Transcript of an Interview with Mr. Kim Hyung-suk, Composer-producer of the Godfather of K-pop and BTS, at the Sheldonian Theatre, Hosted by Faculty of Music, Oxford University. Part 9 and 10

Posted by Joseph Hwang Joseph Hwang 7/30/2024

Transcript of an Interview with Mr. Kim Hyung-suk, Composer-producer of the Godfather of K-pop and BTS, at the Sheldonian Theatre, Hosted by Faculty of Music, Oxford University. Part 9 and 10

Joseph Hwang

* On July 4, 2024, Mr. Kim Hyung-suk, the godfather of K-pop and one of Korea's leading composers and producers, gave a lecture and interview at an event hosted by the Faculty of Music at Oxford University. Here, I will post a series of interviews based on the Korean summary of Mr. Kim's interview, with some of my commentary.

** I am especially grateful to Ms. Jieun Kiaer, a professor at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, for arranging and hosting this lecture and interview.

Question #9.

With the popularity of K-pop, the number of people who want to learn Korean has increased dramatically. Recent studies have shown that teaching and learning a language through music is a good way to learn. However, due to copyright (IP) issues, I can't use K-pop to teach Korean. Do you have any alternatives?

Answer #9.

I've heard about the difficulty of using K-pop music in teaching Korean due to copyright issues. One alternative you could consider is to work with K-pop management companies to get approval to use some of their songs. Especially if it's for language learning purposes, you could ask them to license the songs for government educational institutions or language learning programs. I forecast this can help management companies build a positive image and increase their global fan base.

In consultation with the music copyright associations, we could consider licensing K-pop only for educational purposes, which would establish an official process and system for using K-pop in Korean language education.

On a personal note, I have approved my songs to be used in a Korean language textbook that Oxford is publishing together.

Question #10.

You're known as a musical mentor to the founder of JYP and HYBE, and I know you're passionate about education. I agree that education is especially significant in maintaining the good influence of K-pop. I would love to hear your plans in this regard.

Answer #10.

I am interested in music education because my father was a music teacher, so education is in my DNA. I believe that if you have a talent in the world, the most valuable thing you can do is to share it.

Arts education is not a "1+1 = 2" kind of education; it's a different answer for each person, depending on their inclinations. It's about learning by teaching, which means you learn by teaching.

There is a saying "Someone who cannot be a friend cannot be a teacher, and someone who cannot be a teacher cannot be a friend." This is the attitude that a teacher of art education should have.

The age of art is now an age where, with the development of AI, everyone can be an artist, and everyone here can be a composer if they use AI music solutions.

Therefore, to make music more valuable, we need to try diverse attempts, and I consider that the most important thing is to combine it with philosophy.

To give you an example, first of all, popular music is attractive because it conveys a message. It's catchy, easy to sing along to, and easy to hum to yourself.

Secondly, popular music captures the imagination. Descartes said, “I think, therefore I exist,” but we can say, “I feel, therefore I imagine".

The third is the “power of empathy.” I believe it is the power to persuade people through empathy without taking sides of “right or wrong”.

The fourth is that popular music has more powerful advocates than anything else. It's a friend rather than a teacher, it's with people in their joys and sorrows, it's overwhelmingly loved and relied upon, and it's also about the ensemble, and it's about making everyone happy.

These things are connected to the essence of philosophy.

I think pop music, even though it deals with these big themes, doesn't take advantage of the opportunities it has. Ultimately, I feel that there needs to be an intrinsic sense of subject matter, that there need to be bigger, more grandiose ideals so that in the future we need pop musicians who can take on more reformative and transformative subjects and express and sing about them together. I look forward to a synthesis of philosophy and pop music that will fill our inner lives. I suppose that's what we need in the future of culture, art, and education.

- Conclusion

In today's digital world, the exchange of culture is not between nations or groups, but between individuals, and in the future, with the help of AI, everyone will become a creator. The world of the future will be a world in which different genres of art combine to create new forms of culture and art.

K-pop has transformed the relationship between artists and fans from one where fans are merely receptive to content, to one where fans actively complement artists through the platform, fans are creating new secondary creations for now.

I believe that's what the K-pop market is all about empowering people.

Maybe K-pop should drop the "K" sooner rather than later: artists overcommitting to their fans and fans overcommitting to artists, creating an expanded marketplace where they are mutually active and recreating different content through the platform. I sense that's the big change and meaning that K-pop has started to bring.

Thank you very much.

* Joseph's comment:

It's a fact that music, especially popular music with lyrics, can help you learn a foreign language. In South Korea, many people have been influenced by American and British pop music to learn English.

In the past, the copyright management system was localized, and copyright awareness in education was not as sensitive as it is now. Today, however, we are more sensitive than ever to illegal infringement of intellectual property rights, and the copyright management system is international. With these changes, using K-pop songs as Korean language teaching materials with copyright permission will be a win-win situation for both the students and the owners of the songs.

Moreover, the problem of AI in artistic creation is inevitable for humanity. Instead of avoiding or criticizing it, we should actively embrace its use and develop customs, institutions, and laws to deal with its negative effects. Most resonant is the argument that we need to embrace the changing relationship between creators and fans of popular music. This will change the nature of the music market itself and will be an important motivator and cause for a different kind of market.

Music has always existed in this world and has changed over time. The existence of music is constant, but the way it is created and consumed has always changed. Right now, we are in the midst of a fundamental shift in the creation and consumption of music, with technological advances and emergence unlike anything humanity has ever seen. We don't know exactly what the future holds, but we do know that we need to embrace it and pioneer it. I hope that music can make the world a more beautiful and happier place.

* References and quotations:

https://www.music.ox.ac.uk/event/k-pop-from-the-godfather-of-k-pop-and-bts

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/art/2024/07/398_378556.html

* Series Posts

Part 1.

https://www.musicbusiness.co.kr/2024/07/transcript-of-interview-with-mr-kim.html

Part 2.

https://www.musicbusiness.co.kr/2024/07/transcript-of-interview-with-mr-kim_0392194405.html

Part 3.

https://www.musicbusiness.co.kr/2024/07/transcript-of-interview-with-mr-kim_01853689220.html

Part 4.

https://www.musicbusiness.co.kr/2024/07/transcript-of-interview-with-mr-kim_0403319480.html