Daechwita

Daechwita (literally "great blowing and hitting") is a genre of Korean traditional music consisting of military music played by wind and percussion instruments, generally performed while marching. Instruments used include nabal (brass horn), nagak (seashell horn), and taepyeongso (shawm), with jing (gong), jabara (cymbals), and yonggo (hangul: 용고; hanja: 龍鼓; drum painted with dragon designs and played with mallets).

Daechwita
Daechwita musicians performing for the changing of the guard at Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul
Korean name
Hangul	대취타
Hanja	大吹打
Revised Romanization	daechwita
McCune–Reischauer	taech'wit'a

Daechwita musicians playing yonggo (dragon drums) in a Seoul street parade

This style of Korean military music is often used in the reenactment of the Guard Changing Ceremony at Seoul's Gyeongbok Palace, as well as in Deoksu Palace. A special daechwita today is under the service of the Traditional Guard Unit, Republic of Korea Army, and is the only one that also has the Ulla (small tuned gongs), Pungmul-buk and Galgo in its instrumentation. This is the same case for traditional Korean bands outside the homeland, which also have a pungmul marching percussion battery (with kkwaenggwari, janggu and pungmul-buk drums) at the rear with distinguishing uniforms between the two ensembles. Few modern bands based in schools sport bass drums together with the kwaennggwari, galgo and janggu as part of their instrumentation.

Uniforms in the band are in royal gold or red and white, as these were connected in the Imperial period to the Imperial family and the armed forces.