Chapter 26
Art is a realm of talent. Some people may refuse to admit it, but there are more people who do than those who don’t.
Sehyun also tended to agree with that.
Because he himself was someone with ‘talent.’
From a young age, he had been told that he was good at singing, and once he got a little older, his singing was enough to make everyone around him marvel. When he was in high school, he avoided singing in front of the other students. He didn’t want to discourage them.
But when he came to an arts college, he found an entirely different world. There were plenty of people who sang better than he did, as well as countless students who showed real promise.
He had been a frog in a well.
Because of that, he worked and worked to sing even a little better. To prove that he was ‘someone with talent,’ he sang until his throat bled.
And by doing so, he thought he had escaped the well.
While attending the arts college, collaborating with friends, and getting scolded and praised by professors… he thought he had experienced his own little scene. He had pondered what it meant to be an amateur and what it meant to be a professional, and had worked to develop the attitude a professional ought to have.
A frog facing the ocean has to decide whether to return to the well or venture out to sea.
He was a frog who had decided not to return to the well. He was someone who had prepared to face the world by confronting his own shortcomings.
But was even the ocean he thought he had faced nothing more than another well?
The clean guitar tone began with a ringing “Tiiing—” and melted into the gentle piano line without the slightest discord.
It was an instrumental track that had felt nothing but bland without the vocals.
But now that the guitar line was coming in, he felt as though the vocals were naturally waiting to enter.
No, more precisely… he felt as though the entire song was waiting for his voice.
“Today, too, I’m waiting for you…”
The lyrics flowed naturally from his lips.
“Wow, what the hell is that?”
Sehyun’s friend, who had come to help with the mixing, muttered. Sehyun felt the same way. What on earth was that?
The next section was the hook Sehyun had written with considerable care. It was the part where the vocals burst forth, making the buildup of the first verse explode.
And the guitar had been recorded in a way that naturally supported the vocals.
“Ah…”
Sehyun suddenly let out a sigh filled with regret. It would have been nice if she had struck the strings harder once during this section. Wouldn’t that have helped the climax explode?
No, that wasn’t it. This was Sehyun’s song, and the vocals were Sehyun’s. He had called in a session musician to bring out his voice.
‘It’s my song, and I almost forgot…’
It was a performance that seemed to know perfectly well that she was not the protagonist of the song and existed solely as a session musician to bring out the vocals.
Sehyun was impressed by that attitude. Even as a session musician, could someone really suppress their ego to that extent? She must have felt at least a little desire to show off.
“Will this line do?”
After the guitar performance ended, a voice came from inside the recording booth.
“Anything to fix?”
“Uh… no. I think this is enough as it is. No, couldn’t we just use what you played a moment ago?”
“I don’t think there’s anything more to take out…” his friend muttered. Sehyun agreed. What else was there to remove? It seemed like they could have simply gone with it as it was.
“We can probably start recording right away.”
“Is this tone all right?”
Tone? Hmm… Sehyun thought for a moment about what kind of tone would be best.
‘I have no idea.’
“Just do whatever you think is best. The current tone is fine, too.”
“Understood.”
While his friend began setting up the recording, Sehyun adjusted the monitoring environment a little. In the meantime, the girl in the booth seemed to be fiddling with various tone settings.
“I’ll record the melody line first. Then I’ll add the strumming, and try out things like arpeggios and single notes as needed.”
“Ah, yes…”
“I don’t have an acoustic guitar with me right now. I’ll adjust the electric guitar to recreate the sound as closely as possible. Do you need the sound of a real acoustic guitar?”
“Ah, no…”
Sehyun had thought that recording just one line would be enough, but apparently she had other ideas. The fact that she was even offering to record an acoustic guitar sound he hadn’t expected or asked for made her seem remarkably conscientious.
Then, listening to the guitar flowing from the speakers, Sehyun slowly closed his eyes.
‘Good.’
The song that had felt somehow lacking seemed to be drawing closer to 100 percent. No, it might even go beyond 100 and reach 120 or 130 percent.
“Should I add a solo?”
“Ah, uh… I think it would be nice if you did…”
Just then, a conversation came from inside the recording booth.
“Is it okay to put in a solo?”
“Sure, could you play it once? I think we need to hear it first.”
Sehyun agreed, but his friend didn’t seem to. Ignoring his friend’s reaction, Sehyun spoke to the recording booth.
A little while later, the solo began.
And Sehyun felt goosebumps rise all over his body.
Along with the bending note that announced the beginning of the hook, Suyeon’s hand began to move.
Her fingers moved both delicately and boldly, like a spider spinning a web. Supported by the eldest sister, the thumb, the four sisters danced across the fretboard.
Neither hurried nor leisurely.
The melody moved naturally, like a butterfly that instinctively knew the path along which it had to fly.
‘This has to go in.’
The incredibly short thirty-second solo—which felt like ten seconds—ended, and Sehyun immediately thought that. Just as he was about to say they had to include it, his friend spoke.
“We can’t put this in.”
“…Why?”
“If we include it, the song will definitely get a lot better. But then I think your vocals will get buried.”
“What?”
“The vocals can’t keep up with this solo. We’d have to push the vocals further into the background and bring the guitar forward. The overall quality of the song would probably go up, but the vocals would die.”
At his friend’s words, Sehyun began to ponder.
Was it the quality of the song or the quality of the vocals? Both were choices he could understand to some extent, and both had merit. After thinking it over, Sehyun picked up the microphone and spoke to the recording booth.
“Let’s leave the solo out.”
“Understood. Then we’ll move on to recording the other parts.”
‘This is right.’
The quality of the song was important. But more important was the fact that, in the end, this album and this song belonged to ‘Sehyun.’ ‘Sehyun’ needed to be in the spotlight, not the guitar.
“Where could she have learned to play?”
“Huh?”
As he was thinking that, he heard his friend mutter.
“She looks incredibly young at first glance. But she doesn’t seem to be a student at an arts high school. Not that they teach things like that at those schools in the first place…”
“Hmm.”
Since both Sehyun and his friend had attended arts high schools, they knew exactly what those schools were like. They were places where everyone wanted to be the protagonist and believed they could become one.
“She’s definitely not old enough to have done much session work. But she’s far too skilled.”
“I don’t know… I’m not sure that matters…”
Hearing that, Sehyun thought about the session fee they had already agreed on. One pro (three to three and a half hours, the recording studio’s basic time unit) cost 150,000 won.
At first, he had expected the work to take three pros, meaning it would cost 450,000 won, and had even considered the possibility that the recording might not turn out properly despite paying the full amount.
‘But at this rate, it looks like we’ll finish everything within two pros.’
For some reason, he began to feel apologetic. After receiving a session of this quality, would it not make him look like a complete freeloader if he finished the work for 300,000 won, said “Thanks for your hard work,” and left?
* * *
Myeongjeon strummed the guitar without a second thought.
The choppy, slightly crackling sound of a driven tone—the official terms were funk rhythm, funk stroke, skank, and so on.
After sprinkling it into only the parts that needed it, he adjusted the tone again. This time, it was time to add the arpeggio.
‘I’m not sure I really need to go this far, but…’
Myeongjeon in the past would never have gone this far. Of course, he had done everything he needed to do even without being asked, but he had never gone beyond his duties to touch on arrangement as well.
Because that, too, required money and effort.
They say composition is instinct, while arrangement is study. Composition is the work of creating the main melody, whereas arrangement involves creating the various accompaniments, effects, and other devices that support it.
In other words, it was work that required man-hours.
And work that required man-hours had to be paid for. That was an ironclad rule of the industry.
And Myeongjeon knew that rule better than anyone, but…
‘If I do even this much for free, no one will hire me for a session.’
In the past, he would have said, “If you want me to do more here, you’ll need to give me a credit (copyright) or pay an arrangement fee.”
Because the one who was left wanting was not him, but the people who had called him. Even though he only took sessions when he felt like it, there had been countless people willing to pay him.
But now?
‘Just getting this commission is practically a miracle.’
He had posted the song and his contact information, but he had never thought anyone would listen to the song and contact him. And really, what lunatic would listen to one cover and one original song before contacting someone and saying, “This person is freaking incredible!!”?
If a junior had come to Myeongjeon asking, “I’m thinking about trying something like that. Do you think it’ll be okay?” he would have smacked the back of their head. They would only be wasting money.
But that had actually happened…
‘I need to treat these guys well and build a connection so they can bring me more work later.’
Judging by their clothes, the quality of their song, and everything else, they were unmistakably arts college students swaggering around with their chins raised, acting like they were musicians. They were exactly the sort of people Myeongjeon disliked—full of arrogance despite lacking ability—but they did have one good point.
‘Their families have enough money that 300,000 or 500,000 won doesn’t even count as money to them.’
It was a highly prejudiced thought, but Myeongjeon believed it was close to the truth.
Music, by rights, was supposed to be pursued by people who started with nothing, earned money playing, rented a room, bought instruments, and clawed their way to success while dragging their impoverished bodies along.
Myeongjeon thought that was probably why the music young people made these days was so soft and barely sounded like music at all.
‘What kind of music do kids who just sit under their parents, going “Waaaaah, Mom and Dad, give me money! I want to do music! Waaah!” think they’re going to make… Tsk, tsk…’
* * *
“Thank you!! We’ll definitely spread the word to our other friends!! Thanks for all your hard work!!”
“Yes, thank you for your hard work.”
The sun had already set, and the street was lit by dim moonlight. Leaving the two college students bowing repeatedly behind him, Myeongjeon opened his phone with his guitar strapped to his back.
‘300,000 won.’
In the past, he would have received at least a million won. Since he had done some arranging as well, he might even have received more than 1.5 million.
But now, was he supposed to be satisfied simply because he had less than a fifth of that amount in his hands?
‘Well, I should think of this as getting my foot in the door…’
While he was lost in thought, a Mercedes S-Class pulled up in front of him. Through the open passenger-side door, he saw Ms. Lee Hyein.
“Suyeon! Are you done?”
“Yes.”
“You can put your stuff in the back seat~”
He tossed his luggage into the back, got into the front seat, and fastened his seat belt. Meanwhile, Ms. Lee Hyein kept looking at him with a bright smile.
“…Why?”
“You said you played guitar, and I was surprised to hear you were even making money from it.”
“It’s not normally this easy to make money. I’m just, um, good at playing, that’s all.”
Worried that she might misunderstand guitar playing as a profession that paid well, Myeongjeon offered something that sounded suspiciously like an excuse.
“I know. It was only possible because my daughter is so good at it.”
“…Yes.”
Silence descended. Myeongjeon stole a glance at Ms. Lee Hyein’s face. It was quite late, and her daughter had made her come pick her up, yet she showed no sign of annoyance at all.
“Someday, once some time has passed, will Suyeon become a professional guitarist and be able to make a living playing guitar?”
“…Well, it’s possible, but…”
Who knew? Did he really need to go that far? In this life, he had intended to enjoy music and nothing more.
‘But if I think that way, perhaps I shouldn’t have taken a session job in the first place…’
What woke Myeongjeon from those idle thoughts was Ms. Lee Hyein’s voice.
“Suyeon, would you like to try a part-time job?”
“What kind of part-time job?”
“At my company, there are employee bands… and I think they need someone to teach them. You could teach them and…”
She went on to talk about playing music at the company café and doing various other things… but unfortunately, the rest of her words were drowned out when they entered a tunnel. In any case, it sounded like a part-time job teaching ordinary people how to play guitar.
“I’ll do it.”
“Really? Thank you.”
Watching Ms. Lee Hyein smile, Myeongjeon thought about it. Teaching ordinary people—in other words, giving lessons—was something he had done for over a decade. It was practically like swimming in shallow water.
‘Money is just rolling in…’
Myeongjeon thought that and smiled. It seemed the day when one of his former possessions came into his hands was not far away.