God's Song Volume 2 Chapter 3.2

God’s Song
Volume 2 Chapter 3 Part 2

“You’re looking down on it because it’s the theme song of an animated movie for kids and it’s pop music, right? Shin Hae Chul is the person who made an OST for a children’s animated movie with robots this grand. It’s not okay for you to underestimate him.”

Jun Hyuk looked angrier. He did not stand down and yelled at the Concertmaster.

“What are you saying we underestimated?”

“Are you this casual when you play Beethoven too? The first note of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 ‘Fate’ and this song are the same. Why did you take it out? Whether it’s classic or pop… everything has the same notes.”

Jo Hyung Joong blinked at Jun Hyuk’s words. He could not remember the first note of the symphony Fate.

The first verse of the famous Fate by Beethoven was not [bba baba bam~]. To be exact, it is [umbba baba bam~]. It started with 8 minutes of rest, or silence.

Two swordsmen hold their swords in a martial arts movie. Who will take out their sword first? The audience watches the scene with sweaty palms. This suspense. That is the role of the silence. With this silence that is like a divine move, the audience is able to feel both the suspense and openness at the same time.

Rest is also a note. The conductor and performers need to express this.

The ‘From the Sun to the Boy’ that Jun Hyuk had arranged starts with this silence as well. However, there was no suspense in the music the performers had just played.

It was difficult to find this suspense when listening to a CD. Before gramophones were invented, people needed to go to theaters to listen to Beethoven.

The music did not start when the conductor moved his baton vigorously from the podium. It started when the first movement stopped. Listening in person was grand because one could hear the music without missing anything like the 8 minute rest.

The Concertmaster realized why Jun Hyuk had insulted them saying that they could not read scores once he heard the words Beethoven’s Fate Symphony. For a moment, his face became warm.

He had come out today with the thought that he would just make some pocket change. He had been thinking that a 5 minute pop orchestral accompaniment would take about an hour.

Never in their dreams had they thought that there would a be a young kid who could detect their laid back state of minds. There were only 2 things left now. Should they ignore the kid’s words and run out? Or should they accept it and play the music?

The 15 performers were only watching the Concertmaster’s face. The choice was up to the leader.

The Concertmaster’s face was red and as he was biting his lower lip, he was hanging on to his self-esteem.

Eventually, the Concertmaster went back to his seat and sat down. He had decided to play the music properly. He needed to recover his insulted self-esteem.

The music started again with the suspense that the rest on the score indicated, and ended after about 5 minutes. The musicians must have been satisfied with their performance, because they looked pleased.

The 16 pairs of eyes that were directed toward Jun Hyuk were not looking at him as an arranger. How about that? Are you going to keep being arrogant? Jun Hyuk was taking in all of their pompous gazes. With this, even that arrogant child would have nothing to say.

However, there was something that the performers did not know. Jun Hyuk had only listened to the world’s best orchestras until now. If he had come out of an art high school and gone to a college for music, he would have grown up listening to other young people and would have experienced underdeveloped music.

Jun Hyuk had only been able to listen to CDs of the top orchestras in the world. He had even gone to watch live performances in person.

A hometown orchestra and not even the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra was not enough to satisfy Jun Hyuk’s highly trained ears.

Jo Hyung Joong turned to Jun Hyuk in curiosity is to what his judgement was,

“What do you think? Is this good enough?”

“I think it’ll be better if I just live in your studio starting today to work on it. Don’t you think 3 days will be enough?”

It was difficult to withstand this severe criticism a second time. There were even people who had already placed their instruments in the cases. They had lost the reason to keep listening to this child and his unfitting assessment.

“Teacher Jo, we can’t work like this either. Tell him to do it himself like he said. We have no intention to keep playing around with this nonsense.”

Jo Hyung Joong thought that the Concertmaster’s protest was legitimate and thought that this accompaniment was of high enough quality. He thought that he needed to appease the huffing Concertmaster and continue recording, but even this became impossible with Jun Hyuk’s screaming behind him.

“Pu ha ha. What did you say? Doesn’t make sense? Your performing makes less sense. Let’s say you can’t do anything about the fact that you have no talent, but doesn’t it means you only have the basics down if you don’t have concentration and can’t even understand what’s written down for you?”

“What? This little…..”

Jo Hyung Joong thought he was going to pass out. These performers had been difficult to schedule. He had to pay whether or not they recorded the song, and it was not a bad song no matter who heard it.

There was no performer who would comply just because demands were being made at them. It was the same for pop music session men.

If he were going to be this picky, they needed to have paid much more to hire top-class performers.

You get the music that you pay for.

Jun Hyuk’s continuing criticism made it so that the 16 performers could not shut their mouths.

“A senior violinist made four mistakes in a song that lasts only 5 minutes and 7 seconds, and the woodwinds couldn’t match each other’s timing six times. And lady on the oboe! Are you stupid? You have to put the music stand 20cm farther away. The sound is a mess because it bounces off the stand. You’re deaf if you can’t hear that. And…”

Jun Hyuk’s bitter words pointing out each of the mistakes that the 16 performers made continued. There were people who did not realize the mistakes that they had made.

When Jun Hyuk was finished with his criticisms, the sound of breathing could not even be heard in the room. There were a few people whose faces had turned red like the oboe player in her early 30s.

Chapter end