Chapter 6.6 - Faster 6 (1/2)

After entering the practice room I glanced around and inside the small room, there was a piano. Up to here was something I was familiar with and was a place that I had been pretty much living in, for the past month.

The only difference would perhaps be the table placed over there as well as the computer on top of it.

Tilting my head, I asked.

“There’s a computer here?”

“A few of the rooms are like that. Practice rooms starting with C are all reserved for the composing department.”

“Ohh…”

As expected of the composing department, they even had computers. Naturally throwing the bag on top of the desk and sitting down, Yu Minji spun the chair around once and grinned.

“Sit. I’ll explain it to you.”

“Okay.”

While pulling one of the distant chairs closer, I thought.

Yu Minji-sunbae.

I could guess after seeing her looking for me in the classroom but she was quite passionate herself. After all, when I asked, ‘Do it right now?’ she gave a smile before heading straight to the practice room and said she would explain about composing as soon as we sat down.

For me, this was good, since practising was a lot better than playing around.

Shrugging my shoulders, I sat down on the chair while Yu Minji had already started opening and looking for things on the computer. She turned the computer on, opened some apps and then took out a rectangular pad from the bag before connecting it to the computer.

“What is that?”

“You’ll see in a bit.”

When Yu Minji touched the pad several times, a stave appeared on the screen. There were five black lines on top of a white page and when Yu Minji wrote notes in between those lines, they appeared immediately on the staves.

Quarter notes, eighth notes, slurs and tuplets…

It was interesting to see the staves being filled up together with the movement of the digital pen. And with the press of the play button, it started playing.

“Oohh…”

“Well, it’s like this pretty much. During the admission tests we had to draw it by hand but these days, they’re all done on computers.”

Seeing the nonchalant Yu Minji, I was slightly baffled.

Wow that was modern. I somewhat thought that classic would have no relations to things like this, but they had been composing songs without a pencil and paper all this time? With an interested gaze, I was looking at the staves that had appeared on the pad when Yu Minji suddenly grinned.

“Cute.”

After tapping on my head for no reason, she spun her chair around another time.

“So, you wanted to learn about composing right? You learned Harmonic studies already so you should know about the basics… ah did you skip through them since you’re an opera student?”

“…No.”

She didn’t seem to believe it even after my response and just turned her head away.

“…”

It was heart wrenching that the perspective on the opera department was bad but I didn’t try to adjust it. Indeed in the opera department there were students like Lee Suh-ah who studied hard, as well as me. Han Dasom was quite enthusiastic as well.

However, there were kids like our Jusup who only sang.

Since opera singers were fundamentally executants that played only one melody, it was also a fact that they weren’t as interested in Harmonic studies as other instruments.

…While I was giving several excused in my head, Yu Minji continued her explanation.

“Well, it doesn’t matter even if you don’t know. You still know what Harmonic studies are about right?”

“…Isn’t it a study on harmony and chords?”

“Right, harmony. Literally it’s about sounds being in harmony. What happens when sounds are in harmony; they are nice to listen to. Therefore, for us composers whose aim is to create nice songs to listen to, Harmonic studies are that important. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

After running several notes in harmony through the program, Yu Minji lightly placed the pen down.

“Composing… is similar to joining lego blocks. You take an A harmony block and attach it to the B harmony block. Just like how you can make spectacular dinosaurs by adding several of those rectangular blocks, it is our job to add these single-coloured chords into colourful songs. Any questions so far?”

As I watched Yu Minji spin around the chair comfortably with her legs apart, I thought.

Mhmm… so it’s like this.

To compose, you first need to have mastered Harmonic studies, and have a good skill to be able to attach lego blocks in a beautiful manner. In other words, to be able to tell which shape was the prettiest, you needed discerning eyes, or rather good ears.

…So this upperclassman who was the top student of the composing department had all that huh.

Seeing me who was in admiration, Yu Minji smiled like she was looking at a cute junior and brought out a file from the computer.

“Now, let’s stop the theories there and go over to the pracs straight away. This prototype was something I made casually after listening to your song. Do you want to hear it?”

“Yes.”

Along with a click, I could hear the soft accompaniment of the piano as a sorrowful melody flowed above the slow accompaniment.

Hmm, a minor, with a dark atmosphere. The rapidly falling arpeggio straight after the introduction gave off an urgent feeling. From then, there was a strange sense of rhythm being felt.

Iya, that’s what it was huh? Feeling admiration, I opened my mouth.

“Ohh, the introduction was an offbeat huh? Like ‘Fur elise’, the rhythm is confusing and is interesting.”

Twitching her eyebrows, she replied.

“It’s boring to just start normally, so I added it in there.”

Indeed, after having it like that, it felt like the motif coming out later down the track was made clearer. It’s possible to have conversations like this when the composer’s right next to you huh.

Being somewhat excited, I started talking on and on.

“Swapping the sounds here seems to give off a big twist and I like it.”

“You do?”

“Woah… although it is going up, isn’t the jump too big? I think it hit a D5 just then?

“…Un?”

“In this part, it’s jumping from tonic to dominant so shouldn’t there be subdominant in the middle?”

“…That’s because it’s still a prototype.”

“I see.”

Seeing me nod, Yu Minji’s expression became blank.

“…You really studied Harmonic studies huh.”

Would I lie about something like that? Feeling dumbfounded, I replied.

“I said that just then though…”

“How much would a freshman in the opera department learn?”

“…”

That was true too. While I was scratching my head in slight embarrassment, Yu Minji sparkled her eyes and opened her mouth.

“Then what do you think about this development?”

She then immediately started printing out the music sheet, and her writing speed seemed to be even faster than my reading speed. Slowly, I etched the notes into my brain and played it.

‘Mhmm…’

It was fast and passionate, and high. The melody that had been storming away with passion hit the summit and gradually sunk down. After that, the lyrical melody continued… but that wasn’t the important part.

With a sullen face I quickly stopped the song in my head and tapped the shoulder of Yu Minji who had been writing away in full concentration.

“Sunbae.”

“…”

“Sunbae!”

“Un?”

Finally coming to herself, she stared towards me.

“The song’s good. It’s good but…”

“But?”

“This is too high.”

When I pointed at the staves, a beansprout that had shot all the way up to E5 was visible.

“…How would I even sing E5.”

I can’t even sing properly with C5 and yet 2 notes higher than that… I wasn’t sure how many people would be able to sing that with a male throat. Yu Minji who had unknowingly gone back to her relaxed appearance tilted her head.

“Ah, tenors can’t go up this high?”

“I need to cut my manhood off to reach that high.”

“Then do it.”

“…”