Park Jiha Interview

PARK JIHA

Park Jiha is a multi-instrumentalist from South Korea. She plays traditional instruments including the saengwhang, related to the sheng which is sometimes put forward as an ancestor of the harmonica. In January 2022 she told me about her background, and the saengwhang.

I began by asking if she could tell me something of the history of the instrument:

So, the Saenghwang was used during the Goryeo and Joseon Dynasties for court music, roughly a thousand years up until 1892. It comes from the same family as the Chinese Sheng and Japanese Sho. You can also find similar ones in surrounding countries.

How popular, and easy to obtain, is the Interview by Norman Darwen instrument?

It isn’t really popular. Myself, I had the opportunity to learn it as well as the Piri (an oboe like instrument) I specialised in, and I had to purchase it through a professor who had links with people able to make some. Which isn’t common really.

How did you come to play it, and what is it about the instrument that appeals to you? Where did you get influences from to play the instrument?

As I said above, I was studying Piri and had the chance to be studying Saenghwang in parallel when I was in university. Back then I was quite attracted by the sound of it, but I was mostly told the traditional way to use it, more technical, so I kind of adapted it to fit the music I wanted to create.

People in the west talk about the instrument (and the Chinese sheng) as an ancestor of the harmonica - what are your thoughts on this?

There are similarities since it creates sound from both inhaling and exhaling but the sound is really different.

Do you have any particular process and approach for composing for the saenghwang?

Most of the time people adapt compositions to the instrument but I just try to use the right instrument matching the composition I have in mind.

The sleeve of The Gleam (depicting the saenghwang) is simple and beautiful. Did you pick it yourself, and if so, why did you choose that image?

It was a desire to show the contemporary aspect of the instrument, and the instruments I use in general. Instruments being traditional or not, it does not matter much - the way we use them to create is important to me, and, like what I create, these instruments can be