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Kpop is perfect for
those looking for upbeat music and dancing but the only problem with listening
to Kpop is the language barrier. When my friend first told me about Kpop, I thought
my friend was weird for listening to music he didn’t even understand. Because I
thought listening to songs I didn’t understand was silly, I didn’t give Kpop a
chance until months later. Like myself, for those of us that cannot speak or
understand Korean, the most common question that would come up is “Why listen
to Kpop, when you can’t understand anything they are saying?”
Well, in my opinion I
think music is universal just like how facial expressions like “smiling” and “frowning”
is used to express that you are happy and sad all around the world. Kpop is
just like that form of expression. If you just listen to the tempo and the
artist’s voice, you can feel the emotions they are trying to portray without
even knowing what they are singing about. What the artist is portraying in the
song is the most important rather than the lyrics. For example, by just
listening to the song “I Wonder if you Hurt like me” by 2AM, you can hear a
soft piano playing in the instrumental as well as a slow beat telling you that
the song is about something sad. Compared
to the song "Lovin’ U" by Sistar, you can hear an upbeat tempo and cheerful
singing giving the impression that the song is a happy song.
Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL2AlXWVbKU
Although, knowing the
meaning of the lyrics sung in song is also very important, music should not be discriminated
against because of language. Karen Sprey and Thomas Fritz also believe that
music is a universal language, where anyone around the world will be able to
hear the same emotions from just a tempo of a song. Their belief can be proved
by a study performed by Fritz and Stefan Koelsch, where they brought together
members of the Mafa, who had no experience with Western music. Fritz and
Koelsch played Western music like instrumentals with different genres (jazz,
rock, and pop) to test if music is really a universal language. During the
study, the Mafa “could recognize emotional expressions of happiness, sadness,
and fear in the music more often than would be expected by chance.” The Mafa
had no experience with Western music but was still able to decipher the different
emotions of the song just from instrumentals and tone of voice.
The lyrics in Kpop songs may not make any sense
for those who cannot understand Korean but just like the Mafa in the study, we
are still able to figure out the emotion, the song is trying express. There is
nothing more important than how a song can move you even without words, which
has a more of an ability to move others emotionally. I hope that my post will
help you become open to all kinds of music from all around, not just Kpop. Not
being able to understand Korean or any other language should not be a reason for
not opening yourself to all different kinds of music like Kpop.
After watching/ listening to the songs "Lovin'
U" and "I Wonder If You Hurt Like Me", what do you think the
Kpop groups are singing about?
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