Chapter 42
“Let’s listen to what we just recorded.”
Myeongjeon said that and went into the studio. The kids followed him in with slightly intimidated expressions. Then the song began playing. To an ordinary listener, it sounded like a fairly smooth performance with no particular problems.
But Myeongjeon’s expression—and the other kids’ expressions—was different. Myeongjeon stared at the other three without saying anything, while the others subtly turned their heads and avoided his gaze.
“How’s the sound?”
“Uh… It’s not really coming together…”
“Why do you think this happened?”
The three of them couldn’t answer. Myeongjeon brushed his hair back, sighed once, and spoke.
“At first, just getting everyone to play together was difficult, and we had urgent things to do, so we let some things slide. The second song was the same, really. Besides, it was a cover, so we had a sound reference to work from.
“But now that we’re thinking about recording and performing a song you shaped and completed yourselves, it isn’t going as well as you’d hoped, is it? ‘I wish I stood out more. I want people to pay more attention to me.’ Are you getting shaken up by thoughts like that? Is that why you keep jumping out ahead on your own?”
The Myeongjeon of the past would have simply scrapped everything on the spot, but the current ‘Ha Suyeon’ didn’t think that was necessary. Even so, a sharp reprimand was still called for.
“Those were things we could have let slide during the last performance and the one before that. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“Uh… Yeah, I—no.”
Iseo unconsciously answered in the affirmative, then jumped and hurriedly denied it. Myeongjeon smiled faintly and began speaking again.
“The first performance was at the school festival. To be honest, it was a level where you could play without any pressure. The festival’s sound system was so bad that people probably couldn’t hear us properly, which was why they didn’t notice. Besides, they weren’t at a level where they could tell the difference anyway.
“The second performance was ultimately a gathering of people who liked Japanese anime. It was fairly large, but fundamentally, those people didn’t love music so much as they loved that anime… and that was why they wanted to hear that song. So I didn’t push you all that hard during the second performance, either.”
At that, Iseo raised her slightly lowered head with a jerk. Maybe she had heard wrong. ‘I didn’t push you that hard’? But Suyeon’s expression looked completely sincere. If anything, she even seemed guilty, as though she had pushed the kids far too hard.
“But the third performance. Open Mic. What do you think is the difference between the first, second, and third performances?”
“The size?”
“Open Mic is actually smaller. A few dozen people at most? Maybe a hundred if there are really a lot.”
“It’s that small?”
“Uh… I think I know. Isn’t it the listeners’ preferences?”
Leaving the other two to continue their conversation, Hyeona answered. Myeongjeon nodded, then explained further to the other two.
“The school performance had… what, around five hundred people? Maybe even more. The last performance probably had about 250. This time, let’s lowball it and say fifty.
“So the audience keeps getting smaller. Why do we need to pour our hearts into this performance? The answer is the listeners’ preferences.
“The school festival dragged in everyone at the school. The anime performance was for people who liked anime. Unlike those, a club audition is performed for an audience made up of people who practically live at that club, doing nothing but listening to music.”
Myeongjeon tilted his head slightly. Even someone as old as Myeongjeon had heard of the so-called ‘Hongdae sickness’ and ‘indie pride.’ Audiences who holed up in a corner of a live club and acted as if they were music critics.
“They go wild if you meet their standards, but if you don’t, they ignore you and show no reaction. Some of them even go so far as to openly criticize you.”
Seoha nodded. People who acted as if they could do anything simply because they had come to your performance. The type who thought, ‘We’re the only ones willing to listen to music like this.’ Seoha had seen plenty of them herself.
Of course, most live-club audiences weren’t like that. They were only a minority. But an artist who had never experienced audiences like that would be seriously shocked the first time they encountered them.
“Get it together. We still have a fair amount of time, but we don’t have much time to practice. You all said you have schedules, right? I want you to increase the intensity of your practice accordingly.”
Myeongjeon ran his fingers over his guitar, then walked to the corner of the practice room and turned on the metronome. Click, clack, click, clack, went the metronome.
“Let’s start over from the beginning. Just play the song as it is. Don’t try to add any other techniques. Perfect the basics first, then move on.”
* * *
[Practice over??]
After taking a shower, Iseo flopped onto her bed without even drying her hair. A message from a friend was waiting for her.
[Yeah]
After tying her hair up, Iseo sat in a chair. The bass resting on her knees had a solid, weighty feel. Looking at the neck, she thought, ‘Uh… Should I replace the strings? We’re taking a break from band practice tomorrow… I’ll practice for today, loosen the strings, and replace them tomorrow.’
[How was practice]
[Fucking brutal]
[lol
lol
lol
lollollol]
[Then why the hell do you even have a band??]
[With Ha Suyeon’s personality, wasn’t it obvious she’d work us fucking hard??]
[What’s wrong with Suyeon’s personality?]
[She’s fucking awful]
[Kisama]
[Suyeon-chan has been so yasashii lately!! You wanna die, kora!!]
Iseo giggled as she chatted for a while, then plucked her bass. She tried throwing in a slap according to whatever rhythm came to mind, or adding a small fill.
But it didn’t feel quite satisfying. There was a slight lack of rhythm that she couldn’t quite put into words.
It had been like that even during today’s band practice. Suyeon had kept pointing out problems with the overall balance, and she hadn’t specifically criticized anyone’s individual playing… but it wasn’t as if Suyeon could have failed to notice the problems Iseo herself was aware of.
[Isn’t Ha Suyeon’s mental state getting wrecked?]
[It is getting wrecked]
Suyeon before entering the practice room or performance venue and Suyeon after entering could practically have been called two completely different people.
At school, she usually kept her head down and slept in class, or wandered around wrapped in a blanket while the other kids led her to the cafeteria. In class, she sprawled among the other kids and tossed out halfhearted answers.
But she was completely different when it came to music. Whenever she lowered her voice and calmly said things like, “Play it properly, with a sense of rhythm,” or, “Don’t jump out right now. You’re not the main part. Kill your ego,” Iseo felt as if she froze every time their eyes met.
[Isn’t she pushing them too hard?]
[She seems really stressed, so let her rest]
[We should practice. What else would we do, rest?]
But she was doing it because she cared about the band members. Iseo thought Suyeon was trying to improve the band because she had accepted it as her own band.
‘It’s true that this is hard. But I have to accept it. Not just Suyeon… Hyeona and Seoha are both more skilled than me. To catch up with them, I have to keep working.’
* * *
Myeongjeon laboriously lifted two guitars from the trunk. The driver saw him and exclaimed, “Good grief!” as he tried to help with the luggage, but Myeongjeon shook his head and refused. The man wouldn’t be able to follow him into the studio anyway, so there was no point in letting him carry them.
‘A Fender would be enough. Why the hell did they make me bring a Suhr or a Tom Anderson?’
Groaning under the guitars’ weight, Myeongjeon grumbled inwardly. This was a session gig he had gotten through Junhong’s introduction. When he heard they were paying a decent amount, he had said something like, “Oh, for that much, I’ll definitely do it~” But when he contacted them, the first thing they said was, “We’d prefer it if you brought a Suhr or an Anderson.”
“Wouldn’t a Fender be fine?”
“Ah, our side isn’t particularly fond of Fenders.”
‘Then why the fuck did you call a guitarist? This is fucking annoying.’
He couldn’t say anything like that. In the end, the client was king when it came to session work. No matter how much of a Fender purist Myeongjeon was—nearly enough to rival Yngwie Malmsteen—he couldn’t argue with the client who was paying him. But he couldn’t afford to buy a Suhr or Tom Anderson right away, either.
In the end, Myeongjeon had to tell Junhong, “I’ll bring one next time,” arrange to come play at Junhong’s studio, and only then was he able to borrow a guitar.
A few minutes after calling and saying he had arrived, a sturdy man came downstairs. When he saw Myeongjeon struggling along with the two guitars, he hurried over and took them from him.
“You should’ve said something…!”
“Ah, just take one. I’m fine.”
The studio he entered with the man who had taken one of the guitars felt smaller than Junhong’s studio. Drums were being recorded, and people were clustered together without paying any attention to who came in.
“When should I go in?”
“I’ll tell the director after they finish recording the drums. He’ll let you know. You can set up over there for now.”
The man then went back to the front. Judging by the situation, they seemed to be recording something like a drama OST.
‘Sounds familiar…’
They said this sort of thing had been happening more and more lately. As soon as a drama episode aired, they would start composing its OST, the sheet music would come out mere minutes before recording, and the musicians would have to start recording without being told anything.
But thinking about that made Myeongjeon feel absurdly exasperated.
‘But what the fuck was that bastard Im Junhong thinking? He kept going on about me being the disciple of his respected teacher, and now he’s shoving me straight into a situation like this? Is he a lion throwing its cub off a cliff? If I screw up here, it’s over on the spot.’
‘Run-of-the-mill guitar prodigies’ could never demonstrate their proper ability in a setting like this. The environment was unfamiliar and anything but friendly.
The director anxiously watching the inside of the studio, the staff rushing around nearby to handle odd jobs or make calls—none of them were friendly toward a session musician.
Time was tight, so of course they would frown if someone was wasting their time, and hearing someone yell, “For fuck’s sake!” was perfectly normal. Once, the entire OST recording had been ruined because a pianist couldn’t take the music director’s abuse and ran out crying. When Myeongjeon saw the director the following week, he had a black eye.
Thinking about that, Myeongjeon tuned and checked the guitar. It was the Tom Anderson Drop Top Shorty he had borrowed from Junhong, a guitar worth nearly ten million won. Its intonation was rock-solid, its tone was excellent, and it was nice that he could freely switch between single-coil and humbucker pickups.
‘It just isn’t a Fender.’
As he was thinking that, the man who had brought him there earlier came over.
“Let’s go in for the recording.”
“Okay.”
“But… are you sure you’ll be all right? You’re awfully young…”
“I’m fine. I can at least hear the music, right?”
“Yes. The director will play it for you.”
At that, Myeongjeon took the guitar and stood in front of the director. The director looked at him as if to say, ‘What the hell is this guy doing…?’ before turning to look at the man who had brought him.
“What’s with the little lady? Why did she come in here? What’s with the guitar?”
“She’s the session guitarist.”
“Where’s Im Junhong?”
“You said he couldn’t come. You approved her because she was coming in his place…”
“You fucking bastard. You brought some little kid in here to record, for fuck’s sake…!”
The director suddenly threw a pen at the man, stood up, and exhaled heavily. As the startled staff backed away, Myeongjeon calmly held out his hand to the director.
“Give me the chord chart.”
“Huh?”
“You need to record, don’t you? Give me the chord chart.”
“What the—have you ever even done a session, miss? Im Junhong’s really lost it. He said he’d find a substitute, and then he brings me some weird little girl…”
The director huffed for a moment, then picked up his phone as if he were about to make a call. Myeongjeon tilted his head once more and spoke again.
“Give me the chord chart. We have to record, don’t we? And play the music for me.”
“…If you’re here to play around, leave. Are you really here to record, miss?”
“I am.”
Myeongjeon waved his hand up and down. The director stared at it in disbelief, then checked the time on his phone, sighed again, and handed over the sheet music.
“For fuck’s sake, what is this… I thought I’d seen every kind of fucked-up thing in my years as a music director, but this is a first.”
The director sighed and slumped into his chair in resignation. His dead eyes made it clear that he didn’t believe Myeongjeon could record at all.
‘I’d probably think the same thing in his place.’
Rather than argue with that look, Myeongjeon motioned to the staff member beside him to play the music. For him, this was no more difficult than having a drink in the evening.