Chapter 13: Still in Progress (1)
Letter Headquarters, Singer Team Conference Room.
In a blind vote, Yoon Hyeok-pil’s digital single ‘Alleyway’ was confirmed with a 75% approval rate.
The release date was set for December 15th. Since all the work except for the cover was nearly finished, the schedule had plenty of time.
“What’s this?”
After the first agenda item ended, during the break, Lee Ha-yeon tilted her head in confusion as she looked at the mysterious canvas presented in front of her. It was a watercolor painting drawn on paper.
Assistant Manager Yoon Chae-ha from the A&R (Artists and Repertoire) department replied.
“Oh, this? Yoon Hyeok-pil brought it over saying he wanted to use it for the cover.”
“Hmm, really?”
Digital single covers are usually done hastily, as the goal of a digital single (discing) is to minimize costs.
But this artwork had quite a high level of quality for a digital single cover.
“The painting is nice. It feels almost too extravagant, doesn’t it? Who’s the artist?”
“It’s written there. So-ha.”
Lee Ha-yeon glanced at the corner of the paper. So-ha.
“That’s a pretty name. Alright, let’s use this for the cover. I’ll leave the contract to you.”
“Yes.”
“And the next agenda item is… Lilac. As you know, they want ‘Heli’ to be their producer.”
This stirred up some noise. The singer management team and their affiliated team members who attended the meeting were curious about Heli, the new producer. Yoon Chae-ha, her eyes sparkling, was the first to ask.
“What was your first impression of him?”
Though it was a rather trivial question, Lee Ha-yeon sincerely recalled their first meeting.
“It felt like a rock had just entered the room.”
“A rock?”
“Yeah, he’s tall and pretty bulky.”
“Wow, really? His name sounds feminine, though…”
“But isn’t it a bit much for him to be in charge of Lilac as well?”
At that moment, a disgruntled voice cut in. Lee Ha-yeon glanced in that direction. It was Kim Yo-han, one of Letter’s in-house producers.
Lee Ha-yeon sighed inwardly.
It’s him again.
Kim Yo-han, a typical opportunist—talented, but only taking on projects that guaranteed success. At the same time, he constantly complained about the company, a loudmouth lackey. Kim Yo-han.
“Yes. You declined, so we had no choice.”
“…Hmph. Still, bringing in an external producer all of a sudden, and a complete rookie at that? The director won’t approve of this~”
At his sneer, Lee Ha-yeon’s eyebrow twitched slightly.
“I’ll handle that, so no need to worry. Besides—”
She quickly softened her expression, smiling even brighter as she continued.
“It’s not like I plan to hand over the entire album to him right from the start. We’ll only consider it after he shows tangible results. And do you really think I won’t be involved? We’ll nurture Lilac, at least until their contract renewal.”
Those kids are too valuable. It’s way too early to let them go.
“…Ah, right. If that’s your decision, Team Leader-nim. But just to be clear, I’m against it. Don’t say otherwise later when you’re in front of the director.”
Kim Yo-han, feeling uneasy about her eerie smile, retreated quietly.
Tick-tock, tick-tock—
The sound of the second hand ticking echoed loudly in Letter Entertainment’s B-1 studio, where I sat blankly staring at the monitor with weary eyes. I kept hoping that something would just pop up on the screen if I stared long enough.
“…Ugh, my head.”
I rubbed my temples, which were starting to throb.
I needed to create something—whether it was a track for the drama OST or a song for Lilac’s new album—but no inspiration was coming to me.
The spark of inspiration that had so easily come when I worked on ‘Alleyway’ seemed to have gone on a long journey, far beyond my reach.
I’d already watched the drama featuring Yoo Ah-ra and listened to all of Lilac’s songs, yet I still had no idea where to start.
Yoo Ah-ra’s voice was like the color white—pure and unpretentious. But trying to use white as the main theme in a painting is a difficult task. How can you even paint a picture with only white color…?
“…Sigh.”
For 12 hours straight, this is all I had been doing—just thinking, without getting anywhere. I have to meet the drama’s music director tomorrow, and in three days, there’s a meeting with Yoo Ah-ra.
“Hmm…”
As I sat there, wasting time, my eyes suddenly fell on the pen and drawing paper scattered across my desk. They were the painting supplies I had bought earlier.
An idea, albeit an unusual one, came to me.
I always think of music as something akin to painting. So, what if I start painting a picture and then turn that picture into music?
“I think , It might work, but…”
Anyway, my brain was completely stuck when it came to the drama OST. I needed a change of pace. Plus, if it didn’t work out, I’d only lose a little time and not much else.
I gingerly picked up the paintbrush.
Two hours later.
I had created an impressionist painting with a Monet-like feel and composed a piece that expressed the colors from that painting.
But it was a bit too much like classical music to be considered pop music. It was something I made casually as a way to refresh myself, so the quality didn’t satisfy me. Most importantly, it felt like a finished piece, leaving no room for any vocals.
To put it simply, it was ‘music that’s good for reading books’.
I could try to cut some of the melody and force lyrics into it to make it into a song, but that wouldn’t make it into a good song.
Still, it seemed too good to throw away.
Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in my head.
“…Maybe I should try YouTube?”
I thought of a few channels that uploaded original compositions on YouTube. As long as I registered the copyright beforehand, there shouldn’t be any issues, and if I played my cards right, it could bring in some nice extra income.
The moment I had the thought, I logged into YouTube.
And then I spent the next hour fumbling around.
Uploading videos on YouTube was surprisingly tricky for me, even though watching them was so easy.
It took me a good 30 minutes of struggle before I finally managed to create my own channel. After thinking it over, I decided on the name ‘alleyH’. ‘Heli’ in Korean felt a bit lacking, and ‘Halley’ in English was already taken, so I moved the ‘H’ to the end.
“This is annoyingly complicated.”
Just when I was about to upload the video, I realized I needed one more thing—a thumbnail.
Luckily, this didn’t take long to solve. Sitting on my desk was the painting I had made, the one that embodied the landscape of my music.
That’ll do. I remembered seeing a scanner somewhere in the hallway. Since I had to go out anyway, I figured I could take a walk and clear my head too.
Feeling much lighter, I stepped out of the studio room.
alleyH – Landscape [3:43]
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Posted: 2015.12.1
[alleyH.
Sometimes, when you quietly gaze at a place, there are moments when the same scenery you always see suddenly appears unusually beautiful.]
