The musical form originally started as a solo singer-songwriter performing with an acoustic guitar.
It was allied with student movements of the 1970s in song clubs such as "Maeari" at Seoul National University and in Norae Undong ("Song Movement"), caused the embracing of popular genres by Korean intellectuals.
Serious academic inquiries in Korean popular music started in 1984, and continue today.
With Korean popular music becoming more wide-spread across the world this style of guitar is being heard by more and more people.
[2] However, in the 1980s, t'ong became a form of soft rock ballad that earned critical scorn, being described as a 'mindless love affair with American culture'.