Shortly after Tae-ha decided to sing the OST.
New 1 Entertainment immediately assigned a vocal trainer to him. It was Ahn Min-kyung, the vocal trainer who had helped during Seon Min-gi’s fan meeting before.
“I’m so glad to see you again, Tae-ha. I heard you recommended me yourself?”
“You did such a great job last time. So, I briefly brought it up. I’m glad you had time, Teacher.”
Realistically, receiving vocal training for a short period didn’t mean one could achieve a dramatic change in skill. At most, it was about correcting a few bad habits and filling in some lacking areas. Tae-ha had recommended Ahn Min-kyung because she was someone who excelled at exactly that.
Furthermore, she had one more advantage: she possessed an excellent ability to awaken the good vocal habits remaining in Tae-ha’s body.
“Then shall we listen to you sing for the first time in a while? Last time, we didn’t have enough time to wake up all the good habits left in your body, but I hope we can make it happen this time.”
Thus, Tae-ha received vocal training consistently, awakening the habits left in his body and steadily improving his singing skills. It was not an easy task. Receiving vocal training itself wasn’t the problem; in fact, there was a certain joy in learning something new.
However, as someone who had to visit the set and exercise his Immersion Ability even when he didn’t have his own filming scheduled, finding time was difficult. Receiving vocal training once a week was his limit. Because of that, Tae-ha needed to make good use of his spare time. This was why Tae-ha practiced singing inside the car while traveling to and from the filming site.
“Ah, ah, ah—”
After practicing for a while, Tae-ha glanced at Im Chan-hyung, who was fiddling with his Hyeondaepon in the seat next to him.
“Am I being too loud?”
At Tae-ha’s question, Im Chan-hyung looked up.
“Hmm? No. It sounds good. Why?”
“It sounds good?”
“Of course it does. You’re a great singer. Isn’t that right, Su-jin?”
Im Chan-hyung looked toward Kim Su-jin and asked, and Kim Su-jin nodded immediately.
“Yes. Your singing is wonderful, Tae-ha. I think it’s been improving lately.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that to flatter me, are you?”
“No. It’s really good. To be honest, when you first sang while we were moving, there were times when it was… well, you know? But these days, it’s completely different. You’ve really improved a lot.”
“Ah. That’s a relief then. Let me know if it gets noisy. If it really bothers you, don’t worry about me and just use your earphones or headphones.”
“Yes. I’ll do that.”
After seeing Im Chan-hyung and Kim Su-jin nod, Tae-ha continued his singing practice. Then, a thought suddenly occurred to him. He was curious about what would happen if he sang using his Immersion Ability.
Thus, Tae-ha immersed himself in the role of ‘the best singer in the Republic of Korea’. And then, he began to sing.
It happened then.
“Oh.”
An exclamation escaped from the driver’s seat. Looking over, the road manager, Jo Yong-ho, who was usually so taciturn he barely spoke a word, had a surprised expression on his face. Thanks to that, Tae-ha was able to confirm it. The fact that the Immersion Ability worked for singing as well.
‘Maybe this… could lead to a pretty good result.’
Automatically, such a thought floated through Tae-ha’s mind. While he continued filming for a few more weeks and received vocal training, Tae-ha finally got to meet TT, one of the composers for the *Fight Club* OST.
***
In a recording studio located in Sangsu-dong.
TT waited for Tae-ha there and thought to himself, ‘Will it be okay? Won’t this just ruin my song?’
Composer TT, who had been active since the late 2000s, was a figure who had produced numerous hit songs. He had achieved great success, particularly with girl group hook songs, and at one point, there were rumors that one couldn’t buy a song from TT even with cash.
He was that successful, but unfortunately, his prime did not last long. At some point, the hooks using brass instruments like the saxophone or trumpet, which could be called TT’s trademark, stopped working. The reason was simple. The public had become too familiar with TT’s style and no longer felt any novelty from it.
In the end, TT had to endure a long slump while barely maintaining his past reputation. Every time he wrote a song, he experienced a painful failure, so it was unavoidable.
After struggling for a while, TT attempted a major change, and it worked. He decided to give up writing girl group songs and move into drama OSTs. Fortunately, TT was also quite talented at writing medium-tempo songs or ballads. Furthermore, these songs did not require the same immense sense of timeliness as his previous work.
He just had to follow a reasonable style and match the atmosphere of the drama. Since the drama directors often asked for songs similar to specific styles they liked, the work couldn’t have been easier for TT.
He finally had some breathing room. However, TT still hadn’t forgotten his past glory. Secretly, he harbored the ambition that if he wrote a good song, he could enjoy a second prime anytime. He even had songs he had collected step-by-step for such a future.
They were songs kept in his music warehouse, which TT himself called his vault. However, he thought it was still premature to release these songs. If he ever met a truly great singer, someone he felt he could bet his future on, he intended to open the vault.
Of course, that day was not today, and TT was waiting for Tae-ha with a somewhat worried expression. The reason TT was worried now was none other than the fact that Tae-ha—who used to be an Idol but was now merely a Writer and Actor—had decided to participate in the OST.
Since Tae-ha was to sing his song of all things, TT couldn’t help but be concerned. No matter how positively he tried to think, he didn’t believe Tae-ha would be a good singer.
Of course, TT had also looked for videos after hearing that Tae-ha would be singing his song. There were two main videos where he could check Tae-ha’s singing ability. One was a video filmed during Tae-ha’s Idol days. However, perhaps because the video was so old, the picture and sound quality were not very good. He could confirm his appearance to some extent, but knowing his full singing ability was impossible. He just thought, ‘He’s doing reasonably well.’
The next was a fan-filmed video of Seon Min-gi’s fan meeting. This video wasn’t of great quality either. Still, it was easier to recognize Tae-ha’s skill than the old one. And the skill he confirmed was just mediocre.
TT’s thought was that he was not bad for an actor, but severely lacking for a singer. That was inevitable because, in this video, Tae-ha was performing a cover song several keys lower than the original. Even though he had lowered the key, it was a recorded performance. Naturally, TT had to evaluate Tae-ha’s skill as low.
However, this was a bit unfair to Tae-ha. The reason Tae-ha had lowered the key for the cover was because of Seon Min-gi. To put it as nicely as possible, Seon Min-gi was not a good singer. But since it was Seon Min-gi’s fan meeting, it was only natural for the fans to want to hear the song in Seon Min-gi’s voice.
For that reason, rather than allocating many parts to Tae-ha, the direction of the cover had to be set toward singing it in a key that matched Seon Min-gi. That was why Tae-ha had sung in a lower key even though he didn’t need to.
Of course, TT had no way of knowing such facts, and as a result, Tae-ha’s skill was ingrained in TT’s mind as being quite poor. And this was the reason TT was worried about working with Tae-ha now.
‘Phew. What can I do? Enduring that is just the nature of the OST market.’
In fact, this wasn’t the first time TT had experienced an actor singing an OST. There were often cases where they tried to create a promotional effect by having an actor sing a song. So he had similar experiences, and he had struggled quite a bit back then too. In the end, he had to proceed with the recording by lowering the key several steps from what he had originally planned, and the stress from that was immense. As a composer, it was only natural since the result he envisioned didn’t come out.
TT prepared himself for such an occurrence today as well. Of course, just because he was prepared didn’t mean his irritation completely disappeared.
‘I should get out of here as soon as possible, really.’
Such a thought arose automatically. It was right when TT was thinking this.
“Hello, Composer! I’m actor Kang Tae-ha! I look forward to the recording today!”
Tae-ha, who arrived at the recording studio with Im Chan-hyung, greeted him loudly. And at that greeting, TT felt his irritation melting away. It couldn’t be helped. Recently, Tae-ha was someone so successful that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to classify him as top-tier, both as a Writer and an Actor. Since such a person was bowing to him and acting so affably, TT’s heart couldn’t help but soften.
That didn’t mean his expectations for Tae-ha’s singing ability rose, but the atmosphere certainly improved. In this atmosphere, TT accepted Tae-ha’s greeting.
“Nice to meet you. I’m TT, and I’ll be assisting with your recording today. I enjoyed watching *Your Brilliant Sparkle* recently, so it’s an honor to meet you like this.”
“The honor is all mine. I really like your songs, Composer. Back when I was an Idol trainee, my favorite song was ‘Star Road’. The older members used to give me a hard time, asking why I only ever sang girl group songs.”
TT couldn’t help but be surprised at Tae-ha affably mentioning ‘Star Road’. It was because ‘Star Road’ was one of what he considered his hidden masterpieces. Furthermore, since it was a B-side track, not many people knew it.
“You know ‘Star Road’? Wow. Then you really are my fan.”
“I told you. I don’t just like ‘Star Road’. My second favorite song is actually ‘Talk to’.”
‘Talk to’ was a similar case. It was a B-side track that not many people knew. As songs that one wouldn’t know without having done deep research kept coming up, TT’s mood naturally improved. At the same time, a thought occurred to TT.
‘Maybe he’s actually a good singer?’
Just because he knew his songs well didn’t mean he would be a good singer, but TT, whose mood had improved, was even thinking such things. It was a good flow. And to this flow, Tae-ha drove the final wedge.
With his actual singing ability.
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