Sanjo

Sanjo 산조. Musical practice involving a solo melodic instrument accompanied by the janggu. The melodic element comes from folk music, influenced by pansori and shamanic music. It was originally created for the gayageum, and is today practised on instruments such as the ajaeng, daegeum, danso, geomungo, haegeum and the piri. While sanjo literally means “scattered melodies”, its structure consists of an uninterrupted progression of melodies over a chain of rhythmical patterns configured from greater to lesser complexity, and from slower to faster tempo, a complete performance could take up to a full hour.