Genius of a Performing Arts High

Act 7: Lightly 8

While I was thinking for a bit, teacher Hong Yoojin gave a clap.

“Now! Let’s stop the explanations there and start practising for real. But before that…”

She then moved her fingers to operate a computer placed on the lecturer’s table. After she pressed a few buttons, light entered the large screen behind her as a list of multiple songs appeared.

Mhmm… are they mostly arias? There are a few art songs as well.

I was glancing through the list with squinted eyes when teacher Hong Yoojin gave a small smile.

“Since it’s boring to just practise, let’s have a mock prac test.”

A mock prac test?

Teacher Hong Yoojin pointed at the list of songs while I was tilting my head.

“You see the songs here right? This is the list of songs you can choose from – the prac song list. Imagine you’re sitting the prac test right now and pick one song from here. Then, you will be singing that and explaining the reasoning behind your chosen song before getting evaluations from other students.”

Staring at the screen I thought.

So… we are going to be experiencing how the prac test is beforehand right? It does sound more interesting than just singing…

Tapping on the chair, I contemplated which song to sing when Jun Shihyuk raised his hand from the side.

“Is it over if we just pick a good song?”

“No. You need to also sing well obviously. I told you it’s a mock test. What meaning would there be to your song choices if you can’t sing them? Oh, right, and there will be some small prize for the student that comes first so try your best.”

So it was a mock test plus practice. Nodding my head, I looked around and discovered that the eyes of the surrounding students were being replaced by fiery gazes. After hearing the word ‘first’, they must have had their competitiveness riled up. They were all very skilled when it came to singing so it was natural for their self-pride to be high.

Whatever the case, this was better for me.

The more effort they put into singing, the better the songs will be and listening to good songs was a type of practice in itself. Especially since they were songs sung by geniuses, there would be tons of things I could learn.

Besides, I would be able to roughly guess what song Lee Suh-ah was planning to sing at the prac test after seeing her song choice. With a smile, I looked towards Lee Suh-ah when Song Mirae placed her hand on my thigh and leaned her body towards me.

I could see her black pupils glistering with light.

“What song are you planning to sing, Yunjae?”

“…”

Taking her hand off, I returned it to where it belonged as Han Dasom quickly read the screen and opened her mouth.

“Isn’t O del mio good…? We practised it together last time so… it should be easier…”

“O del mio’s not bad.”

Song Mirae quickly added with a smile.

“Maybe you sang O del mio too much and are tired of it. I want to hear a new song~ something prettier.”

Clicking my tongue, I pushed away Song Mirae’s forehead.

“Why would I get tired of O del mio? It’s such a good song. Anyway, choose your own song first.”

“Tch.”

Taking my eyes off the pouting Song Mirae, I looked at the screen and saw several arias and lieder. There were all sorts of them, ranging from easy songs to hard songs, common and rare songs, as well as songs that required high notes and good expression skills.

After staring at the list for a while I nodded.

‘Should I try that?’

There was a song I started practising after the lesson with teacher Ku Mingi. I wasn’t planning on bringing that to the prac test but it was something I just practised to soak in the high notes I had learned back then.

Che gelida manina.

It was one of the famous tenor arias that appeared in Puccini’s opera, La Bohème, and was a song that required high notes reaching high C as well as great expression skills that could embed the eagerness and passion.

Since it was a song I was practising recently, it would be nice to receive feedback and since it was a difficult song, I thought that it would be able to receive some good marks.

…A problem would be that it was a song which the past me couldn’t sing and was thus still under-practised.

“…”

Hong Yoojin gave a large clap and brought me out from my deep thought.

“Now, you guys have all chosen your songs, right? Once you have, come here and write the songs and your names next to it so that you can’t change them in the middle.”

I slowly got up from my seat while thinking about what I should do when Jun Shihyuk opened his mouth after glancing at me.

“What are you gonna do?”

“I’m thinking of doing Che gelida but…”

“You’re doing that? Are you confident?”

Such reactions were natural because it wasn’t an easy song. Scratching the back of my neck, I replied.

“No well… it definitely won’t be perfect but, just as a practice.”

“…I see.”

Throughout the conversation, I observed Jun Shihyuk.

Jun Shihyuk; he was quite good but… fortunately, he was a baritone and wouldn’t overlap with me, both right now and later during the prac test. Besides, he was a practice room-addict without much interest in studying so I don’t think I would be competing with him for the scholarship either.

The only problem would then be Kim Wuju.

Kim Wuju – I think he would be doing La Promessa – the beautiful chanson of Rossini. Although there were some parts that required skills, it was overall not as hard as Che gelida manina.

In other words, I just had to perform well.

Shrugging my shoulders, I walked up and wrote in my song. Except for Kim Wuju who had walked up first without much thought, I was the first one to walk up.

After everyone finished, Hong Yoojin glanced at the songs before making a smile.

“Mhmm… interesting choices. Should we start with our new member today, Yunjae?”

Doing it first was not bad.

Standing up, I walked to the front and felt the eyes gathering on me. There was Kim Wuju with his intrigued expression, Jun Shihyuk glaring at me and Lee Suh-ah wearing an indifferent expression.

When I turned around, Hong Yoojin twitched her eyebrows and opened her mouth.

“Che gelida? You sure you can si… hmm whatever. First, can you explain why you chose this song?”

“It is a song I am practising recently so I am confident in singing it well. Besides, it is a song going up to high C so I thought I could appeal to the interviewer with high notes. Since it required good expression skills as well, I judged that I could be on the advantage in that front as well.”

“Hmm…”

Tilting her head, Hong Yoojin asked.

“On the advantage huh. Compared to who?”

“High notes so… in comparison to other males, not females right?”

She stared at me with a dumbfounded expression.

Why, did I say something wrong? I was tilting my head when Lee Suh-ah scoffed from the side.

“Kim Wuju can go up to D and you’re saying you’re higher? Even Che gelida only goes up to C, which is one note lower though?”

“Well yeah, but the interviewers wouldn’t know that Kim Wuju is able to go up that high right? ‘La Promessa’ which Kim Wuju would be singing doesn’t have a very high note after all. Was it A or A flat…?”

Seeing me in thought, Lee Suh-ah made a blank expression.

“…How do you know Kim Wuju would be singing La Promessa though?”

Oops.

I felt like I had made a slight mistake.

It was obvious how I found out. Unlike Lee Suh-ah who hid herself to the bitter end, Kim Wuju was very open and appeared in lots of variety shows as well.

Thanks to his fame after having reached the top tenor position of the world, plus his handsome appearance and sympathetic looks due to him being blind, he had gathered popularity nationwide. Later, there was even a documentary based on him.

Being an opera singer myself, I had watched it several times so I knew his preferences well when it came to songs.

When he was in high school, he should have been deeply indulged in Rossini and on that list, there was only one song composed by Rossini.

La Promessa.

…But since I couldn’t explain all that, I turned around towards Kim Wuju.

“…You are, right?”

Kim Wuju nodded his head with interest.

“Right. I was thinking of singing that.”

“See?”

Lee Suh-ah asked back after hearing me say that.

“No but… how did you know?”

“I could just tell after seeing his face.”

Hong Yoojin interjected when Lee Suh-ah was about to reopen her mouth with a frown.

“Good. Indeed, Che gelida is better than La Promessa. It was a good selection of song but I said it right? You need to sing well for a song choice to be meaningful. Are you sure you can sing this?”

“You will see.”

When I said that calmly, Lee Suh-ah whispered to herself.

“You mean hear.”

I grinned and postured myself properly. Then, I met my eyes with Lee Suh-ah who was glancing at me with crossed legs, before matching teacher Hong Yoojin’s gesture and opening my mouth.

“Che gelida manina–”

[What a frozen little hand–]

Che gelida manina

This song which started off with the lyrics saying, ‘what a cold hand~’, was a classic song about hitting on a woman – a song of a male who had fallen in love at first sight, introducing himself.

He introduces himself sorrowfully as a poet with no belongings and only a big dream. The song goes on to say that the dream had all disappeared after seeing the woman and that it had been replaced by the hope called ‘you’… it was that kind of a cringy song.

There was a reason why this simple love song had become famous. It was due to the lyrical, beautiful words of the song, and the overwhelming melody at the above – a high C singing of hope.

It was an aria you couldn’t help but falling in love with after listening to once.

“Chi son–! e che faccio…”

[Who I am, what I do…]

Now, as long as it wasn’t a C5, high notes served no issue. Since this song was an aria, it had to be sung a bit louder but… well I guess I could omit that this time.

I just tried to embed all my feelings into the song. This was that kind of song after all, so I had to sing beautifully with a voice like I couldn’t fall any deeper in love.

Looking at the front, I saw Lee Suh-ah staring at me with a strange expression and judging from that, it seemed to be decent so far.

In fact even during the practices, the middle part wasn’t very problematic. Although it was a song that required rich expression skills, I had lived 20 years more than other high schoolers so I was confident in not losing in that aspect.

Because expression skills, were things gained through life experience.

When do you feel like ‘this’ and how should the tone be to embed that feeling into the song, as well as matching the various expressions to their fitting songs… seeing through all that was what ‘expression skills’ were about.

“L’anima ho milionaria–”

[I have the soul of a millionaire–]

I also liked the song itself so I listened to it a lot. The lyrics saying that he was poor but dreamed of being a millionaire; didn’t it sound just like me?

With a grin, I quickly proceeded through the song.

High notes, grace notes and a long legato.

Now, my breath had reached a level where I could sing naturally like I was breathing out and the only problem now was the highest note.

High C

“Poichè v’ha preso stanza…”

[For their place has been…]

Right before the high C, I collected my breath and focused.

In fact, when making a high note, that high note itself wasn’t very important and what was more important was the note right before that.

High notes could only be made from a perfect vocalisation structure, and the ‘perfect’ mentioned here shouldn’t be an impossible task for opera singers.

And yet, why do they still get them wrong? It was because they got nervous right before the high note, or maybe they had put too much strength or done something else that broke this ‘perfect’ vocalisation structure that had been formed.

And a broken structure was naturally impossible to make any high notes.

In the end, as long as you could sing the note before that very well, the high note would flow out naturally, like water gushing out from an open tap.

Like this

“La spera—-nza!”

[Taken by hope!]

The air pressure that came exploding out from my stomach echoed in the practice room with an overwhelming high note.

After counting around 5 or so seconds of breath output, I cut off the supply of air.

“…”

I could see the kids watching with closed mouths.