Chapter 1.4 - As if Singing 4 (1/2)

Soon, a lady of around 30 years stood at the front. A clean white shirt with a beige-coloured skirt, and more importantly, those short nails entered the eyes.

An instrument teacher is it? Piano or a violin?

“Hello everyone. I’m the homeroom teacher of Freshmen 10th class for one year, Kang Heewon.”

She smiled while introducing herself. Kang Heewon… not someone I remember.

While I was in deep consideration of who Kang Heewon was, the usual things teachers said started to come out.

Things like, nice to meet you, let’s be close and you will need to move rooms for every subject so we won’t be seeing much… But there will be morning roll calls so don’t be late for those! And the likes…

After immediately losing interest, I gazed around.

In one corner, Jun Shihyuk and Song Mirae’s Future Middle School group were laughing away and Lee Suh-ah was sitting at the front quietly looking forward.

And there was Chloe sitting next to me. When I glanced at her, perhaps her hair had gotten into her uniform, I could see Chloe straightening out her blonde hair.

Chloe… I forgot the last name.

Hmm… and she was French. Was she half, I didn’t know.

… Although I pretended to know a lot, I don’t really know much. Well, I didn’t remember her because we were close; she just stood out a lot so I automatically remembered her.

I mean, she’s a foreigner. It couldn’t be helped that she who was the only one within the Koreans was carved into the brain. A long straight, bright blonde hair, and wide eyes with green eyeballs. A doll-like foreign girl straight out of a painting.

Maybe other kids found it strange as well, they were looking straight at her. Chloe herself seemed to be aware of this and looked restless.

‘Hmm…’

Looking at that appearance while tapping on the table, I tried talking to her.

[Hi]

[Hello]

Bonjour – she says and faces the front again, acting indifferent.

“…”

Yeah. How can I make friends with students with this age?

After half giving up and leaning back onto the seat, the boring story of the teacher was nearing its end.

“… Since today’s the first day there won’t be any special classes and will end early. Sounds good?”

“Yes!”

Kang Heewon continued after sneering evilly.

“But it’s disheartening to return to the dorms like this right? So, shall we do a light test?”

“No!”

Ignoring the students who became one, teacher Kang Heewon used the computer and brought out a music score on the little screen. What score all of a sudden? I looked dully but it didn’t seem familiar, or more like, it didn’t even look like a song.

The teacher saw us being puzzled and clapped with a smile.

“Good! Now can the students on the front row come up please?”

“…”

The students stood up with bewilderment at the sudden situation, while the teacher continued her waving gesture. Looking at the students who slowly crept up, a memory popped up in my head.

‘Ah, this is that.’

After assessing the situation, I could see what kind of test she was referring to. The teacher smiled and opened her mouth.

“SRMD. Let’s see how well you’ve been practising~”

There were loud boos from the surrounding students in response.

While there was a quiet snigger from me.

‘SRMD.’

Short for Sight-reading and Music dictation.

Sight-reading meant reading the score and singing the note, while music dictation meant hearing a note and writing it on the stave. It was basically a foundational pitch training. How to read a score as well as hearing the notes was the basics of music and a subject area that students would tirelessly study.

‘Oh yeah, weren’t classes decided by the SRMD test results?’

Higher scores would result in top classes while the lower ones would go to bottom classes, was how it went I think. Differentiated teaching or something like that.

The five students at the front stared straight at the score oblivious to this fact or not.

“Okay. After 3, 2, 1, you may start. Look at me.”

After saying that, the teacher got rid of the score on the screen and along with the sighs, the countdown started. At the end of the countdown, the students opened their mouths at once.

“Do mi so, do ti la so…”

The first round was made easy, having a constant rhythm without sudden tone changes. The students sang the pitches with ease.

From among those voices, there was one standing out. An elegant, noble voice with its soft ringing echoed throughout despite being a simple reading.

Lee Suh-ah.

The voice itself was different. As expected of being the seed of a world-class soprano, even the appearance of the downcast eyes reflected her leisure. I concentrated my all into feeling her voice. It was nice, really nice. If she was like this, how would Kim Wuju be? I could feel my throat drying up.

“It’s easy, right? Let’s go to the next stage. If you get it wrong, just stop. I’m listening to you all.”

The test that suddenly got harder from the second round produced dropouts on the third, and by the eighth round, only Lee Suh-ah was left standing.

Kang Heewon who saw that speaks in awe.

“Eighth round! You must’ve worked really hard. We’re starting 3, 2, 1.”

Looking at the screen, I found a ridiculous-looking score.

Notes and rests, flats, sharps, double sharps… The score filled with all sorts of music symbols was at a stage that could be called sauteed bean sprouts.

Is there a need to go that far?

While I was staring dumbfounded, Lee Suh-ah finally crumbled at the unrelenting syncopation.

“Ti, reso, fa, mi, re, domisoti – do, re, Ah…”

Lee Suh-ah who noticed her mistake lowers her head.

“Half a beat too fast yes? That was still well done. Next row please.”

“Yes…”

The sight-reading test continued without a problem, and reached my front row at a blink.

Looking at things, it seemed that students from the composition department were good. They must’ve learned harmonics already after all, and could see more from the score than others.

SRMD.

Sight-reading and music dictation had an effect on those that were born with perfect pitches, but the most important thing was to know the rules of music and to get used to it.

Notes that look random at a glance all have a set reason for being there after all.

If you take that into account and practise, this SRMD becomes a lot easier to handle. A perfect pitch was something you could acquire after birth with practice.

So in conclusion, sight-reading and music dictation was about who was more practised with them. And me who had been an opera singer for 20 years…

Had a cheat that made me feel almost sorry for being here.

‘Sitting around with students doing SRMD at this age…’

I was laughing at my life when my turn approached.

Walking up, I stood at the front as Chloe followed from behind and stood next to me. Kang Heewon who saw that blonde foreigner had an expression saying ‘oh no’, and spoke.

“Ah, Chloe. Is your Korean okay? Do you understand what we are doing?”

“I’m… good, at listening. Singing score, I can do.”