William Childress

Incoming Director of Music at Chattanooga Charter School of Excellence

John Barnes Chance’s Variations on a Korean Folk Song (1965) is one of the most popular and influential pieces for wind band. Multiple pieces have been inspired by this work, for example, Bruce Fraser’s Variations on a Scottish Folk Song (1999). Chance’s Variations is considered a part of the wind band canon through its presence on the repertoire lists of twenty-three states in the US (J. W. Pepper and Son n.d.). The piece has an award-winning history including the Sousa/Ostwald Award in 1966, an extremely prestigious award in wind band composition. However, we must look towards the 1950s to better understand the significance of Chance’s arrangement.

From 1958 to 1959, John Barnes Chance was a young United States Army Band member and stationed in Seoul during the Korean War. While stationed in Seoul, he heard “Arirang,” one of Korea’s most popular folk songs, which inspired Variations. “Arirang” has been admitted twice to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, once by South Korea in 2012 and once by North Korea in 2014 (UNESCO n.d.). Interestingly, Chance is not the first to come up with the idea of variations on this song, as UNESCO estimates that there are over 3,600 variations across genres (UNESCO 2012). The song has had over one thousand years to be changed by arrangers (Belknap Press 2003). According to Japanese musicologist Kusano Taeko, there are multiple versions of “Arirang” across space and time that incorporate aspects of local color to produce different melodies. These changes are far spread, but have one thing in common: the refrain “arirang, arirang, arariyo.” Across the different versions of “Arirang,” these lyrics remain the same regardless of rhythm or melody (Atkins 2007). Chance could have heard the version known in the more provincial parts of Korea as the “Kyonggi-do Arirang.” During the late 1920s, this version became prominent in Seoul as a way of protesting the 1910 Japanese forces that were invading Korea and continued to occupy the country until Japan’s defeat in World War Two in 1945.

Looking at the tradition that Chance contributed to, Western art music is largely dictated by equal temperament. There is a significant difference between equal temperament, a method of tuning where the twelve pitches in an octave are divided into twelve equal parts, and Sambunsonik Method (삼분손익법), where the octave is divided into the twelve pitches using ratios and is best demonstrated on a single string. The equal temperament method has been used in Europe and Asia from at least 1605 and 1580 (Steven n.d.; Hart n.d.). While this is far from the most important aspect of cultural exchange in this piece, as this type of exchange has happened multiple times, this is still a factor that contributes to a change on the part of the wind band arrangement.

On a different note, the harmonic structures between the two systems differ greatly. This particular vein of Korean folk music, including “Arirang,” uses a pentatonic scale without half steps (Tokumaru and Witzleben 2002). Indeed, this is different than the version for wind band, which includes many harmonizations of the melody; see for example measure 190, shown through the piccolo part below in Fig. 1, which has flute, piccolo, oboe, E♭ clarinets, B♭ clarinets 1, 2, and 3, E♭ alto clarinet, E♭ alto saxophone, and B♭ tenor saxophone all play heavily modal ascending scales. There are also many key changes through the entire piece. These simply would not have existed anywhere in the original folk tune.The most obvious difference is that the original folk song is most often sung or played on traditional Korean instruments, such as the gayageum elaborated upon below, rather than played on clarinets and euphonium.

Common to Western art music, the melody is moved around and displaced based on the ensemble playing the piece. Especially in high school settings, where most band music is made in the present day, there are far more or fewer players than are called for on a given piece. Regardless of the number of players on a given piece, there are vast differences between the Chance and folk versions. “Arirang” has been sung or played by many vocalists and instrumentalists regardless of the type of instrument. It is important to remember, however, that these instruments are not simply different ways of playing the same pitches. Most Korean instruments used in folk performances heavily feature the ability to pitch bend as well.

Korean folk instruments include zithers like the gayageum or 가야금, which have been used in Korea for centuries. Made from a single piece of wood, this zither traditionally has silk strings that are played by plucking the instrument with the fingers. In a typical wind band, there is nothing like the gayageum. Thus, the sound is lost in translation from folk song to wind band. When any music is translated to a different medium, musicians risk losing the sounds that make this music unique and this is especially important when dealing with marginalized groups. While Korean music is far from a universal monolith, this does not change the fact that these instruments are most likely the sounds that Chance would have heard when he transcribed the original melody. This can be an issue when trying to have a direct exchange between the two soundscapes, as there is a chance of simplifying and stereotyping instrumental sounds to fit the Western wind band sound. Aside from this, educators must consider the ethics of translation and cultural representation. In this globalized world, there is no excuse to not demonstrate some of the sounds in Korean folk music.

One of the most obvious variations between Chance’s version and the folk melody is the inclusion of lyrics. In his doctoral dissertation, Hyunjin Park provides the Korean lyrics of the chorus on the left with the English translation on the right (Park 2011):

아리랑 아리랑 아라리요

아리랑 고개를 넘어간다

나를 버리고 가시는 님은

십리도 못 가서 발병난다.

Arirang arirang arariyo

I am walking over the Arirang Hill

He who leaves me, with me behind

Will have trouble with his feet in no far 

distance.

These lyrics add a new depth to the piece, especially when one takes into account the cultural meaning behind the rest of the song. In Seoul, the piece represents past struggles. As previously mentioned, this was used in the 1920s to comment on the Japanese invasion, specifically in a film also titled Arirang. “Arirang” is a song that has immense cultural importance to the people of Korea. Its existence as a tale of hardship is extremely important to the context of the piece and should be contextualized when performing Chance’s Variations on a Korean Folk Song. 

With all of this information known, what is the actual problem that is being addressed? The problem is that the broader Korean historical and cultural context of “Arirang” in the piece Variations on a Korean Folk Song often gets lost in the transition from Seoul to the instruments of young musicians. This is to the detriment of the performers and preservation of Korean culture. The lack of ethnography that was done by Chance, or at the very least put into Chance’s arrangement, is the root cause of this. To be clear, it is not that one is not allowed to arrange music from other countries, but that one cannot excuse the lack of ethnography that goes into these arrangements.

There is a long history of educators in America using folk songs to teach music to children. NAfME (National Association for Music Educators) member Christa Jones said during the NAfME 2021 PreK–12 Learning Collaborative in February 2021 that using folk music in class. “increase[s] the cultural relevance of my music curriculum so my students could better connect the musical skills and concepts they learned at school with the music they knew from home.” This includes “Arirang,” along with the rest of the folk songs presented in music classes. With America being a mixture of cultures, it is important that we not only include European classical traditions but also Korean folk music. There are multiple solutions that band directors can use when teaching and rehearsing Variations on a Korean Folk Song. 

First, instructors can have the students write the English lyrics above the melody line. This allows the performers to understand the meaning behind the music they play. However, there are a couple of issues with this. The most obvious is that students will not be able to do this if they do not have the melody line in their music. The second problem is that the original lyrics are in Korean, not English. This means that an extra layer of translation to the lyrics would make things more difficult. 

Second, instructors and students should familiarize themselves with Korean folk music styles. They can begin by studying UNESCO’s recordings of “Arirang” to best understand the Seoul style. Also, they can consult the online version of the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, specifically chapter five of the seventh volume, which focuses on Korea (UNESCO n.d.; Tokumaru and Witzleben 2002). Furthermore, when talking about Chance’s Variations, it is important to include a conversation about pitch bending, as this would be borderline impossible to include in the modern wind band setting. Other stylistic pieces can be included or at least communicated to the students for inspiration.

Third, the most direct way to show the cultural impact of this piece would be to bring in a local Korean musician. In a public school setting, this would require much set-up ahead of time, but young musicians would greatly benefit from this experience. As most ethnomusicologists know, experts on the folk music of a specific place are the people who have lived in that culture and environment. These people have trained in this environment for years to hone their crafts as musicians, and educators should be utilizing these resources as much as possible to ethically teach music, especially if it is not of their own culture. 

By implementing these strategies in the classroom, students will acquire a greater cultural understanding of the piece. It is very difficult to perform any music well without knowing its context, and this holds for “Arirang.” Students studying Chance’s Variations should consider the cultural context of this melody when practicing and performing the work. In my opinion the point of musicologists and ethnomusicologists is to better inform musicians about the musical world around them. A student might play the melody with more conviction knowing the meaning of the lyrics to the song, just the same as a conductor might conduct the opening section of the piece differently knowing the context of the same lyrics. This is why the study and the diffusion of this information to students, conductors, and band directors alike is extremely important.

Educators have a responsibility to educate ethically, especially when it comes to children within such a personal medium as music. I do not advocate for the ceasing of teaching this piece in schools. However, I do advocate for the ethical teaching of Chance’s Variations. There are many ways that music educators should acknowledge and educate their students on music theory, instrumentation, and lyrical content of the original “Arirang.”

References

Atkins, E. Taylor. 2007. “The Dual Career of ‘Arirang’: The Korean Resistance Anthem That Became a Japanese Pop Hit.” The Journal of Asian Studies 66, no. 3: 645–87. 

Chance, James Barnes. 1967. Variations on a Korean Folk Song. Boosey & Hawkes.

Hart, Roger. n.d. “Quantifying Ritual: Political Cosmology, Courtly Music, and Precision Mathematics in Seventeenth-Century China.” Departments of History and Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin. Accessed January 10, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20120305174643/http://rhart.org/papers/quantifying.html.

Harvard University Press. 2003. “East Asia.” In The Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4th ed., 273. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

J.W. Pepper and Son. n.d.  “State and Festival Lists.” State and Festival Lists | J.W. Pepper Sheet Music. Accessed December 13, 2022. https://www.jwpepper.com/sheet-music/services-state-festival.jsp.

J.W. Pepper and Son. n.d.  “Variations on a Korean Folk Song.” Variations on a Korean Folk Song by John Barnes C | J.W. Pepper Sheet Music. Accessed December 13, 2022. https://www.jwpepper.com/Variations-on-a-Korean-Folk-Song/153544.item#.Y5jUZXbMJPY.

Jones, Christa. “NAfME 2021 PreK–12 Learning Collaborative in February 2021.” In NAfME. Accessed June 8, 2024. https://nafme.org/blog/step-by-step-songbook-connecting-students-home-and-school-musical-experiences/. 

Lee, Sang Oak. 2008. Korean Language and Culture, 141. Seoul, Korea: Sotong.

Park, Hyunjin. 2011. “Korean Arirang: History, Genres, and Adaptations in Edward Niedermaier's ‘Arirang Variations.’”

Steven, Simon. 1605. “Van De Spiegheling Der Singconst (Manuscript Ca. 1605).” Edited by Rudolf Rasch. Van De spiegheling der singconst. Accessed January 10, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20110717015203/http://diapason.xentonic.org/ttl/ttl21.html.

Tokumaru, Yoshihiko, and John Lawrence Witzleben. 2002. “Folk Song in Korea.” In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music 7, Vol. 7, 914-923. New York, NY: Routledge.

UNESCO. n.d. “UNESCO - Arirang, Lyrical Folk Song in the Republic of Korea.” Intangible Cultural Heritage. Accessed March 13, 2023. https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/arirang-lyrical-folk-song-in-the-republic-of-korea-00445.

UNESCO. n.d. “UNESCO - Browse the Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices.” Intangible Cultural Heritage. Accessed December 13, 2022.