P’ansori is a Korean folk music tradition consisting of just a singer and a drummer, performing for up to 8 hours (but usually just 3 to 6 hours). It’s similar to opera in some ways, particularly the focus on storytelling, but with a sharp contrast in terms of the singers’ voices. P’ansori singers are prized for their rough, raspy voices, which they win through incredibly intense training that is said to result in bleeding vocal cords (you can read about that training here, pages 98 to 100; in short, p’ansori singers try to drown out waterfalls). In addition, p’ansori singers improvise based on the text of the story they are singing from the canon of p’ansori songs; as a result, different singers have very different approaches to performing the same story. I should probably stop writing about this and just show you a video of p’ansori.

See you all at practice,

Lev “I am so sorry if I got anything wrong in my description of p’ansori, I wanted to give a faithful introduction to the art but the best sources are in Korean” Bernstein

Secretary, Quiz Bowl at the Palace of the Dragon King of Namhae, 2003-2021