본고에서는 20세기 초 쇠퇴해가던 조선의 재래음악이 일제강점기, 특히 1930년대에 들어 “朝鮮樂”이라는 근대적 문화로 “기획”되고 “보급”된 과정을 고찰하였다. 아울러 이렇게 보급된 조선악이 점차 지식인들에 의해 조선을 대표하는 ‘민족문화’로 수용된 과정을 살펴보았다. 특히 당시 조선악의 기획과 보급에 있어 지식인이나 음악가에 의한 담론보다 1930년대 이후 조선 내 음반산업의 성장이 큰 역할을 했음을 검증하였다.
한말 이후 1920년대 중반 이전까지 조선의 재래음악은 “西樂東漸”의 현실 속에서 급격히 쇠퇴하고 있었다. 시대사조가 변화하고 서구 음악에 대한 숭상이 일반화되며 상류층의 음악은 가치를 부정당했고, 민간음악은 1900년대 초반 일시적으로 인기를 누렸으나 국권피탈 이후 안정된 연주 환경과 기반을 잃으면서 활동사진이나 新劇 등 근대적 오락과의 경쟁에서 도태되고 있는 상황이었다.
한편 20세기 전반 세계적으로 음악의 대중 보급에 있어 가장 중요한 매체였던 음반의 경우 조선에서는 1920년대 말까지 조선인의 음악 취향과 문화를 이해하지 못한 서구 및 일본인에 의해 좌우되어 유통과 보급이 전반적으로 저조했다. 그러나 1927년을 전후해 서구 자본의 급격한 일본 진출로 일본 음반산업이 재편되면서 조선 음반시장도 급격히 변화하였다. 조선 음반시장의 급격한 변화로 음반 기획과 제작, 유통 구조가 점차 체계적이고 효율적으로 변화할 필요성이 증대되었고, 마침내 1930년대 초에 이르러 음반사들은 조선인 문예부장을 고용해 조선 음반의 기획을 본격적으로 맡기게 되었다. 문예부장들의 활동을 통해 조선음반의 제작은 기획과 생산 구조를 갖춘 산업의 형태로 변화하였다.
음반사 문예부장들은 대부분 전문학교 이상의 학력을 지닌, 넓은 의미에서 부르주아 민족주의 계열에 속하는 지식인들이었다. 이들은 조선 재래음악 전반이 쇠퇴하고 있다는 위기의식과, 이를 구조하여 되살리겠다는 사명감을 공유하였다. 연극, 문학, 언론계 등 다양한 문화영역에서 활동한 경력을 갖추고 있었던 문예부장들의 입장은 조선악을 다시 부흥시키는 방법을 놓고 크게 두 갈래로 나뉘어졌는데, 이는 각각이 처했던 사회문화적 배경과 세대 차에 영향을 받았다. 문예부장들은 조선 재래음악 가운데 雅樂, 판소리, 그리고 민요의 가치를 강하게 부각시켰다. 아악은 조선 문화의 ‘東洋的 精髓’를, 판소리는 ‘조선의 情調’를, 그리고 민요는 ‘鄕土美’를 가진 것으로 평가하였다. 이 같은 문예부장들의 인식은 실제 음반 제작 경향으로 나타났다. 또한 문예부장들은 재래음악 연주인 집단, 예컨대 조선음률협회, 조선성악연구회 등에 대해 다양한 인적 · 물적 후원을 제공하고 공연 기획에까지 직접 관여했으며, 이는 음반산업과 실연자 간의 강한 결속관계로 이어졌다.
이렇게 문예부장들에 의해 적극적으로 기획되고 보급된 조선악 음반과 공연들은 점차 대중에게 확산되면서 당대의 큰 호응을 얻게 되었다. 1920년대까지도 그 가치가 폄훼되던 조선 재래음악은 점차 서양 음악만큼 ‘좋은 음악’으로 여겨지게 되었고, 각종 언론, 라디오 방송, 영화 등을 통해 더욱 널리 보급되고 수용되었다. 또한 조선을 대표하는 문화로 여겨져 외국인을 상대로 한 조선 문화의 홍보에도 사용되었다. 민족문화로서의 조선악의 가치가 부각되면서, 문예부장 출신자 이외의 지식인 사회에서도 조선악의 정의와 기원, 그리고 가치에 관한 논의가 본격적으로 전개되었다. 특히 음악학, 민속학, 역사학, 국문학 등 다방면의 학술적 분야에서도 조선악을 분석하고 그 가치를 부여하려는 경향이 나타났다. 이 과정에서 많은 지식인들은 조선악이라는 추상적인 실체를 설명하기 위한 도구로 음반과 공연을 반복적으로 활용하였고, 이를 조선악의 보존 · 보급의 도구로 인식했다.
그러나 당시의 조선악 논의는 많은 부분에서 한계와 모순을 드러냈다. 조선악의 민족문화적 가치가 “음반화 · 무대화된 음악”, 즉 아악, 판소리 및 창극, 민요의 세 갈래에만 집중되면서 다른 재래음악들은 빠르게 도태되었으며, 조선악으로 선별된 음악 역시 경직화 과정을 겪게 되었다. 여기에 조선악의 가치를 판별함에 있어 일본인들의 논리를 답습하고, 역사성을 ‘발명’하고, ‘정화’에 대한 강박적인 태도를 보이는 등 모순이 불거지게 되었다. 더구나 일제에 순응적인 담론에서 벗어나지 못한 조선악은 전시체제기 이후 일제의 전쟁수행 협력에까지 이용되기에 이르렀다.

The purpose of this thesis is to make a historical analysis on the cultural phenomenon of the formation and dissemination of Korean Traditional Music (Chosun-ak, 朝鮮樂) as a part of Korean "national culture" in the 1930s. The thesis argues that the "transformation" of Korean indigenous music (Jaerae eumak, 在來音樂) into Korean "traditional" music was largely due to various activities of bourgeois-nationalist Korean intellectuals at that time, particularly those who worked for various record companies in Korea as "recording directors" (Munye bujang, 文藝部長, "record producers" / "talent scouts").
Starting in the early 1900s, Korean indigenous music had undergone a serious decline due to the rapid sociocultural changes and the fast diffusion of Western music in Korean society. The "high-brow" types of Korean indigenous music previously enjoyed by the upper class were now considered to be "worthless" or unfit for modern sociocultural values. The "middle-brow" types of music, such as Pansori or old-style regional folksongs, enjoyed a brief popularity in the 1900s, but had lost most of its foothold by the 1920s, as new types of popular venues, such as the cinema and theatre, had emerged and took much of its popular following.
The gramophone records, arguably one of the most important medium for music propagation for the first half of the 20th century, was first introduced in Korea in the early 1890s, and had been commercially available since 1906. However, the medium had a meager distribution in Korea and it failed to have any meaningful cultural impact on Korean culture or Korean music up to the 1920s. This was due to the fact that all Korean records up to that time were produced by either the Japanese or other foreign record companies both of whom possessed little knowledge about Korean culture and music.
However, in 1927, two of the world''s biggest major multinational record companies, Victor Talking Machine Company and Columbia Phonograph Company, had advanced into the Japanese record industry by establishing their formal branches in Japan, thereby revolutionizing the Japanese record industry with its new electric recording technology and unprecedented production capacity. This caused a significant change within the Korean record market, and by the early 1930s there were six major record companies established in Korea.
As a result of this rapid change in the Korean record market, the necessity of systematic and efficient change of planning, production, and distribution of Korean records gradually increased. By 1932, the record companies began to hire several Korean intellectuals to serve as the recording directors for Korean records. Through the careful planning and activities of these recording directors, Korean records became a product of a form of industry with stable production structure. Most of these Korean recording directors were intellectuals with high education and bourgeois-nationalist backgrounds. They regularly raised awareness of the rapid decline of Korean indigenous music, and they also shared the sense of duty to revive and restore it. The recording directors had careers in various fields besides the record industry, such as theater, literature, and journalism. They could be categorized into two groups, based on their thoughts and opinions about how to revive Korean indigenous music into Korean "traditional" music, a part of the well-accepted modern "national culture." The differences of thoughts between these two groups can be attributed to their sociocultural standing, the differences of their upbringing, and the generation gap.
The recording directors strongly emphasized the value of three particular kinds of the Korean indigenous music; A-ak, Pansori, and folksongs. They argued that A-ak represented the "Oriental essence" of the Korean culture, Pansori represented the "Korean atmosphere", and folksongs represented the "beauty of the Korean people". These perceptions of the recording directors strongly affected the actual tendencies on Korean record production, as the evidences show that these three types of music have been intensively recorded and the resulting recordings were sold in large quantities to the Korean public in the 1930s.
In addition, the recording directors had provided various personal and material support to various groups of Korean musical performers, as in the case of the two major Pansori performers'' groups, the Chosun Eumryul Hyeophoe (朝鮮音律協會, "The Chosun Melody Society") and the Chosun Seong-ak Yeonguhoe, (朝鮮聲樂硏究會, “The Chosun Vocalist Study Society"). The recording directors were also directly engaged in arranging most of the nationwide, public performances of Korean traditional music, leading to a strong cohesive relationship between the record industry and the musicians.
By the mid-1930s, Korean traditional music was largely accepted by the general public as well as the intellectuals as a part of "national culture," thanks to the wide distribution and popularity of Korean traditional music on records. Thus, Korean traditional music was gradually transformed from "filthy and unhealthy ditties" to "good music" comparable with Western classical music. It was widely disseminated through various means, including radio broadcasts, the "talking pictures," and a variety of media coverage about Korean traditional musicians in newspapers and magazines. One example of the elevated status of the Korean traditional music from this period is the consistent employing of records and performances of that music to promote Korean culture to Westerners visiting the country in the 1930s. As the value of Korean traditional music as part of national culture was highlighted, academic discussions about the definition, origin, and value of the Korean traditional music began among Korean intellectuals. During this period, there were numerous academic attempts to explain Korean traditional music in various fields of scholarship, such as musicology, folklore, history, and literature. Many intellectuals repeatedly used recordings and performances as tools for explaining the abstract nature of Korean traditional music, and in certain cases, participated directly in the production of recordings and performances. These academic discussions and activities became an important factor in establishing Korean traditional music as an important part of Korean national culture.
However, the discourse on Korean traditional music of the 1930s revealed many inherent limitations and flaws. Since the evaluation of Korean traditional music concentrated only on the three types - A-ak, Pansori and folksongs - other types of Korean indigenous music was left to a rapid decline, and in certain cases, a total extinction. Even the music "chosen" by the record industry or Korean intellectuals was inevitably subjected to a process of "purification"(or "bowdlerization") to make it into an "acceptable modern culture" as well.
In addition, these Korean intellectuals borrowed from earlier discourses on Korean indigenous music by Japanese intellectuals, who were largely motivated to prove the backwardness of the Korean race to justify their colonial rule. This resulted not only in the misunderstanding of the context of Korean traditional music, but also the gradual re-evaluation of Korean traditional music as a "regional culture" of the Japanese Empire in the 1940s. With this, Korean traditional music also became a tool for Japanese authorities to encourage Koreans into numerous collaborative activities as part of the Japanese war effort.