The Road To Glory [EN]: Chapter 451

# 45. A New Project

Anyone can talk.

With just words, anyone can become a millionaire or a saint.

Halo hated that.

He didn’t want to just flap his gums like any ordinary person.

That’s why, even though the track ‘I am HALO’ came out satisfactorily, he still felt uneasy.

Not just anyone could make music like his, but still, anyone could say, ‘You guys will like me.’

He wanted to show them directly.

By having them like Halo in a different form,

he wanted to shout, “Look, no matter what, you’re still calling me Halo (Glory)!”

He wanted to prove that he wasn’t just a man of words.

As Jang Jin-soo said, he didn’t need to hide.

He just needed to create new music with a new image, try new things, and wait for people to love him.

Something surged from within his chest.

That day, as he rode in the car to the awards ceremony, the lethargy that had been tormenting him vanished completely.

The inspiration for new music, which had been eluding him all along, coalesced into a symphony. The ideas that had been screaming to be let out now cried out in joy. Melodies poured forth from the instruments he mentally selected.

When Halo rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, the world became as silent as a graveyard. But Halo heard sounds more turbulent than ever before.

#

At that moment, an unusual aura enveloped a continent across the Pacific Ocean. It was a very vast land.

It took a long time for news from the east to reach the west, and even when it did, it was such a vast world that people didn’t pay much attention.

In a continent populated by hundreds of millions of people, hundreds of millions of stories were born every day, and not everyone could be greatly concerned about one issue.

So, the controversy over a rookie singer’s Spotify and digital music manipulation didn’t become as big of a deal as one might think.

Only the singer’s fans or a few officials who were fed up with the manipulation itself were interested, and most of the public was close to indifferent.

Many people had heard about the manipulation controversy but didn’t know how it turned out.

However, a melody happened to reach the ears of Mr. Miller, a New Yorker living a very busy life,

and a truck driver driving along Route 66, which connects Lake Michigan in Chicago to Santa Monica in California, listened to the music coming from the radio.

In fact, they enjoyed calm songs or EDM [Electronic Dance Music] that didn’t feel boring.

Also, they didn’t really like musicals or Disney music.

They were too busy living in reality to get excited about teen movies or music that talked about dreams, hopeful futures, and the growth of youth. Too much time had passed.

However, there were songs that were good to listen to regardless of taste. There could be many reasons. Maybe the lyrics they happened to hear moved them, or maybe the melody was really good.

Miller, holding a cup with the Starbucks logo, listened to the lyrics, and the truck driver parked his truck and smoked a cigarette while listening to the melody.

Their hearts swelled.

The energy of the music brought vitality to their listless lives.

A confident message spread like an epidemic, saying that even if they had been born with disabilities, or as a street bum or a nobody, they could become themselves again.

At some point, the truck driver stepped on the accelerator, and Mr. Miller opened his eyes wide.

And naturally, people who had been diligently living their lives, letting countless issues pass by, became curious.

Who could sing such a song?

#

Halo had so many things he wanted to do.

When he actually tried to do them, he was overwhelmed because there were so many things he wanted to do. But it was definitely a happy dilemma.

He felt like a teenager who wanted to do everything and knew nothing.

First of all, Halo wanted to try music that he hadn’t tried as Halo.

In fact, listening to music here made him realize anew that his music was distinctive.

It’s not about talking about strengths or weaknesses.

It would be more accurate to call it a ‘characteristic.’

His music was filled with various sessions, like classical music. There wasn’t a single gap in the melody, and some music was even composed of a chamber orchestra.

How can human emotions be expressed with just one or two instruments? Halo composed sessions to express the emotions he felt at the time and emphasized the harmony of multiple sounds.

Of course, there were musicians in this world who used sound as fully as Halo.

However, many musicians had many songs, and many people made music that was the opposite of Halo’s.

Music made up of just one session.

Music that focused on the melody of the voice rather than session sounds.

Oh, and music that made sessions with voices was very innovative.

“Is that also called acapella?”

It was similar to the acapella he knew, but there were differences. He had included choirs or choruses, but the fact that he could film himself and create acapella was almost shocking.

Of course, he can’t do all of these things right away.

It’s not just the budget, but he only has one body, and he even has other things to do.

‘I need to prioritize.’

Halo opened Noh Hae-il’s music notebook.

The inspiration he gained while living as Noh Hae-il after Noh Hae-il’s [Confession] was written in the notebook.

From the inspiration he had when he first took classes to the melodies he occasionally wrote down, they remained like sketches.

Halo closed his eyes.

“…”

He thought about what story he wanted to tell the most.

What he always focused on was his emotions. He composed the songs on the album, focusing on emotions such as anger, joy, and depression.

‘But isn’t that enough with Halo’s music?’

Of course, his emotions will be included in the new music, but he wanted to talk about the world, not his emotions.

How unfamiliar, warm, clumsy, and beautiful the world he encountered as Noh Hae-il was.

He still can’t write songs begging his lover to come back. The 고민 [Korean: worry/trouble] didn’t last long.

Halo closed the notebook and turned on the MIDI [Musical Instrument Digital Interface] controller.

Instead of creating a new folder this time, he created a new project.

The name of the project is… He hasn’t decided yet. He decided to leave it as just [NEW PROJECT]. That’s not the important thing.

Halo closed his eyes.

And he pulls out the most desired melody from the jumbled melodies. It’s a melody made up of fragments rather than being complete. He will pull out a few from here and complete them by touching them anew.

Halo recorded the main melody and 고민 [Korean: worry/trouble] happily. What notes should he use, what should be the main session? The heart that had been calm when he showed his previous music was excited and didn’t know what to do.

#

‘How nice would it be if people could only do what they wanted to do.’

People can’t live doing only what they want to do. It also applied to Halo, who wanted to enjoy irresponsible pleasure.

Of course, it’s not that he doesn’t want to do it.

It’s just that doing something more fun makes it feel like homework.

Yes, he still had homework left.

Third album recording. He couldn’t just let February pass by uploading just one single, so he had to record it.

He visited HY Studio, which now felt like his own studio. He always greeted Kang Young-min together and gave him the travel gift he had forgotten last time.

“Hello.”

“Oh, you came?”

He thought they would rush at him like his brothers, but Kang Young-min wasn’t like his brothers.

He didn’t seem interested in the gift, but rather had a face that said he had a lot to say to Halo, who brought the gift.

He was like a barber who wanted to shout, ‘The king’s ears are donkey ears!’ [referencing a folktale about a king with a secret].

Every time he visited these days, he looked at him with a meaningful or sly face. And sometimes, the twitching of his lips seemed like he was trying to hold back a question from bursting out.

Still, Kang Young-min did not interfere with the recording time as a studio operator and professional engineer.

Business is business, and personal life is personal.

He will probably pour out the words that have been building up to his throat after the recording is over.

When recording ‘I am HALO’, Kang Young-min accepted it even though he had a schedule, so there was no time to talk about it.

Halo was grateful to Kang Young-min for accepting the sudden reservation, and he also had something to say, so he decided to endure the rush after the recording.

Let’s focus on the third album first.

Most of the songs on the third album were tricky, so he had to pay attention.

Also, there was ‘Even so we do’ to be recorded soon. ESWD was an electric version of an anonymous folk song, and it required techniques that went back and forth between 16 beats and 32 beats along with sudden offbeats.

He made it so difficult that the guitarist who used to say, ‘Halo’s guitar skills are terrible’ went crazy, but now he was also a little dizzy.

His hands were numb even after playing it once, so he couldn’t make a mistake.

After finishing the long recording, Halo was greeted by Kang Young-min, who was shining his eyes as soon as he came out of the recording studio.

He thought he would be asked a question right away, but Kang Young-min couldn’t speak easily. Rather than deliberately not asking like his brothers, it seemed like he had too much to say and couldn’t choose.

Halo decided to wait before his question was decided and brought up what he wanted to ask first.

“사장님 [Korean: company president/CEO], do you also shoot music videos?”

“Music video…?”

Kang Young-min asked back as if he didn’t know Halo would ask such a thing.

“Are you interested in music videos? But uh… weren’t you not going to shoot something like that?”

The nuance of the words contained a question of whether he was deliberately hiding his appearance. It wasn’t a strange question since Halo’s actions had been like that until now. So Kang Young-min also tried to keep this issue a secret.

Halo answered calmly.

“Not that.”

“Then?”

Then Kang Young-min’s eyes widened.

“…! Come to think of it, there was another account?”

It wasn’t difficult to recall the starting point of their relationship.

“Are you going to revive that?”

Account? Halo had forgotten about it and just remembered it.

What he said was personal activity as Noh Hae-il, but when he thought about it, there was another account buried in the back of his mind. He never thought of using it even once.

“That’s right.”

But Halo didn’t show that he had just thought of it, and Kang Young-min didn’t notice either.

He was just admiring and sincerely wondering what kind of picture the boy in front of him was drawing. He didn’t know anything else, but as someone who knew the ‘secret’, it was fun. This is why the superiority of information is important.

Activity as Wave_r.

Kang Young-min, who had recently visited the account, suddenly recalled the person who had come to find Noh Hae-il recently.

Not ‘him’, but Noh Hae-il. So, he contacted him after watching Wave_r’s video, and when that didn’t work, he came after seeing the studio mark 찍혀있는 [Korean: stamped/printed] in the video.

Among the many files Halo recorded, only that file had a video, so the studio mark was 찍혀있는 [Korean: stamped/printed].

‘Wait a minute.’

Kang Young-min recalled his memory. If Halo hadn’t told him about wave_r, he would have forgotten about it.

“Hae-il, are you free these days?”

“Yes? Suddenly?”

He thought it was a random question for a moment, but Kang Young-min added.

“It’s nothing special, but I was wondering if you’d like to record a drama OST [Original Soundtrack]. Recently, someone came to me after seeing the video mark and asked me to suggest an OST.”

“OST?”

“Yeah, he recently came after seeing the video mark and asked me to suggest an OST.”

“How did that person know me?”

Halo thought he was talking about ‘Halo’, but he realized that the story was not about Halo.

First of all, there was only one video among his recording files that could be called a video.

Noh Hae-il’s account!

That account, which he had only uploaded once, was still alive. Kang Young-min made the video, so he could go back to him, but it was unexpected that the account was still alive and came back to him.

And the timing of his return was exactly when he decided to make music in a different form.

“What OST is it?”

“Wait a minute, I’ll find you the phone number.”

His own music was urgent, but he was curious because he had never done an OST before. In addition, he was bothered by the fact that Noh Hae-il’s own song brought this OST.

If someone found Noh Hae-il, it must be because they heard the [Confession] 음원 [Korean: sound source/music file].

Watching the results of the account and 음원 [Korean: sound source/music file] somehow return from the depths of his memory, Halo vaguely thought.

Maybe Noh Hae-il was destined to stand on stage too.