Chapter 3.4 - Passionately 4 (2/2)

The teacher slapped her palm with a stick.

“Quiet! The person should’ve felt it himself if it was different. Anyone who thinks it was them? Or should we try one more time with just the tenors?”

Looking at her glancing through the tenors, it seemed that she was also aware where the problem was. Ah this is embarrassing.

Tenor.

In the tenth class, there was me, Kim Dongsik and another violin-major kid as the tenor. Our class had a shortage of bass so Jun Shihyuk went down to bass.

And so, the leftover three.

As everyone’s’ eyes gathered to us three, I felt a drizzle of cold sweat leave my body.

‘I showed off too much because it went up so easily.’

On some days while doing choruses, there were those days.

Days where you were in great condition. On these days, people would sometimes forget themselves and thrash around because of the high tension, and the so-called ‘show-off’ phenomenon would occur.

‘Sigh…’

I was about to raise my hand with a sigh when Jun Shihyuk next to me raised his hand.

“Jo Yunjae alone sang differently.”

Everyone’s eyes gathered at me.

‘Ah…’

I felt my cheeks redden. Glancing to the side, I saw Jun Shihyuk crossing his arm in a spiteful manner. When our eyes met, he raised his eyebrows a little, signalling that he had only said the truth.

Teacher Hong Yoojin’s somewhat cold gaze pierced at me.

“Was that so?”

“…Yes.”

I admitted it without hiding, as it was indeed my fault. Just as I was about to lick my lips with the thought that I shouldn’t show off anymore, teacher Hong Yoojin threw some unexpected words.

“Then try singing one more time in the same manner. That’s good, because I was about to say what you shouldn’t sing like during a chorus.”

Her glancing eyes facing me appeared vicious. What, why does this teacher seem to hate me? Did I do something wrong, I thought but she was someone I had never even seen before.

Scratching my hair, I had no other choice so turned my gaze back towards the hymn on the book.

Hymn, number 242.

My eyes quickly scanned through the score.

‘Quite high for a hymn.’

On the tenor part, the note had escaped the staves and was hanging high up there. Counting the notes up, it was an F4. F4 was a rare high note for a tenor part in a hymn, I thought as I remembered about the past.

‘F4, wasn’t that the note I couldn’t sing during the sight-reading?’

That note that I had given up on, saying I couldn’t make it, straight after admission. As if drawing a conclusion on my trail of thought, the teacher opened her lips.

“Right, then the three tenors, we’ll start from the ‘Please save us’ part. 3, 2, 1.”

Watching teacher Hong Yoojin wave her hand and start conducting, I breathed in deeply.

‘There’s no other choice.’

Since the conductor has ordered to sing the same thing again, I will show off once again – with all I can. Scanning through, I checked the musical notations.

None.

Fast, slow, strong, soft, continuous, or separate. There were no musical notations from the composer, saying ‘Please sing this song like this’. This meant that we could sing however we wanted.

‘However we want…’

The deep breath filled up the stomach. As the mouth opened, it created a large space for resonance and keeping that, I focused my attention at the conductor standing at the front.

A complete preparation.

As the teacher’s hand was lowered, I opened my mouth.

“Please save us from– the suffering.”

The tenor part.

The three voices singing that short phrase had stopped and the accompaniment had been stopped as well.

“Uh…?”

As I was giving a nod inwardly, happy about being about to properly hit an F4 note, teacher Hong Yoojin stared dumbfoundedly at me. Why’s that teacher like that, wasn’t she picking on me because she knew I was showing off?

Without caring about that, the tenth class students debated by themselves.

“Something’s not right.”

“Wasn’t the sound off?”

“The pitch and the rhythm are right…”

“Both the pitch and the rhythm are right so why’s it weird?”

Weird. Right, it should result in that feeling as the ringing itself was bad. It felt somewhat out of harmony, leaving disharmony behind – a chorus that results in an uncomfortable conclusion.

When will this end, I thought as I glanced around but none of them was able to come up with a decent answer it seemed. Teacher Hong Yoojin was just murmuring something as she looked at me, and when I glanced at Lee Suh-ah, she had her eyebrows and lips raised, seemingly not wanting to step forward.

In that instant where even the few opera majors had their mouths closed, teacher Hong Yoojin finally came to her senses. Shaking her head and regaining a normal expression, she opened her mouth.

“Kuhhm. You heard, right? Guys, both the rhythm and pitch were right but it didn’t feel like a chorus, why was that?”

Her attitude of quickly changing it to a form of a lesson was natural. Jun Shihyuk raised his hand in response to her question.

“Isn’t it because the vocalisation is different? We learned that there was a different vocalisation method for Concerted Music.”

He had his eyes facing me and made it seem like a reply directed at me. However, teacher Hong Yoojin shook her head.

“Jun Shihyuk, that’s wrong. Three of them all sang properly with Concerted Music vocalisation methods. Anyone else?”

“…”

The teacher that had been facing me with doubtful eyes asked in a sour tone.

“Jo Yunjae. Answer it. How was your’s different from other students’?”

After opening and closing my mouth due to a strange sense of embarrassment, I gave up due to the teacher’s constant urging and opened my mouth.