Frank Kogan

Surprisingly (or maybe unsurprisingly), the genre didn’t exactly originate in Korea; rather, it was born in Japan from late 19th century protest songs and imported to Korea through a variety of channels. Japanese trot music, called enka, evolved largely in response to Meiji Japan’s call to modernize in the image of the era’s (supposedly more civilized) Euro-American powers; as such, it sought to incorporate more “modern” Western elements into traditional Japanese music in order to create modern pop music that was still palatable to a people unaccustomed to new sounds. Born from these efforts were the yonanuki major and minor scales ( Japanized adaptations of the pentatonic major and minor scales commonly employed in Western music — they are characterized by their lack of fourth and seventh degrees) as well as duple (1,2) rhythm borrowed from American foxtrot. As these musical elements made their way into Japanese music, so were they transmitted to the colonized people of Korea.