The buk is a traditional Korean drum. While the term buk is a native Korean word used as a generic term meaning "drum", it is most often used to refer to a shallow barrel-shaped drum, with a round wooden body that is covered on both ends with animal skin. Buk are categorized as hyeokbu which are instruments made with leather, and has been used for jeongak and folk music.
History
The buk used for court music are usually fixed with nails on the rims, while ones used for folk music are usually tied up with leather straps to form the shape. Performers in the court music usually beat their buk with bukchae on one hand or two hands together, while drummers in the folk music commonly beat their buk with it on their right hand as hitting the other side of the buk with their bare left hand. A while ago, even jong was referred to as "soebuk" and included in the buk category. Buk have been used for Korean music since the period of the Three Kingdoms of Korea in light of mural paintings in Anak Tomb of Goguryeo and records of Book of Sui on the kingdoms, Goguryeo and Baekje. In the 3rd of Anak Tomb, two types of buk are depicted in the paintings titled Juakdo and Haengryeoldo such as ipgo and damgo respectively. The ipgo is a buk that performers beat as standing, while the damgo is a buk that drummers strike as carrying it on their shoulder. During the Unified Silla period, daego or keunbuk, meaning "a big drum", was used along with a percussion instrument named bak in a music played by Samhyeon samjuk which comprises samhyeon, three string instruments such as geomungo, gayageum, and hyangbipa and samjuk such as daegeum, junggeumand sogeum. In the Goryeo period, as dangak and aak were introduced to Korea from China, a lot of buk such as janggu, gyobanggo, jingo began to be used for the court music. In the Joseon period, scores of buk were used for the royal court music including janggu, jwago, yonggo, gyobanggo, jingo, jeolgo, nogo and others. Among them janggu was also used for folk music, and later became the most commonly used instrument. While there are twenty types of buk used in the present Korean traditional music, most commonly used buk are jwago to perform Samhyeon yukgak, yonggo for marching music, gyobango for bukchum, beopgo for Buddhist ritual ceremonies, sogo used by Namsadang, and street musicians, soribuk or called gojangbuk for pansori, maegubuk used for nongak, and motbanggo used by farmers as working.
Usages
There are two forms of undecorated buk used in Korean folk music: the buk used to accompany 'pansori, which has tacked heads, is called a sori-buk, while the buk used to accompany pungmul music, which has laced heads, is called pungmul-buk. The sori-buk is played with both an open left hand and a stick made of birch that is held in the right hand, with the stick striking both the right drumhead and the wood of the drum's body. The pungmul-buk is one of the four instruments used in samul nori, a modern performance version of pungmul. It is played by striking a single stick on only one of its heads. Due to its similarity in shape and construction, the yonggo, which is a barrel drum with tacked heads decorated with painted dragon designs and used in the military wind-and-percussion music called daechwita, is sometimes also classified as a form of buk. It is struck with two padded sticks. A modern set of buk is called modeum buk. They are typically placed horizontally on wooden stands and played with sticks.
Types
Janggu or Janggo – A double-headed hourglass-shaped drum played with one stick in each hand, or with one stick and one hand
Galgo – Double-headed hourglass-shaped drum similar to the janggo but played with two sticks and thinner drum heads; sometimes called yanggo or yangjanggo; no longer commonly used
