The Marmot’s Hole

One part of entertainment that most people do not get to see in Korea is the making of a musical show. Since the mid-1990’s Koreans have taken an interest in musical shows, which has grown with time. Though many Broadway shows were simply imported whole or licensed, more and more original shows are being written here in Korea. Creating a show is an enormous task that takes many people and much effort. One part of putting an original show on is developing and creating the music and the musical “Looking For Mr. Kim” (김종욱 찾기) offers a good example of such.

“Looking for Mr. Kim” — a very popular show that I would highly recommend — is just now coming back on stage after having a make-over done. It will open this coming week and has had a new director as well as having a new musical arrangement done.  The show is about a woman that tries to find her very first love since she is being pressured by her conservative father to get married.  As it turns out, a first love is perhaps impossible to re-discover as well as being quite amusing in trying to find it again.

For a musical, the music is of great importance since, without a good score and arrangement, the show can not succeed.  For the music, the original score was somewhat revised by the composer (긴헤성) and given a fresh, bigger arrangement that went beyond the caberet-style treatment of the last score version. After being edited further for stage cues, the score and parts were created, studio musicians were hired and a master recording for the show was done. Below is the bassist, Lee Tae Yoon, hard at work. This sort of work takes great concentration because these guys, literally, walk in, sit down, look at the score and then play it. They read very quickly and make few mistakes since studio time is very expensive. Even though the pianist Chae Tae Won was stuck back in his booth, hidden from sight, his piano was everywhere.

The drummer, Kang Su Ho, is an interesting story.  Kang started his career as a back dancer for singing acts before deciding to go to America to learn record engineering.  He decided at the ripe age of twenty-nine to learn drums and he did so well that he is now first call for recording in Korea.  The guy is great to have on a session and the arranger was very happy as well!

After recording the rhythm section first, strings were brought in and recorded.  Mind you, the rhythm section would come in around 11:00pm and record until 5:00 am.  The strings would come into the studio at 8:00am and record over the rhythm tracks, thus the staff was working almost around the clock to get the music for the show done in time for mixing.  Some songs would end up being recorded two times because the director would want a tempo change (shame on the music director for waiting to tell people!)  This whole crazy process took about a week of recording the different instruments plus last minute edits to the score. 

The arranger would sometimes take over and director dubbing in the different players, having the players change up how they play or modify their sound, according to the arrangement. Other times the music director would supervise here and there, mainly for feel or tempo. Basically, the idea is to have a clearly written arrangement that is easy for the musician to understand.

Above the show director watches as the cast (left to right, 임기홍, 김지현, 진선규) do a voice-over for the entrance to the “Destiny — taxi” number in the show. Poor 김지현 (Kim Ji-hyun) was so tired from rehearsing all day that by two in the morning, she was taking naps, face down, on the sofa outside the recording booth. She is so good and funny as well in the show!

During all of this, people like Lee Yong-woon, seen above, seated at the mixing console, over-see all of the work and are responsible for making sure that the production stays on track and all problems are solved. Having people like Yong-woon involved is the reason that deadlines are met. I know the producer was very glad to have him there as well.

This is the first installment on how a Korean musical gets made. Next we will look at some of the other people that make it work on stage, out front of an audience.