God of Music

Chapter 55. Causing an Incident at a Music Circle?(2)

“As always, you don’t disappoint me.”

The report about Han JooYeon made Chairman Won JinMoon satisfied. He immediately signed saying he didn’t need to read anymore.

“Thank you.”

“Announcing the members individually…. Although it will take a lot of work, it will definitely help in their individual activities as well as procuring fans and advertising. The start was a good one as well. I didn’t know Han JooYeon could be so similar to that Kang MinJoo.”

“It’s thanks to her hard practice.”

“No, not at all. The one who made her like that is even more amazing. Anyone can ‘imitate’ but it’s not easy to become ‘completely’ the same. Even Kang MinJoo herself might be confused if she listens to it. Thanks for your hard work. I’ll listen to the details during the directors’ meeting… but that’s a pity. You don’t show up in trivial directors’ meetings.”

“Hahaha.”

KangYoon could only laugh while thinking about the directors’ meeting that he no longer frequented.

“Who’s next? Christie An?”

“Yes.”

“Then please do your best this time too. Even though DearingHouse is a company we invested in, we are getting a few glares because we sent a trainee this time.”

“Understood.”

KangYoon was confident. In KangYoon’s previous life, Christie An also modeled for DearingHouse. Of course, that was some time after her debut, and this was indeed a little early, but with her image, he judged that there was no need to worry.

Having come out of the chairman’s office, KangYoon immediately headed towards the practice room where Christie An would be practicing in. She was practicing her expressions while looking at the mirror.

“Ah – Eh – Ih – Oh – Uh”

Christie An tried lifting her eyes, widening her cheeks, and using all the muscles of her face to create expressions. But she creased her face in dissatisfaction.

“Yes, that’s it. Use all the muscles in your face.”

“Team leader.”

Christie An only found KangYoon later since she was absorbed in practice, and flinched before turning around.

“How is it? Is it going well?”

“No, it’s too hard. It’s not easy to smile….”

“Making a bright smile isn’t so easy to do. Are you practicing in the dorms as well?”

“Yes. What was it again? Frog’s…”

“.” (This seems to be some exercise to ‘smile’. Think of it as a long-ass version of saying ‘cheese’)

“I’m also doing that. My face aches a little every morning.”

After seeing KangYoon work with JooAh on her album, she had changed a lot. She didn’t treat KangYoon badly before that, but she was indifferent. But right now, she had completely changed. She didn’t ask him any questions, thinking that everything he did must have a reason for it.

“The day after tomorrow is the shoot, you know that, right?”

“Yes. Oh…. I’m worried. JooYeon did so well, but what if I screw up….”

“Don’t you actually want to say ‘JooYeon did that much, and you think I can’t?’ or something like that, don’t you?”

“…I guess I was found out.”

She made a bashful smile, saying she was found out.

At that time, KangYoon immediately took out his phone and photographed her. KangYoon’s actions were so fast that she panicked.

“Team leader.”

Just as she was about to say something to him, he showed her the photo. In the photo was a figure of her that looked shy but was still smiling brightly.

“That’s a good expression. I knew you had it in you. You’ve changed quite a bit.”

“Ah, really?”

“Before, your eyes didn’t move that much. Your mouth too. But look at this now. They’re moving. Look.”

KangYoon enlarged the photo and she could understand what he meant. However, she still seemed embarrassed about seeing herself up close and gave it back to KangYoon.

“This isn’t a selfie or anything. I don’t like such pictures.”

“You’ll need to get used to this in the future. Tomorrow, you’ll be put under management going around receiving massages and other things.”

“There’s no practice?”

“The day after is the day of the shoot. It’s better to manage than practice.”

“Wow….”

She felt strange as though she had already debuted. No matter how sentimental she looked, she was a high school girl.

***

“Harmony is defined as the agreement of sound. To make it easier, the matching sounds will combine and harmonize. We’ll look at the most basic harmonies first, and that is the triad….”

By now, his seat was practically fixed at the back, KangYoon was listening to Professor Choi ChanYang’s lecture. Next to him was Ha JiYeon who was influenced by KangYoon into using various colored ball-point pens to take notes.

“Triads are composed of the root, the third and the fifth, and each sound is represented by numbers on the scale. For example….”

Professor Choi continued explaining while writing down the most basic C chord and the G chord. Since harmonics was a little like mathematics, the God of Sleep descended on a few students. However, that wasn’t the case with KangYoon.(E/N: we need God of Sleep novel)

It was only after they solved the practice questions did Professor Choi declare a break. The students rejoiced and ran out of class to take some time to smoke or simply just rest.

“Don’t you smoke, oppa?”

Ha JiYeon asked KangYoon, who was still studying the part he didn’t understand.

“I do. But I don’t feel like one right now.”

“How about one together?”

“I don’t want to smoke with a woman.”

“Whew, which era are you from? Then I’ll be going alone.”

This era was one where women smoked along with men. However, KangYoon hated that. When KangYoon refused, she went out to enjoy her own smoking time.

After she left, Professor Choi approached him.

“Professor.”

“Did you get home safely that day?”

“Yes. I did.”

“It’s good to see you becoming close to the other students.”

“Really? I was more impressed by you, though.”

Like how he embraced all of them softly without enforcing his own thoughts while he taught the composition students. KangYoon was really impressed by him.

‘Tch.’

Outside, Ha JiYeon grumbled while looking at KangYoon who was in a hot discussion with Professor Choi.

***

In the underground studio of MG Entertainment, Producer Oh JiWan was in the middle of working with KangYoon.

“I guess I can’t refuse if it’s from you.”

“Thanks for your time. I’ll definitely treat you later.”

Since KangYoon called him out on personal matters and Producer Oh had finished his job early as well, KangYoon felt really sorry. However, professional midi-works required Producer Oh’s hands.

Producer Oh started controlling the machine proficiently after powering the device on.

“Making each of the instruments come out of different speakers, eh? That feels slightly peculiar.”

“Hahaha. I wanted to try something new.”

“Oho, I should try this later too.”

Producer Oh followed KangYoon’s instructions. His hand was holding onto the score KangYoon received last time. Producer Oh quickly typed in the score into the program. And when he played them all, different instruments came out of different speakers.

‘I knew it. This is a lot easier to see.’

KangYoon was right. With one speaker being assigned to just one speaker, they each produced a different musical note. MRs were difficult to differentiate because they produced many different notes at once, but with the setup like this, it was easier to see the notes clearly. It was much closer to how a band would sound in real life. The notes combined and started emitting light.

‘Black….’

However, KangYoon creased his brows after seeing black light. Producer Oh’s expression wasn’t that good either.

“Team leader. This piece is too…. Is it an amateur’s?”

“It’s not that good, is it?”

“It feels like it’s just a mess of all the popular songs put together.”

“I think so too.”

This had no character to it and was just a jumbled mess. That was Producer Oh’s judgment. KangYoon’s evaluation wasn’t that much different either. He even felt that putting out a song like this may ruin the singer’s entire career as well as the planner’s.

“Then I’ll ask you again with another one.”

“It’s the same song, huh? But… hm.”

Producer Oh JiWan stared at the score for quite a while before starting to input them. It was the same song but he seemed to feel differently and inputted the notes delicately. Soon, the input ended and the music started flowing into the studio.

‘Mm?’

But this time it was slightly different. The black light disappeared without a trace, and the music created white light. However, it wasn’t that bright.

‘It’s probably because there’s no vocals. But it’s not bad.’

KangYoon thought that this piece may be usable. It was definitely better than what the others put together. This time, this song didn’t feel like it was pieced together. He felt like this would become a good piece with a good vocalist.

“I think it’s the same song, but this is definitely better.”

“Do you feel that way too?”

“Of course. This one doesn’t feel like it was pieced together. But even so, I don’t feel like ‘this is it!’ or anything. I feel like it’s still lacking…. But I don’t know the reason.”

KangYoon was sure after listening to his evaluation.

That a good vocalist would make this a good song.

***

Originally, Christie An would have hurried to school along with Jung MinAh, but today, she had a different schedule.

She had an advertisement shooting today and had to commute to a large studio in Gangnam.

“…Greetings first. Greetings first….”

Before she departed, she listened to everything that she needed to know from Han JooYeon who had started before her and kept reminding herself with it.

“Don’t get angry, always put on a smile…. Ah, this is so hard. I must do all of this?”

“The trainers put it together.”

“Uu…. This is impossible.”

Christie An was frightened. Actually, she hated complex things rather than being nit-picky. She was quite tiresome in many ways.

“But Ris, is team leader going as well?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Oh, that’s good, then.”

However, Han JooYeon suddenly changed her advice. When Christie An expressed her question, she just shortened it into one sentence.

“He’ll do everything. Sheesh, I thought you were going alone for a second….”

“Why? I think team leader going is going to make things more awkward if not the same.”

“Girlie, you really don’t know anything.”

Han JooYeon scolded her for not knowing anything.

“If team leader is going, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You’re blessed. I asked over and over in order to get him to come with me…. Is he being biased?”

While Christie An expressed her doubts about whether KangYoon going with her was really that good, the car horn could be heard from the outside. It was telling her to hurry, so she hurriedly left.

Inside the car was KangYoon as well as everyone else.

Since the shooting place wasn’t that far, they arrived soon. When they arrived, the staff were setting the shooting venue. On one side, the food truck was emitting steam from cooking, and on the other side, various lights were being set and the props were being placed as well.

“Wow….”

Christie An found everything inside to be a wonder. All of this was prepared for her and her alone. The more she thought about that, the more surprised she was. She felt her heart pounding thinking about going into the shoot while holding those items under artificial lighting.

“Christie, get ready.”

“Yes.”

KangYoon left the wandering Christie An to the makeup team and immediately went to the photographer. The photographer was a stereotypical artist-like man with long beard, and he seemed to have power in his eyes.

“Good morning. I’m Lee KangYoon.”

“Oh my word, it’s that ever-famous team leader himself…. I’m Yoo HanSe.”

The photographer seemed to be aware of who KangYoon was as well as he replied. With strength. KangYoon passed around nutritional tonics and asked them to take care of Christie An. Seeing KangYoon’s friendly attitude, everyone said yes with a smile.

In Christie An’s stead, who was undergoing makeup, KangYoon was doing the greetings.

“Wow, I never knew MG would bring out the food truck too.”

“Thanks for the meal.”

The food truck fees that was usually deducted from the production fees was also paid by KangYoon using company money. All the staff gave praises to MG’s magnanimity as well as showing their appreciation to KangYoon. All of this was an investment for the opinions of Christie An and the other girls in this industry.

After Christie finished preparing, the shoot began. Since this wasn’t just taking a few photos, but ‘producing’ photos that would be put into a magazine, every single picture was delicately devised.

“Oh, my…. Miss Christie…. Can you relax your face a little more?”

“Sorry? Ah…. I’m sorry.”

She seemed to be nervous and was frozen stiff. With her expression stiff like that, photographer Yoo HanSe also started changing his expression. Her face was as frozen as ever no matter how much he tried to dispel it, and eventually, he put his hand on his face.

“Haa…. Rookies sure aren’t easy.”

However, thanks to KangYoon, he held in his frustration when he would have gone off shouting already otherwise. However, that line made Christie An die down. Photographer Yoo alternated his gaze between the results and Christie An before shouting.

“Let’s take a rest for a moment!”

He intended for the rest to be to cool their heads a little. He gathered the assistants and looked at the results on the laptop. He deleted the images that he didn’t like and shook his head. The photos weren’t that good.

Seeing Photographer Yoo like that, Christie An loosened her shoulders and went outside.

“Haa….”

Outside the studio, Christie An crouched down. She felt powerless with the first photo-shoot not going as she had intended. She thought she had it completely down with expression practice with the mirror as well as image-making, but the real deal was not that easy.

‘It’s so hard. I want to give up….’

All sorts of thoughts filled her mind. The entertainment industry was cruel to newbies, from stories that one strange rumor would end her career to what would happen later if she screws this up, all sorts of things popped up in her head. However, she couldn’t think of any solution.

Christie An entered with her shoulders still loose.

‘Huh?’

Having entered without any energy whatsoever, Christie An was met with a completely unexpected situation.

“She’s still immature because it’s her first time. But this time, it will be alright since she’s warmed up a little. Please take care of her.”

In front her was KangYoon, the same person that went head-to-head with a famous producer from Japan, lowering his head to the photographers and the other staff, asking to take care of her.