Doing music means (음악을 한다는 것은) - Book

Few people succeed the first time. In any field, we all struggle at first. Someone once said that the strongest don't survive, but the survivors are the strongest. This book is the confession of a man who loves music, the long-breathing prose of a man who loves his instrument, and his relationship with the world. It is the story of one man's journey to reconcile his relationship with the world with the instrument that has been with him all his life. Like playing a musical instrument, the sentences and paragraphs are accompanied by shifts in emotion, both lyrical and explosive. Just as she switches between two lines of music, she moves between tradition and the future, between the quiet and the frenetic in her writing. 

 While reading the book, I thought about the small moments that have passed me by. Moments when I wanted to give up on something, nights when I didn't even know what it meant to hold on, and nights when I swallowed the words I thought no one would hear. Life is like a harp without a fretboard. As she creates her own sound with a breathtakingly honest performance that finds notes with only her senses and captures emotions with a single tremor of her fingertips, I may have been reflecting on my own life. The first part of the book begins in middle school, when she first met Haegeum. The moment we first encounter something is always meaningful. Whether it's a job, love, or destiny. For Kim Bomi, Hae-gyum was initially an assignment, not a choice, but it changed her entire life. It was like a chance encounter that one day became destiny. Through haegeum, she learns, masters, and finds her own interpretation in the roots of traditional music, a journey that perhaps goes beyond the development of a musical mind to the construction of a person's identity.

The second part of the book follows her journey with the post-rock band Zambinai. This was my first introduction to Zambinai's music, and it was quite refreshing. I loved the new resonance that was born from the fascinating disparity of combining the traditional instrument of haegeum with the genre of rock, which speaks a completely different language. High risk, high return. Without her bold challenge, this fresh genre would not have been born.

I liked that it wasn't a simple success story. The pain, nervousness, communication difficulties, and sometimes loneliness behind the scenes are portrayed with aplomb. The scene where she was confused by her professor's suggestion to “play like a painting” before a concert left a deep impression on me. It was a moment when I realized that music is not just about hitting the right notes, but also about capturing moods, textures, and emotions. We're always looking for the “right answer,” but sometimes it's more about being present, like a painting, like a feeling.

At the end of the book, the author confesses that “doing music” is like “living life”. I think this sentence is the theme that runs through the entire book. For her, music was a way of affirming her existence, a way of communicating with the world, and sometimes a way of healing herself. At this point, I asked myself, “What am I restoring myself with?” For Kim, it was music; for me, it was writing; for others, it was love or traveling. In the end, we are all walking the stage of life, each in our own way.

There was no great hope or excitement, but I felt a very quiet and solid comfort. That even if things don't work out now, if we keep going, they will. That maybe, just maybe, that's enough. That's what makes Kim's story so special. She stands before us as someone who continues to live her life. We listen to the performance of that life and move forward. In life, we sometimes falter and waver, like we're torn between two strings of a harp. But Bomi Kim's story sounds like the melody we need in those moments. The solid sound, the heartfelt performance, and the years that made that sound possible.

Original Sources;
https://www.artinsight.co.kr/news/view.php?no=75938