Our comeback album, which we’d managed to get approved, was once again a single album.
Which meant we needed two tracks.
One of them, the B-side, didn’t require any thought.
It would be the high-tempo song we’d performed at the concert earlier.
We could just include the fan song.
But the most important thing on an album was the title track.
So Chaerin unnie and I, who had taken on the role of our own A&R team, were listening to demo tracks over and over, running countless blind tests.
The sound room was filled with the repeated thump of the speakers.
Sera unnie was the first to show signs of exhaustion.
Collapsing face-down on the sofa, Sera unnie covered her ears.
“Girls, my ears hurt so much nowww…”
As Seven’s main vocalist, Sera unnie had helped with our work by singing along to demo tracks here and there until this hour of the morning, covering them in her own voice, so it was only natural she’d be worn out.
“Then should we start choosing?”
To be honest, I wasn’t sure there was any point in listening to them over and over like this.
I’d already picked my choice ages ago.
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
Chaerin unnie must have been tired too, because she immediately played the song she had chosen, looking sick of it all.
The two songs that came through the speakers were.
Number 8 and number 12.
Unnie opened her mouth with an unconvinced expression.
“For now, I think these two are the most decent among the options we have left.”
Just as unnie said, “most decent,” those tracks definitely weren’t particularly high quality.
The good songs had already been included on Inners’ full-length album.
Instead, unnie’s picks had their advantages.
“Yeah, I get what you mean. You’re saying we should focus on raising the completeness of the album rather than the completeness of the song, right?”
Both songs were lyrical medium-tempo tracks, so if one became the title track, it would contrast in genre with the high-tempo fan song that would be the B-side, adding variety to the album.
And since they could create an atmosphere that suited this album’s title, which meant dawn, they were definitely decent as album tracks.
“Yeah, that’s true, but…”
But it didn’t feel like the best choice.
“It’s pretty disappointing. It might be better not to make a comeback at all.”
Because this was a single album with only two tracks, the album’s overall completeness wasn’t all that meaningful.
More than anything, a title track simply had to be good.
“So what about you, Dohee?”
That was why I chose the exact opposite from unnie.
“Number 2. What about number 2?”
Chaerin unnie dragged through the list.
“What was number 2 again…”
When she left-clicked the mouse, an upbeat rhythm came through the speakers.
“This one? It’s EDM.”
At that moment, Sera unnie, who had been collapsed on the sofa, flinched.
“Dohee and EDM…!?”
What. Why.
“EDM… club… club girl… b-booking…?”
What is she talking about?
“And grinding…?! No! Protect Dohee!”
“Ah, why are you like this?”
Anyway, what I’d chosen was EDM.
“Ah, don’t hug me. It’s hot.”
“Protect!”
To be precise, it was a house track with a hint of disco.
Chaerin unnie still looked puzzled by my choice.
It was understandable.
“Dohee, putting aside the album’s completeness since it’s EDM, the song’s quality is… way too…”
Number 2 must have been made by a composer as inexperienced as us, because the quality of the song was severely lacking.
I sat in front of the MIDI and clicked a few parts.
The random ppongjjak beat added here out of nowhere.
The melodies that went subtly off-kilter here and there.
The sessions forcibly crammed in to represent excitement.
All these parts that were strangely ruining the quality of the song.
“Don’t you think it’d be good if we polished this?”
If we stripped away the unnecessary things.
If we matched the now somewhat empty space with the progression in my head.
And if we added sessions that could raise the album’s completeness by giving it a dawn atmosphere.
Maybe this was what people meant.
When they said inspiration came to them.
“Let’s arrange this ourselves.”
***
Group composing wasn’t strange in this day and age.
Sometimes two or three people.
Sometimes more than ten people would latch onto a single song and split it up by part, by line, by beat.
Doing so not only allowed for more original work, but also kept composers from falling into the mannerism of mass-producing identical songs, so it was a method most composers adopted.
Of course, there were still composers who were more comfortable working alone.
In any case, it meant there was nothing strange about us joining in on the composition and arrangement of a song that had already been made.
As long as we received permission from the original creator.
And the A&R team had already gotten that permission for us.
They said the original creator had been incredibly delighted, saying his song had been recognized.
‘Well, the original song’s quality really was pretty bad…’
For now, there was no need to meet the original creator separately.
We could exchange opinions over video call.
What we needed right now was a skilled person who could help us with the arrangement.
Someone skilled enough to quickly transfer the directing ideas and musical inspirations Chaerin unnie and I had in our heads into MIDI and coordinate them.
And there was one person who came to mind first.
‘This person would definitely be good at it, but…’
After thinking it over, I took out my phone.
[Coral Blue Rira: Is the tour manageable?] +2 - 8:31 PM
A message from two hours ago, gone cold.
‘What should I send…’
For now, I decided to reply politely like usual.
[Me: Yes, sunbae. Thanks to your concern!]
[Me: How have you been lately, sunbae?]
And five minutes later, a reply arrived.
[Coral Blue Rira: Yes, I’m doing well too]
[Coral Blue Rira: But you’re talking really nicely today?]
This is how I always am.
[Me: Ah, I see]
[Me: Then, sunbae, if you don’t mind, may I ask if you have some free time?]
[Me: I need help ㅠ]
[Coral Blue Rira: All of a sudden?]
[Me: Yes!]
[Coral Blue Rira: I don’t know what it is, but no thanks lol]
Agh…
[Me: Whyyy…]
[Me: (pitiful rabbit emoticon)]
[Coral Blue Rira: Scroll up in the chat]
I dragged the screen and scrolled up through the chat.
[Coral Blue Rira: (file) How about this song? I didn’t make it, but a junior at our company did]
[Me: (sleeping rabbit emoticon)]
…Hm.
[Me: It was just your junior’s cute aegyo ㅎ.ㅎ…]
Still, after messing around for about five minutes, I did end up giving feedback on all of it diligently.
And we’re even rivals. Huh?
[Me: Next time, I won’t play hard to get, and I’ll give feedback, of course, and if I have time, I’ll come running whenever!]
[Coral Blue Rira: Really?]
[Me: Yep!]
[Coral Blue Rira: Ok ok]
[Me: Then where should I go?]
[Coral Blue Rira: But I’m in the U.S. right now lol]
[Coral Blue Rira: I might be entering Korea next week]
Ah.
Seriously.
***
“So that’s why you came to me.”
Dohee had come alone late in the evening.
“Yes!”
Seeing Dohee still so bright, Jeong Sohyeon, the general manager of TopEast’s A&R team, let out a sigh inwardly.
‘Hoo…’
It wasn’t particularly because Dohee had come at this hour, when everyone else had already gone home.
Jeong Sohyeon worked late into the night anyway.
The cause of her sigh was Shock Entertainment.
‘Is LE the problem?’
Of course, since Inners also had two trainees from TopEast, she wanted them to do well.
But to think there weren’t even staff members to allocate to the Seven members.
Jeong Sohyeon decided to leave word with the management team.
Unless there was a serious reason not to, they would attach managers to Dohee and Seoyun not only for personal schedules, but otherwise as well.
Any further measures than that would likely be meaningless.
Dohee herself didn’t seem to care much, and there wasn’t much time left on the contract either.
“All right, then. Let’s listen first.”
She took Dohee to the MIDI room.
Dohee took out a USB and connected the song.
And the song that flowed out was, as expected, lacking in completeness.
“All right, what kind of arrangement do you want to do?”
“Mm… First, I’ll try getting rid of the things we need to get rid of?”
Dohee sat in front of the laptop and began clumsily fiddling with the MIDI sessions.
It seemed she had studied on her own.
Back when Dohee was a trainee, it wasn’t as though they hadn’t considered teaching her composition separately.
But between her school grades, piano competitions, and basic trainee training, handling all of that already seemed like overwork, so they had left composition out.
Thinking about it now, it seemed they could have taught her after all.
She was such a hardworking kid.
Jeong Sohyeon found herself thinking that once promotions ended, she should assign Dohee a proper composition teacher.
Though she wasn’t sure whether Dohee would have any time to learn because of her schedule.
“Team Leader, I’ll play it again now?”
In the meantime, Dohee seemed to have quickly removed the things she wanted to remove.
“Okay, play it.”
And the track that played again had certainly lost its dissonance, but it had become a flat and plain song.
Instead, there were some charming points that allowed Jeong Sohyeon to understand what Dohee meant.
The important thing would be how to bring them alive from here.
“All right, what do you want to add here?”
“Mm… First, I want to put in something like, you know, ba-bam ba-bam.”
Dohee began to fully lay out the musical ideas in her head.
“It’s kind of like a trumpet, but if you blow into that trumpet without any notes and let the air go weakly, it goes prrrr, right?”
A prrrr sound?
“But then you raise the pitch of that and put in some notes. And at the end, you add distortion so it changes into this rough, tearing kind of form… Ah, what is it, it also kind of feels like an accordion. Ah! Ah! If we cut this and repeat it in 4/4 time, I think it’ll give that feeling. But even if it feels like an accordion, we have to remove a lot of the ppongjjak feel. The original song already has that feel. Ah, but how do we get rid of that feel? Do we need to add something new?”
Perhaps because Jeong Sohyeon was closer to a director than a producer, it wasn’t something she could easily understand.
“…Try saying that again for now. Slowly.”
So she called in arranger Jeon Yosep, who often worked with TopEast, to help.
“…Could you try saying it slowly?”
And even the arranger Jeon Yosep, who arrived soon after, took quite a while to understand what Dohee was saying.
“Is it this kind of feeling?”
“Mm… Ah! It feels like a closing ceremony.”
“A closing ceremony feeling…”
Because she was laying out her impressions in such a jumbled way.
“Ah, but not in a depressing now-it’s-time-to-say-goodbye way. It’s exciting… but with a certain amount of trot-ish vibe?”
“…For now, I think it’ll be faster to look for samples.”
In the end, they dug through samples and dashboards, comparing them one by one.
“This sample has the right feeling, doesn’t it? I think it’s similar to what you said.”
“Mm… A little rougher.”
“Like this?”
“Mm… Now that it’s raised, I don’t think this is it.”
“Ah… okay.”
Somehow or other, while adjusting the MIDI, they created the samples Dohee wanted.
“Oh, this is it! Wow, Composer-nim, you’re seriously a genius. Amazing.”
“…Thank you. I think you’re a genius too, Dohee-yang, for having this inside your head.”
Considering she had drawn all the musical ideas in her head beforehand, the work progressed incredibly slowly.
But Dohee was happy, saying it was still dozens of times faster than her usual work speed, so it was probably fine.
However, Jeong Sohyeon had now learned just how fast Dohee’s usual work speed was, having never properly learned composition.
She resolved that she absolutely had to teach Dohee composition so she could do it on her own.