresses, I can't help but regret not learning about this stuff before. It's never really boring. Although there's lots to content to take in, we always do some activities where we can try it for ourselves than just learn from listening to a lecture.

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Homework of the Week!

As for every week, we are given 3 options to choose from. For this week, I decided to create a pitch for a new K-Pop group that combines K-Pop trends with Korean historical traditions. This meant considering the instruments, to the outfits of the groups as well as reasons why this group would stand out amongst the rivals in the industry etc.

I actually stayed up till 4AM in the morning just completing this pitch... I think I got way too into drawing all the designs by hand which left all the writing content quite last minute... I created a K-Pop girl band called J2H otherwise known as Journey to Harmony.






Other than the homework we were given for Week 3. We were also given the option to design our fans that we were given from the lecture. I took this opportunity to use watercolour pencils to create a flowery design inspired by cherry blossoms. Funnily enough, I brought my fan to the next lecture and it ended up matching my hanbok - This was unintentional but you'll find out more about the hanboks in the next edition! I'm sure my mother was criticising me constantly for my fan design saying stuff like "oh the branches are too dark", "make the flowers brighter" etc...

I actually enjoyed the homework... This actually says a lot because for once I didn't feel like I was suffering whilst trying to do the homework. Maybe because it was a homework about a topic which I was interested in... Which I can't say so much for a lot of the subjects I studied in school...

I hope you enjoyed the 3rd edition of my K-Pop Academy series. If you have any queries or whatnot, feel free to comment below. If you're enjoying this series so far, I'd appreciate any thoughtful comments but anyways before it gets to sunrise, I will see you guys soon! Look forward to the next edition of the K-Pop Academy series, featuring K-Fashion (Hanboks)!

I apologise for my lack of blogging recently. A lot of stressful situations and jam-packed schedules led me to have a lack of time to post, let alone sleep... Which led to me becoming ill - What is life. Anyways, I'm back so I hope to catch up with my updates. Thanks for patiently waiting if you happen to be reading this aha.

Thus begins the second entry of my K-Pop Academy blog series. For this week, we went to King's College to have a lecture from Professor Jaehoon. He presented to us the History of Korean language, as well as theories in regards to the likeliness of Korean Language to other languages - e.g. The different theories, West, East, South and North (Altaic theory).

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

For someone who is currently in the process of learning Korean, I thought it was quite interesting to see how Hangul was developed. The most I knew was some of the Hangul characters before entering the class and that the creator of Hangul was King Sejong - I knew of this because I recently watched a short drama special called "Splash Splash Love" which I thought was pretty cute! Definitely check it out!! I'm not one to watch historical dramas but my friend recently introduced me to "Love in the Moonlight" featuring Park Bogum (literal bae) and I don't regret it, which led me to check out "Splash Splash Love"! If you have any other historical dramas to recommend, do comment below.

Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

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Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

To summarise what I wrote in Korean, it says:
"Hello! My name is Sophia. Thank you, Korean Cultural Centre UK! I love you!~ Beautiful Korea~"

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