In the early 15th century, some talented musicians in Korea including Pak Yon and Hwang Hyo Song invented a system of lettered musical notes in rectangles capable of expressing the pitch, length and time of a sound fairly adequately.
Musical characters, key signatures, etc. written in rectangles like those on a chessboard denoted both the pitches and the lengths of sounds. That was an original quantitative system of musical notes that was invented for the first time in the history of eastern music.
The earliest musical notes in rectangles was “Sejong Sillok Akpo” devised and compiled in 1430 and published in 1453 by some talented musicians in the palace led by Pak Yon (1378~1458).
It was based on a fixed “degree” system where the initials (hwang, tae, thae, hyop, ko, jung, yu, rim, i, nam, mu, ung) of 12 musical notes with absolute pitches were written in 32 rectangles in a row.
Later it was improved into a 5-note system in 16 rectangles in a row, which is none other than “Sejo Sillok Akpo” published in 1464.
With the appearance of the lettered musical notes expressed in rectangles, the shortcomings of the previous musical notes arranged in a row and kuumyukpo, which failed to show tone length, were overcome, and poems and songs were able to be precisely expressed. This made a great stride in the expression of music.
As mentioned above, the musical notes devised by some musicians including Pak Yon in the early 15th century are of great musical significance as they are far superior over previous ones and the earliest in the history of the East, too.
Indeed, the Korean nation is a wise and resourceful nation that left a remarkable trace in the pages of musical history.
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