Military Band of Koguryo
A fairly grand and dignified military band was active during the Koguryo Dynasty, the first feudal state of Korea which existed between 277 B.C. and A.D. 668.
The military band of Koguryo was called instrumental march music band or Kochiak band.
In the Korean word of Kochiak "Ko" meant the percussion including drums and "chi" the wind.
Researcher Hwang Po Un at the Folklore Institute under the Academy of Social Sciences said Kochiak played an important role in the life of the resourceful and valiant Koguryo people, and continued:
"Kochiak made a great contribution to raising the morale of the soldiers and enhancing their combat strength in the course of battle against the aggressors and in the march, training and ceremony of the soldiers.
Pictures of long procession were drawn at Koguryo tombs with mural paintings such as the Mausoleum of King Kogugwon. All the processions are different in size, but they have the Kochiak band at their heads."
The Kochiak band of Koguryo was formed with the percussion in the main and had characteristics of musical presentation with main stress on powerful and clear rhythmic performance.
It had instruments with simple musical notes like bugle horn and conch horn. It shows that the band had the wind in order to raise its high spirit with loud and solemn resonance.
Vigorous and powerful times and those suitable for march were used as rhythms of the Kochiak band.
As said above, the military band of Koguryo, which appeared in the earliest period of the world, was a peculiar one that further carried forward and developed the tradition of national Kochiak handed down from the ancient times and put it on a new height.