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In whatever city, it's too hard to discuss a city while leaving out 'music,' because in most cities I was able to see 'people making music.' 'London' had the fewest, relatively, but that doesn't mean London had none. It's just that in other cities like Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, and Copenhagen they were easier to see, so these places stick in my memory better. This time it's the story of the music I heard in Madrid.
'Madrid' was practically the last destination of my December vacation trip (one day in Paris and one day in London had no special meaning in the itinerary.. they were strongly a concept of 'a stopover'), so the memories of spending the 'year's end' in Madrid are unforgettable. Spending the new year abroad became a special experience....
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The first is a video I shot at the Madrid Palace. There were really many people making music that day, and the next video is footage of a 'musical ensemble.' If you look closely below, you'll see ensembles wearing black jackets/vests and trousers with white shirts underneath, symbolizing their identity through 'red'; they were playing 'traditional-ish' music, so I went over going 'nice' and watched. Of course that day too I was with William.
The music's content was roughly like this. A rat came to some particular space, and here a tiger comes too, and a snake comes, and a raccoon dog comes, and so on... I don't remember well. At any rate it's a story where various animals come to a 'space' one after another and who-and-who stays together with whom. It strongly shows the character of a 'folk song,' and like a narrative sijo, the song gradually grows through enumeration. So I listened partway and then went elsewhere.
What I felt while listening to the music was that the strange feeling of how the many Spanish speakers there (the citizens) also sang along together. So — the feel of the song is close to 'traditional,' yet they have a culture where people all sing such a song together like this, which I envied. Applying this to Korea: if a group wearing hanbok were performing like this in downtown Bukchon, downtown Seochon, downtown Myeong-dong, or near Deoksugung, people would all gather around and enjoy the performance together — but generally we 'enjoy together,' yet we don't really 'sing together,' which is why I say this. Would everyone sing along if Arirang were sung... of course older folks might sing along. Of course young people too would sing along to something like Arirang, but once when I happened to see someone performing a passage of 'Chunhyangga' at the chapel corner of the Mark Rothko exhibition at the Seoul Arts Center, there was none of that then. That is, no one properly knew Chunhyangga. Maybe if it were music from an opera like The Elixir of Love, someone might have sung along. But Chunhyangga's love song... (since I remembered having read Yeollyeo Chunhyang Sujeolga in full, the passages of the love song came to mind, so I blinked along after that person like a goldfish..) It's a shame. Compared to the figure of Korea, where interest in 'folk songs' is fading away, this scene that day was quite impressive to me.
'Enjoying culture' is something anyone can do, but the way of enjoying it was so different — that was the charm here in Spain. On top of that, for Spain, where the weather is very warm even in winter (western edge of the continent + a latitude close to the Mediterranean), the fact that even in midwinter the weather isn't that cold as long as the sun is out well is another merit... Even though 'Madrid' is one of the most urbanized cities in Europe, its population is under five million, and because most are people who originally live there, the sight of these people coming with family near the palace and singing together during the 'Christmas holiday' — which is of the same rank as the East's 'Lunar New Year' — is a part that contrasts a little with the state of the times in Korea, where it's hard to hear old songs in the countryside at Lunar New Year anymore.
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Is music really something only rich nations can do... that is, I think the bigger factor is a social atmosphere where music overall can't be done. This is an ensemble I met passing by Sol Square... looking at these people's faces, whatever the case they look over 40. The white-haired one feels probably over 50. I don't know by what history they came to be playing here. But in the sense that they too have the leisure to 'play,' I can't help but envy this nation's leisure a little..
Among the school classes I've been taking recently, I'm reminded of hearing something like this. Korea experienced rapid social change, and as that rapid social change took place simultaneously with a change in values, the 'breadth' for understanding differences between generations is too narrow. That's a fair statement. Korean society is undergoing in just about 50 years the changes other countries experienced over 130 years. So we're about 2.2 times faster than others, but if you ask whether people's pace of change keeps up with that, it seems it can't. They say it took France several hundred years to achieve 'tolerance'; if a single part of that culture took several hundred years, then for Korean society too, reaching the leisure where elderly people like that can play instruments outdoors will require even greater social change.
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Getting to watch a match at Santiago Bernabéu wasn't purely my own idea. Actually, during the trip I agonized a lot over whether to watch football or not, but since the older guy I went with was a Real Madrid fan, I ended up watching the match. The ticket price wasn't easy-going, but getting better seats was hard so I gave up... At any rate, 'Hala Madrid' is a cheering song made after Real Madrid won the Champions League for the 10th time. Seeing 80,000 people all singing this song together, the way the atmosphere overwhelmed you was no joke. I realized the power of these 'fans' is enormous. Especially when the fans of places with big stadiums like Real Madrid or Barcelona boo and when they cheer, those moments are really 'intense'.... I can't forget these songs that played as the match started.
5. As an aside, music and leisure
Since music and leisure just connect, I'll write a bit more and wrap up. I think 'leisure' is related to music. It's not a result I got by doing some quantitative study, but still, judging from my experience of getting around, 'music' is something very symbolic. Especially when you see people who've just come out to the street with a single instrument. The woman playing an instrument in Hamburg that I still remember, and the women who came to the Madrid plaza with just a single violin, were truly wonderful people. Of course there were a few people for whom this 'instrument playing' looked like it was for livelihood (whether it was really for livelihood, I have no way to know), and the people I met in Paris looked a bit more like it was for livelihood. (Of course let's make the Madrid stadium's Hala Madrid an exception.) The violin performances, cello performances, and harp performances I heard in Paris were all done by people who looked 'ordinary,' and apart from the ensemble performance I heard in Spain, whether accordion or glass bottles, they were all done by 'ordinary' people. Music isn't something only a 'special person' must do. Anyone can do it. I liked the music that ordinariness gives. It's not that I dislike music done by special people in halls or small theaters, but the feeling of music given by 'ordinariness' and the 'street' was the kind of music I could place in the 'seat next to me' that I really think about in everyday life.
That's why music in travel is valuable.
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