Episode 43 – Dal:um: Korea, Strung Differently
Seoul-based duo Dal:um explore the sounds of the gayageum and geomungo, from silk-string delicacy to percussive power. Plus, Steve shares a spoken-word collaboration with Emy P that draws on Basildon's musical heritage.
Hello, musically curious people
How much can you get out of two string instruments? In the hands of Dal:um, rather more than their outward appearance might suggest.
Ha Suyean plays the gayageum and Hwang Hyeyoung plays the geomungo. At first glance, these two Korean instruments look quite similar: long wooden bodies, strings stretched along their length, and a lot of equipment to negotiate an airport with. But listen closely and they offer quite different ways of shaping a sound.
The geomungo is played with a bamboo stick. It can be delicate and quiet, but it also has a wonderfully forceful, percussive side. The gayageum is plucked with the fingers, with the other hand pressing the strings to bend and decorate the notes. Both have a warmth and flexibility that becomes much easier to understand when you can see the players at work.
I caught up with Suyean and Hyeyoung after their concert in Finland. They very kindly talked me through their instruments, demonstrated how they work, and played together for us. We hear about silk strings, frets, movable bridges known as "goose feet", and instruments adapted to make new kinds of music. Hwang's geomungo has ten strings rather than the traditional six; Ha's gayageum has twenty-five rather than twelve.
One of my favourite moments is their explanation of rhythm through breathing and movement. A pattern becomes something you can feel in the rise and fall of an arm, or in taking a breath and letting it out. It's a lovely reminder that the way we describe a rhythm can change how we hear it.
Later in the episode, I share a different kind of musical conversation: "Basildon Made Me Baby", a track I've worked on with spoken-word artist Emy P, through a project with filmmaker and poet Aaron Shrimpton. My music heads in a hip-hop direction, with some nods to Basildon's electropop heritage. Emy's words bring her own experience of the place, identity and finding her people.
Aaron has also filmed our live shows with Hackney Colliery Band, including our full show at KOKO.
There are also two live dates to look ahead to: Sound / Visuals / Spoken at the Towngate Theatre on 12th November 2026, and the next Origin live show at Wilton's Music Hall on 10th March 2027, with Beardyman.
If you're listening to the audio edition, the video is particularly useful for this one. Seeing the strings, bridges, hands and bamboo stick gives you another way into what you're hearing.
In this episode
Dal:um in concert in Finland.
The gayageum and geomungo: similar outlines, different sounds and playing techniques.
Korean traditional music, pentatonic scales and contemporary approaches.
Rhythm understood through breath, dance and movement.
A ten-string geomungo, silk strings, frets and a bamboo playing stick.
Bending and decorating notes.
A twenty-five-string gayageum, finger-plucking and movable "goose feet" bridges.
A performance by the duo recorded after the concert.
"Basildon Made Me Baby", with Emy P and Steve Pretty.
Aaron Shrimpton, Maddi Crease and the earlier film Autistic Joy.
Basildon's electropop heritage and a new spoken-word collaboration.
Upcoming shows at the Towngate Theatre and Wilton's Music Hall.
Music in this episode
Dal:um – concert extracts, instrument demonstrations and a performance recorded after the concert. Ha Suyean plays gayageum; Hwang Hyeyoung plays geomungo.
Emy P and Steve Pretty – "Basildon Made Me Baby". Spoken word by Emy P; music and audio production by Steve Pretty, for a project with Aaron Shrimpton.
Links & references
Dal:um
Dal:um at Glitterbeat / tak:til
Dal:um's official WOMEX 25 concert listing
Also mentioned
Hackney Colliery Band live at KOKO — full show, filmed by Aaron Shrimpton
Autistic Joy — short poetry film with Maddi Crease and Aaron Shrimpton
Sound / Visuals / Spoken, Towngate Theatre, 12th November 2026
Maddi Crease, including Autistic Joy
Origin live with Beardyman, Wilton's Music Hall, 10th March 2027
Editorial note
In the episode I refer, tentatively, to Basildon as this year's UK Town of Culture. To clarify: Basildon has been shortlisted for UK Town of Culture 2028. The official shortlist is here: official shortlist
Support the show
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For new episodes, live dates, videos and other musically curious material, visit Origin of the Pieces and join The Open Ear Dispatch.
Full transcript
Transcript of the spoken episode, based on the published Apple Podcasts edition. Musical performances are indicated; song lyrics are not transcribed.
Hello, my name is Steve Pretty. I'm a musician, composer and performer from London, and welcome to my podcast, Steve Pretty On The Origin of the Pieces.
This is the show that helps you to hear, understand, and enjoy music in new ways. Hello, musically curious people. It's good to be back in your ears again, slightly late, sorry about that, as you can hear.
I've been a little bit unwell. But here we are again. It's been all sorts of stuff going on as ever.
I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later. But meanwhile, I have got an updated podcast website. If you haven't been to originofthepieces.com yet, do go and have a look.
I think it's a really deep archive of this whole show. All the episodes are there, of course. There's transcripts, there's different ways of finding them.
There's recommended listening per episode. I've got Spotify playlists, Apple music playlists, built in to the pages there so that you can check out the artists who are talking about, check out music that I might discuss in the episode. There's a map, you can scroll around a map of the world to see episodes that come from different places.
Yeah, so do go there. originofthepieces.com if you haven't been there yet. Check it out.
So today, I've got an interesting interview that I did with the two musicians who form the brilliant partnership Dal:um, which is a band from Seoul in South Korea. It's made up of Ha Suyean and she plays an instrument. I'm gonna have to get up the pronunciation of it.
It's called the gayageum, gayageum. Sorry for the Korean speakers amongst you. I'm sure I'm completely butchering this.
And then we also have Hwang Hyeyoung. And she plays that geomungo. So again, I'm sure I've butchered those.
But these are two instruments that look superficially quite similar but play quite different roles. And that's something we talk about in the interview. They were both very kind.
They gave me some of their time after their concert. And their English obviously isn't their first language, but I was really, really grateful to them for sharing their knowledge of these beautiful instruments and giving me an exclusive little performance. So first up, let's have a little listen to the concert that they gave back in Finland this time last year.
This is Dal:um.
[Concert performance by Dal:um.]
We started, it's real, the classic, the traditional music. So it's the ritual, ritual music and the folk music. And yeah, something like that.
And the scale is really different in Korean, in Korean scale. But now our music, we use the Western scale. So that's, I think that is, That is big difference between our music and traditional music.
Yeah, and usually, Korean traditional music use pentatonic scale, not seven notes scale like western music. Yeah, five notes. And I think the special thing in Korean traditional music is rhythm, jang dan.
It's not kind of the bap bap bap, but it's kind of...
It's two rhythm, bap bap bap bap. It's a Korean rhythm, it's a three, it's a dan dan dan. It's a...
We can breathe. Yeah, breathe and push out the breathe. Yeah, it's a real different rhythm.
And you explained this nicely during your concert. You played, could you play the rhythm that you played?
It's such like the the dong dak, ki dong dak, it's such like the tuk tuk tuk tuk tuk, it's a non-group. It's a strict, yeah, it's a dong dak, ki dong dak. It is the mask dance, that mask dance rhythm.
So it's a dance move, movement is dong dak, ki dong dak. Yeah, such like that. So it's a, it's a armed up and we, we breathe, it's a, how I can say it?
Breathe in?
Yeah, breathe in and down, and we out, breathe, such like that.
Fantastic. And could you play this rhythm, please?
Yeah, it's such like, ddak, gdung, ddak, yeah.
So it does sound, yeah, it sounds like very danceable. Yeah, right. And with these instruments, were they originally made to be played for dancing, or for like a ceremony, or what would they use for?
It's a different, each of the instruments is different, yeah.
But in Korea, there are many traditional instruments, and there are also, and as Hyeyoung said, we have ritual music, folk song, or dance music, or some kind of rhythm parade. So depends on characteristic, if big sound of wind is used also. Parade.
Parade, army parade, or for kings, or this string instrument also used, accompanying dancers. So I think we don't divide, it's for dancing, it's for something. We play also dancing music, we play also just the instrumental music, and we also accompany for singer.
So I think we don't divide that.
Yeah. But here you're playing in a concert hall setting, and that's how you mainly play now, is in a concert hall like this, when you perform now. Yeah, of course.
So more of a concert hall setting. Okay, can we come to the instruments? And could you just, we go one by one.
Could you talk me through your instrument please, and tell me what it's called and how it's made and how it's played?
Okay. This is Geomungo, and actually the traditional Geomungo has six strings, but my instrument has ten strings. It is, I developed myself the six to ten strings.
And whenever I play, I use this stick. It's made by bamboo, and name is called Sul-dae in Korean. So I grab the right hand, and my left hand, I grab the each of the frets.
It's fret is called Gwae in Korean, Gwae. So it has the total 16 frets.
And I grab the, I can make the notes, and I can make a decorate the notes.
Yeah, it's just like that. So, I use this stick, so I can make really delicate and small sounds. And sometimes, it's a percussive and powerful sound.
It's such a variety. This is one of the things I was thinking about. So delicate, but then so...
Yeah, right. It's small sounds and big sounds. Gap is really big.
And these strings, what are these strings made from?
It's made by the silk strings. Yeah. And especially the geomungo is the only one in Korea.
It's, you know, the China and Japan, the string instruments are really similar with the Korean instruments, but the geomungo has only the only one, the structure or, yeah, it's something like this fret, has frets. It's only the only one.
And it's interesting with the frets because you can play, you can get very definite notes, but then bend them, right?
Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, you can understand to imagine the guitars. Guitars you can, the frets, use the frets.
It's the same structure.
Yeah, it's beautiful. Thank you. It's really beautiful.
And yeah, and this is plays the bass end of things.
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's bass, yeah.
And this is made from?
Paulownia?
Okay, yeah.
Paulownia wood.
It must be very difficult to tour with. It's very large. Thank you.
That's brilliant. That's really, really interesting. And so this is, yeah, for you, this is more the bass end.
And then we come over here, which is, I guess, playing, I mean, you both play lots of melodies, but this is maybe more melodic, would you say?
More melodic, [unclear]? Or actually, it is, it used seven scales, so I also played various harmonies For accompany her melody or so. So, let me introduce Gayageum.
And actually Gayageum is a traditional string instrument in Korea. And the traditional Gayageum has 12 strings, which is made of silk. But it is 25 string Gayageum.
And it is invented for contemporary music in modern days. So that's why it use 7 note scale.
I see, I see. So... The Western...
Yes. So, just...
7th scale. And it is played by plucking the string with the finger.
And usually left hand pushing the string.
And also in modern days, we play the both finger.
And actually, its shape is really similar with koto or kujeng from Japanese, from Chinese traditional instrument, but they used tips when they played, but gayageum used only finger.
Sorry, what did they use?
Tip.
Our tip, like...
Like tip, so, yeah.
That's something you put on your finger.
Yeah, gayageum. I think that is quite big characteristic of gayageum, so, and it made... That characteristic made gayageum sound is more warm or natural thing, I think, yeah.
It has a very, very warm, resonant sound. It's very rich. And you have these...
I noticed these here. What? Yeah, these...
Ah, this bridge. Actually, this bridge called anjok. Anjok means goose feet.
Goose feet.
So we call this... Yeah, yeah. You can see, right?
Yes, it does look a bit like a goosebump. It decides the tunes. So if I move the bridge, yes, so it decides the tune.
Oh, I see, I see, I see.
And it's so easy to tune, then you just move these around.
I mean, to tune the scale. It is easily to move, easily to change, because the wood and it would, if I played many times, it's...
Goes out of tune.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, I mean, string instruments, this is always the case. And I noticed you have a very clever... During the concert, I thought, oh, what's going on here?
You have a very cool...
And also tune, for tune, it's also invented for contemporary music, in modern days. So I can also tune using this.
Yeah, these pegs here. This part, yes. Very cool.
Very, very cool. Could you play a little bit more for us, just on this instrument by itself, please? Just so we can hear some, please.
Yeah.
That's so beautiful. And I need to let you guys go because you've just done a very wonderful concert and you need to have a break. But could you just play for a couple of minutes together?
Maybe a tune of your choice.
Start from down here.
[Musical performance by Dal:um.]
And my huge thanks to Dal:um for sharing their music with me and their knowledge and their beautiful instruments. If you haven't seen this, do go onto YouTube or Spotify and have a look at these instruments. And I get really quite close with the camera so you can kind of see how they're played.
Absolutely beautiful and so versatile. I would sort of never have really thought that they could be played in this very percussive, quite aggressive way sometimes. It felt quite pumping in a weird way given that it's just two string instruments.
But yeah, do go and check that out, and I'm gonna put a bit more music at the end of the episode as I say. Now, one of the nice things about doing this show is that I get to talk about some of the projects that I've been working on, and I do work across lots of different areas. You know, in recent months, you will have heard me play some of the more kind of, I suppose, crossover classical stuff, some more ambient stuff that I've been doing.
But I also do love working in a slightly more punchy, aggressive way, musically speaking. And I've been really lucky to work on a really, really fun track with a spoken word artist, Emy P. She is from Basildon and she was commissioned to write a poem to celebrate Basildon as a Basildon as I think the UK town of culture this year.
I think that's right. And she's a really, really wonderful spoken word artist. I was introduced to her by my friend, Aaron Shrimpton, who is also a spoken word artist, but also a filmmaker.
He's worked with me with Hackney Colliery Band, filming our live shows and various other things over the years. If you've been a listener for a while, you may remember that a little while ago, we talked about the film Autistic Joy, which is the film Aaron made of Maddi Crease, another spoken word artist poet, this wonderful autistic spoken word artist. She made this beautiful film with Aaron, and I did the soundtrack for that and produced the audio.
And I've done the same thing here with Emy. So I was really touched to be asked to work on this, especially as I'm not from Basildon. Those guys are both from that area, but I have worked in Basildon a bit, I do know a little bit, so it was interesting to kind of dive back in.
So when I went into writing this, one of the things we discussed was the, I didn't actually know about this really, about the centrality of electro pop to Basildon or vice versa, because Depeche Mode were from Basildon, Yazoo, all these sort of 80s bands who were really big, kind of came from that area, so there's a real kind of heritage there. So although the track I've made is more in a hip hop direction, there's a few little nods to the electro pop that kind of defined that era. Emy is queer, and when we first started talking about this, we were talking about the queer experience growing up in Basildon and how challenging that was, but how proud of where she is now and how far she's come and that whole journey.
So it's been really, really gratifying to work on. Enough banging on, this is my track with the brilliant Emy P. It's called Basildon Made Me Baby.
[Musical performance: “Basildon Made Me Baby”. Spoken word by Emy P; music and audio production by Steve Pretty, for a project with Aaron Shrimpton. Lyrics omitted.]
Thanks once again to Emy P and Aaron Shrimpton. There's links in the show notes for their brilliant work. Again, I've done a lot of stuff with Aaron over the years, so do check out the work we've done together.
But also Emy's fabulous work. You can check her out and see her perform live. I hope if you are in the Essex region, we have a gig coming up together in Essex on the 12th of November.
Again, links in the show notes, so head over there. Before I go, there's one thing I should say, which is that I have another Wilton's Music Hall live podcast show that's just gone on sale. It's not for a little while.
It's not till 10th March 2027. But for the first time in history, I have announced the guest as the show goes on sale, which normally it takes a little bit longer to get everything in place. I'm really, really happy to say that the incredible genius that is Beardyman is joining me for my show on 10th March 2027.
If you don't know Beardyman's work, he started, I suppose, as a beatboxer and a live looper. And he still very much is that. But he's that and so much more.
He's a music technologist. He has more control over music technology, more hands on control in a live environment than, I think, basically anyone on earth. I've worked with him a few times and it blows me away every time.
As you can see, if you're watching me, I'm surrounded by musical toys and gizmos. And I am a bit of a music tech nerd myself, but Beardyman really takes it to another level. He has something called the Beardytron, which he has made into this sort of four or five iPads around him and laptops and controllers and keyboards and all sorts of things that he creates live soundscapes and electronic music, really sort of banging fun stuff as well as more introspective stuff.
Yeah, he's absolutely fabulous. Guest that's gonna be joining me and lots more to be announced too. That's 10th March 2027.
If you sign up to my mailing list, which you can go to originofthepieces.com and sign up there or there's a link there to my Patreon as well. If you sign up there, there is a discount code which I have just e-mailed round to that mailing list. And I will also follow up in the next week or two with another Open Ear Dispatch, which is the name of my little newsletter.
With some listening exercises and discount codes for all of the stuff I'm doing and that kind of thing. So do go to originofthepieces.com, sign up, and you can get that discount code for the show. But it's on the 10th of March with Beardyman and others.
Meanwhile, it just reminds me to thank once again Dal:um, who you can hear playing out the episode now. And also of course Emy P and Aaron Shrimpton for that little track at the end there. It's a bit of a shorter episode this week, but again we're going to be back in a couple of weeks with more fun stuff for your curious ears.
Meanwhile, stay musically curious and I'll see you in a couple of weeks. Bye!