I cracked my door open, then sat back down in front of the piano.
And slammed my hands down on the keys with all my might.
“No, this isn’t it. This isn’t it!”
Then voices came from the living room.
“Ah, again? What is she doing now?”
“She really seems insane...”
Then I would pretend to be in a fit of spite and slash lines across the staff paper.
“No! I said no!”
U-a unnie looked like she couldn’t understand it at all.
“Unnie. Was Dohee like that at the Seven dorm too?”
“No? Back then there were seven of us, so there wasn’t even space to put a piano in the first place. And if she had been, Chaerin would’ve gone berserk.”
I glanced at Seoyun unnie.
Then slammed the piano again with all my strength.
“Ah, close your door if you’re going to play! What’s the point of installing a soundproof booth!”
“I said this isn’t it!”
“Argh!”
Seoyun unnie sprang up from her seat, and U-a unnie held her back.
“Unnie, let it slide~ She wants to show off the piano she just bought. Apparently it’s super expensive.”
“No, she’s doing that on purpose while looking at me. We literally just made eye contact.”
“Exactly. Why did you turn off the light while Dohee was showering this morning?”
“What are you talking about? She turned it off first.”
“Hm? That was Chiyo.”
—Dodododo
And Chiyo unnie ran to her room and locked the door.
—Bang bang!
“Hey, are you not opening this door!?”
“Gomen...!”
“Open it!”
“Gomennasai...!”
Meanwhile, Naeun unnie, looking as if she had reached enlightenment, came into my room holding a teacup with a peaceful smile.
“Dohee, you’ve been under a lot of stress lately, haven’t you?”
Thanks to that, reason and intelligence returned to my eyes.
“No, it’s just... I can’t think of any melody at all.”
I couldn’t exactly say I’d wanted to try pretending to be a tormented genius.
“I see. That must be hard.”
“Yeah... a little?”
“This is chamomile tea. It’s good for calming the mind and body. Drink it. I added a little honey because you like it, okay?”
And standing behind me, Naeun unnie tidied my tousled hair.
“Gasp, thank you. I’ll try my best again.”
“Good, good. Take it slow. You still have plenty of time.”
Naeun unnie left, and the door closed again.
Right. Let’s try hard to think of a melody again.
I looked at the staff paper drawn in front of me once more.
I didn’t know how many days I’d been staring at staff paper like this.
—Click
“Phew, first, a selfie for today.”
Title 1. Dohee the classic artist.
Title 2. Classical, romantic, tormented Lee Dohee.
Subtitle: Me, drawing ink onto staff paper stitch by stitch.
Anyway, it was a rare Sunday off.
There was one reason I hadn’t gone home and was sitting in front of the piano, deliberately scribbling on staff paper.
To write a piano piece.
Debonair’s first group meeting.
After hearing everything—the group name, the concept, the double title—I received a separate proposal from Director Sohyeon.
To write a song.
—Pardon? A B-side?
—Yes, but it’s not just a B-side.
The team leader had pointed to the tablet.
Countless detailed drawings were displayed on the screen.
—Whoa, what is this?
—Debonair’s concept trailer. This is the storyboard we came up with together with the director.
In other words, it was asking whether I was willing to compose the first soundtrack that would be used in our concept trailer video.
The first soundtrack to be revealed to the public.
—Of course, it’s fine even if you don’t write it, Dohee.
The song had already been prepared.
A high-quality EDM track in the house genre.
—But there are scenes in the storyboard I want to change. Dohee, I want to bring your identity to life. So if possible, would you try writing a piano piece yourself?
* * *
In conclusion, I spent the entire day clutching my head.
“Aaaaaagh!”
I wasn’t a tormented genius.
It was true that I wasn’t a real genius.
I’m an idiot.
“She’s having another episode.”
It wasn’t as if there were no pieces written in a few hours, or in a few short days.
Rather, if you looked into the works of great masters, you’d find it happened fairly often.
Because flashes of inspiration come to everyone.
Maybe it would come to me someday, too.
But not now.
And that was only natural.
Because most of the works by the great masters were also born after long periods of anguish, contemplation, and torment.
Inspiration was, for the most part, only a fragment, so it couldn’t be helped.
Even if you filled the melody of part A with inspiration,
you would have to worry about the following part B, creating a repetitive process.
‘There’s a reason musicians suffer from depression and self-doubt.’
Still, the fortunate thing was that the difficulty of this composition was relatively low.
First, since it was a piano piece, I didn’t have to consider other instruments and only had to think about the keys I had played countless times.
The length of the piece would be as long as the trailer video, roughly a short two minutes.
And there were drawings and a storyboard that let me directly picture and conceptualize the mood of the piece.
Even so, the problem was.
“Uaaaaaagh!”
‘The melody still won’t come to me.’
“Dohee, you need to eat dinner.”
In the end, Naeun unnie came in.
“Aaaaaaaagh! Unnie, I seriously feel like I’m going crazy.”
“Yeah, you do seem crazy.”
I shot up from my seat and flung myself onto the bed behind me.
Then I buried my face in the pillow.
“I can’t get any inspiration... I’m an idiot...”
“Unnie, just leave her. She’ll come out on her own if she gets hungry.”
“Come on, Seoyun. She’s still the youngest, so we should take care of her. And she’s writing the piece for the group.”
“No, she isn’t. That’s purely self-satisfaction. Self-satisfaction.”
Feeling as if my true feelings had been exposed, I cried out loudly for no reason.
Boohoo.
“See? This is what happens because you keep indulging her. Just starve her. They say hunger is the source of creation.”
* * *
“Dohee~”
Seoyun unnie came over to me, lying on the practice room sofa, and hugged me.
I guess she was worried after all.
“It’s hard practicing, isn’t it? And you’re hungry~ Let’s eat?”
“Hmph.”
“I’m sorry~ Okay?”
“Hmph.”
In truth, it wasn’t in my nature to go on a hunger strike just because Kim Seoyun nagged me. I’d simply starved myself because I thought maybe, if I did, some kind of inspiration would come.
“What should we eat that our youngest likes?”
I’m starving to death, so I’ll pretend to give in.
“Then, I want kimchi stew.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll order it now. Let’s hurry up and eat.”
Anyway, what I learned from starving for a day and a half was this.
I didn’t think I’d end up developing a complex while writing music like Schumann,
or get a mental illness and suffer from anorexia,
or starve and starve until I died of hunger.
I had no spiritual hunger.
—Click
‘Me, disheveled from writing music.’
Because I was far too abundant in self-love.
Should I try imitating Russian composers next...
Ah, there were a lot of starving ones there too.
* * *
These days, many songs are structurally well-made rather than filled with sweet melodies.
Because commercial codes and developments have been established.
But a good song is not bound by code and progression.
Back then, Schubert’s songs were like that.
Schubert, who would naturally be included when naming great musicians.
Schubert’s life was extremely poor and arduous.
There was a famous anecdote that when his friend bought him a meal, he devoured six pieces of bread in an instant and said it was the first meal he’d had in two days.
But poverty and hunger alone could not be considered the source of Schubert’s creativity.
Because from the start, Schubert was a genius who began composing at seventeen and, at the same time, displayed musical talent by producing several masterpieces.
He had even created the greatest of art songs, “Erlkönig,” at eighteen.
And that must have been when the most perfect inspiration came to Schubert.
Yes.
“When Schubert composed ‘Erlkönig,’ according to accounts from his acquaintances, Schubert was so deeply moved by Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’ that he remained motionless for a long while, then wrote the piece madly in one breath.”
“What is she muttering to herself?”
“Unnie, shouldn’t we really tell the director? Something’s going to happen.”
“I’m scared...”
“Schubert was so absorbed in composition that when his friends came to visit and greeted him right beside him, he didn’t notice them at all. Only after they heard the melody he played and shouted that it was wonderful did he recognize them...”
“Uh, Dohee...?”
In front of the piano, staring at the staff paper, I kept chuckling to myself.
They said inspiration came suddenly.
Considering how the main melody that hadn’t come no matter how much I raved had, satisfyingly, appeared in an instant.
After three weeks, I had finally completed the melody.
“I am Schubert, kiki...”
Which meant that now the arrangement process remained.
“Seventeen-year-old Lee Dohee... Seventeen-year-old Schubert... Kiki...”
“I think she’s seriously gone insane...”
Ah, I’m dying.
* * *
Director Sohyeon had told me to write it comfortably.
But this was the concept trailer that would imprint our first impression on the public.
I couldn’t do it half-heartedly.
I didn’t want it to simply suit the video and end there.
I wanted to clearly show the group’s identity through color and theme.
And the expression of that theme depended on the arrangement.
Arrangement depended on performance.
The method of performance was the theme itself.
I was conflicted.
2/4 time, usually 60 bpm.
Generally slower, strolling, with an unhurried flow.
Gentlemanly and courteous andante.
4/4 time, usually 120 bpm.
Marching, dancing, polished, and stylish.
Arrogantly cheerful Allegro pomposo.
Both suited Debonair.
Even so, the choice of meter was clearly important.
Of course, it might be a useless concern.
Just as one could write quarter notes as eighth notes,
halve the note values,
and play twice as slowly.
A performance in 4/4 time
could be done identically in 2/4 time.
But if you’re a musician, you have to be aware that tempo markings are visual and can influence interpretation.
Because musicians are used to lighter pieces with smaller note values.
Someone could look at my piece and play it more lightly and easily.
So I had to consider the characteristics of the meter itself.
Traditionally, in classical music, 4/4 time has its own characteristics.
A repeating structure of accents.
Strong, weak, medium-strong, weak.
This gives the music a logical form that listeners can easily follow—its color and flow.
And the characteristics of 2/4 time.
The repetition of strong, weak.
If you cut 4/4 time and change it into two measures of 2/4,
the added accents would disrupt the flow and make it not majestic and elegant splendor, but a bouncy polka or march.
More than anything, the image of Debonair should not simply repeat between strong and weak; it had to be multifaceted.
The third beat, the medium-strong beat, would bring out that variety.
That was why this piece was toccata-like.
It had to reveal intense, dynamic rhythm and a percussive tendency.
So I wrote 4/4 time onto the staff paper.
Then I revised the staff paper to match the meter.
“Phew, the end is in sight...”
Now, what I had to do was play this score countless times, over and over,
and find
how to play it so it would sound even more beautiful,
where to add extra accents,
and where to add dynamics.