Employees evaluate the tones of musical instruments using a program at the National Institute of Musical Instruments.

The National Institute of Musical Instruments have updated thungso (Korean bamboo flute) and komungo (Korean lute), national classical instruments.

“We have expanded the compass and volume of both the instruments so that any modern music can be easily performed,” said Ri Thae Hyon, deputy director of the institute.

Previous thungso was only used to play pentatonic classical music and old folk songs.

Typical examples are Sinau or Arirang, pentatonic thungso music pieces, which reflect well the national sentiment with enchanting and pathetic timbre.

The institute expanded the scale into twelve while preserving the timbre peculiar to thungso, widened compass and volume by updating sound holes according to it and shifting the position of pith of a reed and newly installed caps over the sound holes to provide convenience for performance.

It increased the original four strings of komungo to six, used staples instead of the previous additional string that had been used to fasten strings and added three more fixing bridges so that modern music could finely be performed.