Sinawi

Sinawi is the improvisational ensemble music of Korean shaman ritual: a folk instrumental group in which flutes, fiddle and drums elaborate a shared melody simultaneously, each musician ornamenting freely over the janggu's slow-building cycles. Born in the gut rites of the Chungcheong and Jeolla provinces, south of the Han River, it accompanies the shaman's dance — above all the salpuri exorcism — moving from lament toward ecstatic release. With no fixed score, sinawi is Korea's closest traditional analogue to jazz, and its masters, among them taepyeongso player *Kim Seok-chul*, carried it from the rite to the concert hall in the twentieth century.