culture

Recently, the oungum-making technique has been inscribed as an element of national intangible cultural heritage.

It reflects the achievements made in the course of glorifying the nation’s fine music heritage, while handing down forever the leadership exploits of Chairman Kim Jong Il, who had developed the oungum-making technique so that it can produce unique timbre to meet the modern aesthetic sense by dint of the country’s traditional technique of making musical instruments.

During his military camping in Oun-dong in August 1962 when he was conducting revolutionary activities at Kim Il Sung University, Kim Jong Il personally initiated the making of oungum and named it thus.

Being endowed with outstanding musical talent, he put his heart and soul into making the new musical instrument with an original timbre. 

He saw the first trial product whose sound box was made in triangular and pentagonal shapes, before providing solutions to problems arising in its manufacture one by one.

Saying that the sound was weak and dull mainly because of the wooden material of the sound box, he told students that the sound box made with plywood produces less vibration and absorbs much sound. Pointing to the necessity to firmly fix the box with glue, instead of using nails, he encouraged them to make the instrument properly.

When the instrument was completed, he was pleased to say that it would be significant to name it “oungum” in the meaning that it was made in the valley of Oun-dong, where they were conducting a military camping drill.

After the new national musical instrument was born, researchers and manufacturers made painstaking efforts to expand and increase the range and volume of its sound while preserving its clear and soft tonal quality and it was developed into an instrument favoured and loved by people.

The oungum-making technique details the making of the front, back, rib, neck and head, the assembly of the sound box, the making of parts, coating and final assembly.

Oungum characterized by clear and soft timbre is widely produced at instrument research institutions and factories and actively used in artistic performances of art groups and mass-based artistic activities.