• While the median Western musical tempo seems to correspond to the beating of the human heart with about 90 metronomic beats per minute in moderato, the Korean median tempo relates to breathing and varies between 20 and 30 beats per minute; this is one reason why Korean music often generates the impression of slow-motion. The comparison highlights the physiological dimension of Korean music; many of the meditation practices from around the world deemed uplifting and effectively healing are based on breathing, not pulsation. Pulsation is subordinate to breathing, and we can moderate pulsation by breath control. Revisit the ch'ôngsônggok, and this time try to breathe with the music.
• Translatated as playing the string or playing of the string and closest to the technique of vibrato, nonghyôn is said to reflect the idiosyncratic Korean sense of time and space corresponding to the cycle of nature. Western vibrato, too, is a kind of instrumental subjectivity where string or voice is allowed to vibrate but in a more composer-prescribed way. Through nonghyôn, the player or singer autonomously and intuitively balances tension with relaxation, winding and unwinding, and straight with curving. Nonghyôn resembles motions in nature, such as the billowing of ocean waves, or willow branches swaying in the wind, or the heaving sighs of lonely waiting. Chult'agi, or Korean rope-riding, is a kinetic metaphor of nonghyôn and designated as Korea's Intangible Cultural Asset No. 58. Notice the performer does not walk but plays with the rope's elasticity while putting on humorous acts.

Traditional Korean folk music, called minsok kugak, has been typically composed and transmitted orally from singer to singer and player to player.  In the recent postmodern drive for cultural globalization, fushion kugak ("fusion Korean music") and ch'angjak kugak ("newly made Korean music") have come to dominate the traditional Korean music scene, and this trend begins to show signs of endangering or mutating what modern Korea set out to preserve ­­- the remnants of traditional Korean music.  Composers of fush `ion and ch'angjak work with Western staff notation and orchestral staging.  To better accommodate Western notes and nuances, many have been engaging in modifying the traditional instruments.  Kayagûm in particular has been undergoing many modifications, from 12-string to 18, 24, then 30, to sound less and less like kayagûm.  Listen to a sample of ch'angjak kayagûm, and contrast this with traditional kayagûm performance.