God of Piano

‘Well, there’s no face-to-face audition right now, so it won’t be a big problem, but…’

Why is the child who was doing well suddenly shaking so much?

With such doubts, Baum waited for the performance. Rowoon sat down at the piano and did not start playing for a long time. His gaze at the piano was full of vigilance, as if looking at an unknown creature.

That expression, as if a bomb would explode at the moment you pressed a key, again made Baum think a lot, but Baum never had a chance to say it. It was because Rowoon, who had been holding his breath and was silent, pressed the keys when his patience reached the limit.

‘Um, finally.’

Baum crossed his arms and listened.

‘Has the note become a bit heavier than last time?’

‘It’s a progress that evokes nostalgia somewhere.’

‘The weakness of the piano is so heavy…’

‘Wait, is it too different from last time?’

‘This, ah…’

‘·······.’

Even thoughts begin to remain silent. To the extent that I understand why Prelude 4 has the pseudonym of ‘suffocation’, the countless mouths in my head stopped uttering a single voice in an instant.

I’m out of breath.

Suddenly, an idea pops into my mind. But Baum denies that idea. This is too much of a sentiment to have for a young student who hasn’t even gotten an amateur ticket yet. But, by the way…

The more you try to deny it, the stronger the sentiment grows.

The young pianist

He looks like Chopin.

＜ Seeds for what (2) ＞ End

＜ Seeds for what (3) ＞

[ Call up the performance log. ]

[ Insufficient playing level. The assimilation rate of the journal is adjusted to 1 level. ]

This is the notice that Rowoon heard when playing Prelude #4’s performance log.

didn’t pay much attention. Whether it was level 1 or level 5 assimilation, it was clear that he had something to gain now.

And Rowoon was soon able to confirm that his judgment was correct.

Only the piano was seated in a dark space. It was difficult to tell whether the lights were off on the stage or if everything except the piano and Chopin had been erased.

But there was no need to separate. If you had Chopin and the piano, you had everything that mattered.

My heart was pounding. I couldn’t tell if it was Chopin’s heartbeat or Rowoon’s. Trembling, thrilling, anticipation, joy, standing in the whirlpool of all those emotions, Rowoon became Chopin.

and started playing

‘ah······!’

An uncontrollable exclamation ran through my head, and after that, only exclamation marks.

It was immediately clear what it meant that the diary had a level 1 assimilation rate. Rowoon did not feel Chopin’s feelings. I couldn’t even figure out what he was thinking.

All he could feel was the sensation that Chopin’s hands were feeling.

But it was enough.

The lightness of the air passing between the fingers and the weight of the hammer hanging from the keys are all clearly felt when the keys are pressed, released, and leaped through the octaves.

And at the end of all those senses, what kind of sound is heard.

How calmly Chopin expresses the trill (a technique of rapidly repeating notes two degrees apart from the tonic, such as the doredo).

How delicately and carefully Chopin’s fingers move in the Smorzando.

All of them are transmitted as they are through the senses of the hands and ears.

Chopin comes through.

That day Rowoon couldn’t sleep. It was because I stayed up all night replaying Chopin’s performance journal dozens of times, repeating it over and over again, just once, just one more time.

Even the next day, Rowoon played Chopin’s diary over and over again, delaying practice. I couldn’t help it. It was a performance that I had dreamed of, no, I couldn’t draw even in my dreams.

An ideal sound flows from his fingertips. No, it wasn’t his fingers, but just being able to feel that feeling made Rowoon feel like half of his life had disappeared.

When sitting at the piano, Rowoon did his best to reproduce the sound that Chopin had created. Of course it wasn’t easy. First of all, Chopin and Rowoon were fundamentally different in their body structure, and remembering Chopin’s senses did not make them his.

However, that didn’t mean that the sensation was completely abandoned.

With repeated practice, Rowoon’s ‘imitation’ became more and more mature. He became more and more like Chopin.

“…”

That’s why Rowoon wasn’t surprised at all that Baum was looking at me with a bewildered expression. It was an inevitable performance.

“Roun, what the hell did you do?”

It was a similar reaction to the first time I showed the puppy waltz. Of course, the shock he received seems to be incomparable to that time.

Rowoon smiled as he felt as if his whole body was drained of strength.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s not a matter of okay or not. This is, oh, how…”

I’ve been watching Rowoon practice Prelude 4 for months now. That’s how much he thought he already knew the direction and limits of his growth.

However, Rowoon’s performance today erased all the sketches Baum had drawn about Rowoon. It was a moment when, as a teacher, I honestly had nothing to say. He couldn’t help but praise himself for this. Don’t you even have a sense of how Rowoon could have changed right now?

‘Is there such a case…?’

My mind seemed empty. I’ve heard that story often. The story of a student who was blocked by a wall and wandered through an opportunity, or one day, suddenly escaped from the chrysalis and spreads wings. And Baum thought that Rowoon was one of those students.

Not that much. Something, something beyond his cognition and common sense is with Rowoon. It was only now that Baum realized that there was no point in judging Rowoon based on general theories.

But thinking about it made me feel better. If you can’t measure it, you don’t have to measure it. you don’t have to calculate Baum took a slow deep breath and looked at Rowoon. As if he knew the value of my performance, I laughed out loud when I saw that face that looked exhausted somewhere.

“Kuh, keuhuh, buhahahahaha…”

“Sir, sir?”

Baum continued to giggle like that while facing Rowoon’s embarrassed eyes.

Seeing Baum like that, Rowoon had a strange thought for a moment. Even though he’s smiling, he looks kind of sad.

That’s why even laughing is like crying.

#

In December, professors at the California Institute of Music get busy. This was because they had to listen to and score the numerous performance videos sent through the online application.

Considering the position of the applicants, it was a problem that had to be rushed even for a day. They also had to quickly decide whether or not they could take the school’s second audition, that is, face-to-face audition, so they could decide which song to practice.

Listening to the videos of dozens of students performing every day, I honestly felt tired. As the California Conservatory is at a high level, the applicants’ performances were usually quite good, but it was natural that the professors’ ears could not be satisfied with just ‘decent’ performances.

The piano professor, Donatti, squeezed his throbbing brow. My head and eyes hurt from watching too many videos.

Music is evaluated, so there might be people who ask if it’s okay to just listen to the sound, but that wasn’t the case either. There were so many things that could be judged by the way the hands touched the keys. As such, grading applicants was a bit more tiring than people thought.

— Reviewing the 200th today? Hmmm… you can look forward to it. There’s a funny guy.

It was the words of a colleague. I didn’t say the name. There was a reason why professors conducted the first evaluation separately. Only when the evaluation is done without being influenced by anyone’s words can the evaluation be free from prejudice.

‘A funny guy?’

Contrary to his sad personality, evaluation was always a harsh friend. If he even says that he’s having fun, it must mean that there is something.

But do you have such expectations? Donatti felt more and more tired as he went through each applicant. Most of my friends were still a long way from having fun.

‘When will it come out?’

Even if it is in the 200th generation, it is 100 people. Maybe it’s on the edge of it. Or, it may have already passed and made no difference to his ears. Because each person has different tastes and standards.

As the boring time passed, Donatti began to let go of expectations more and more. okay. I’m just coming to college, so if it’s great, how great would it be? Of course, it wasn’t that there weren’t genius pianists who stood out in their teens, but if that was the case, the name would have already been imprinted in his mind.

Maybe a colleague made fun of him. It could be that he was trying to giggle as he had high hopes and then was disappointed alone. Of course, I’m not a friend who likes pranks very much, but still.

Donatti’s hand as he entered the score on the scorecard began to get wet with inertia. The two eyes, which had lost interest, even looked a little blank.

However, the performance awakened Donatti’s slumbering spirit like the crowing of a rooster.

“… Hoo.”

Goldberg Variations.

After being forgotten for a long time, Bach’s masterpiece was presented to the public again through Glenn Gould.

The dexterity itself was mediocre. It didn’t seem like he was the type to win with skill. But even so, each sound his fingers made was somehow special. It seems to express the divine yet pure tone of the Baroque era in which Bach lived.

‘Before performing a song, the most important thing is to understand the composer. There are a lot of guys who forget this these days.’

Donatti smiled happily. It was a performance that felt the attitude of trying to understand Bach.

Perhaps he met a good teacher. These days, I focus on technique, and it was not very common to have a teacher who taught me the basics.

But his happy smile soon faded. The more I listened to it, the more I couldn’t help but feel that this was not simply a performance at the level of understanding Bach.

There was depth. Due to my inexperienced skills, I was unable to fully draw the picture I wanted to draw, but just by looking at the sketch, Donatti was able to understand what kind of performance this applicant was targeting on the keyboard.

‘Is this the child?’

Naturally, I had no choice but to think that way. fun. yeah, it was fun As far as skills are concerned, there are numerous students who are better than this even within the California Conservatory. No, most would be better than this.

However, what he has to measure here and now is not his ability, but his potential. The immediate cotyledon might be shabby with less growth, but it was the result that Donatti had to see to see what kind of fruit it would bear when it was fully grown.

A feeling came. These seeds are special. A seed worth catching bugs and watering.

That judgment did not change until the end of the Goldberg Variations. A colleague who said he was a fun guy also agreed. It was the same with the puppy waltz that followed. The only thing that has changed is that the smile on his lips has grown a bit thicker.

But the last time Prelude No. 4 came out,

Donatti couldn’t laugh any longer.

He clenched his fists. Like a person who saw something impossible, his eyes could not take his eyes off the screen that had already finished playing and left only a black screen.

“······oh my god.”

＜ Seeds for What (3) ＞ End

＜ Performance by the deaf (1) ＞