[ed. Here's another amazing performance on the guzheng, very similar to the gayageum: Gorillaz - Hong Kong (Demon Days Live)]
At first, traditional Korean musician Luna Lee was like most others. She never associated the gayageum, a twelve-string instrument used for royal court music, with the guitar, let alone the electrified riffs of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Then a friend turned her on to the blues.
Since then, the young musician has surprised the world with jaw-dropping performances of iconic Hendrix tunes and other songs, putting a hip spin on the old instrument, which is often compared to a zither.
In March, her version of Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)” went viral after it was detected by Internet sites such as Reddit and publications such as Guitar World. Over 2 million YouTube hits later, Lee says the response will spur her efforts to keep the gayageum relevant.
“I’m so appreciative for all the feedback from around the world,” she said in an interview near Hongik University in Seoul. “It makes me want to try harder.”
Lee, who graduated from the Korean National University of Arts several years ago, began experimenting with the blues after a guitarist friend introduced her to “Tender Surrender,” one of Vaughan’s best-known songs.
“Before that I didn’t know much about guitar or band music. But listening to it made me realize that the gayageum is similar to the guitar and can blend well with guitar music,” she said.
“Gayageum has a technique called nong-hyun, which is quite similar to bending on the guitar. But nong-hyun can go further — it really has a dynamic range. This makes the gayageum perfect for playing the blues.”
Korean traditional instruments can hit certain pitches that “cannot be defined in Western scales,” Lee added, allowing her to catch all the nuances of blues guitar.
by Kim Young-jin, Korea Times | Read more:
