Student Takeover: Messages In Music & The Creative Process

As we near the end of our immersion program, everyone is in a hurry to experience as many things as they possibly can before their eventual departure Saturday morning. Some of us want to shop and buy souvenirs to take back home. Some want to try new foods. Others wish to simply walk the city of Seoul and explore, enjoying all that it has to offer. While it is true that there isn't much time left, our instructors continue to cram as much content into our limited time as possible so that there is never a dull moment.

As always, we started off the today with our daily K-Pop class. During our time, we were taught about all of the potential problems involved with cultural appropriation and the effect that it has on the music industry. While controversial, it often promotes sales if done properly. If not, it can often be detrimental to the artist and spark unwanted attention. The class had many opportunities to voice their opinions about this topic as we continued to discover new music which continued to use the cultures of other ethnic groups.Overall, our class had very strong opinions about this, and while we might not have all agreed with everything, it allowed us to exchange our thoughts on the matter in an open forum, which always winds up being quite interesting.

In addition to this, later on in the day, we also met with Paul Thompson (MARZ), the man behind many of the top K-Pop songs and with one of the most recognizable brands in Korea. He introduced himself by telling us about how he got into the world of K-Pop in the first place. What occurred was an unlikely sequence of events, but with a lot of hard work and ambition, he built a reputation as a top musical producer.

MARZ was an interesting man to talk with, and as the class continued to ask him questions about his career, he answered each and every one of them with a great deal of detail and precision. He even allowed the class to listen to some of the first demos of top K-Pop songs, which turned out to be much different than any of us expected. They start out in English as a general concept, and as edits are made, the song can turn out very different from the the demo, especially when it comes to the lyrics which are often altered in an effort to make things more appropriate. Getting the opportunity to meet him gave the class a lot of insight into the creative process that goes into each and every song, inspiring some members of the class to get further into music and even create some of their own in the future.

With only a few days left, our time together is drawing to a close. And while it will be a difficult process to separate after being together this long and growing accustomed to one another's habits, we will remember each and every student on this program and look back on all of the unique experiences that we shared as a group.

Authored by: Skyler Williams, Session 1 K-Pop Immersion: Global Discovery