A schedule that started early in the morning.
“This building, huh?”
Right after finishing a photo shoot, instead of returning to the lodging, I came to a second-hand instrument store I had checked out the day before, accompanied by Young-ho, the manager, before it got late.
“Is this the place?”
From the outside, it looked just as quiet inside.
There was only one older man, probably in his fifties, visible inside.
But somehow, that gave a sense of trust.
“Yes, this should be the second-hand piano place. The name matches too.”
As soon as we entered the store, we were hit with the smell of aged wood.
“Hello there, I called you yesterday afternoon…”
“Oh! You’re the young lady who wanted to see the piano yesterday?”
It seemed the shop owner was a tuner, as he gently put down the piano hammer he had been working on and stood up.
Then he froze.
The tuner teacher squinted his eyes.
His eyes suddenly showed a question mark.
A confused expression.
“Uh, but you look really familiar. Where have I seen you before?”
Honestly, it was a familiar situation for me.
“Right? I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere.”
Even outside of TV, just walking down the street, older folks would sometimes ask me if I was the pretty girl they recognized from an ad, thanks to my frequent exposure from my commercials.
“Yes, hello, I’m Do-hee Lee.”
I felt a bit proud but answered casually with a light smile.
“Oh, it is Do-hee! How could I not know this face! You’re that idol girl who plays the piano incredibly well, right?!”
I didn’t expect the old man to react this strongly.
“I was so amazed by Do-hee’s performances that I kept replaying your YouTube videos! I’m a huge, huge fan! Hahaha!”
The tuner teacher waved his arms so much, I thought his phone might fly out of his hands.
“Really?!”
“See, look! Look here! I pressed the like button so hard!!”
At first, I thought he might have just seen me on a billboard or an article, but seeing the likes on my piano performance video made it seem real.
‘Am I really famous for my piano too?’
After winning the grand prize at a competition last year and writing my debut trailer song, I’ve been living as an idol, so I felt a bit dulled to it.
“Wait, I need your autograph first! Quickly, give me your autograph!”
It seemed like I was genuinely famous in this field too.
Experienced tuners are usually well-respected figures in the classical industry.
“You all have quite a pedigree in the classical music scene, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes, yes! It’s my signature. Of course, I’ll do it!”
“Wow, famous people have such bold signatures!”
Only after giving the signatures could I finally take a light stroll around the shop.
“Go ahead, play as much as you want~”
As expected, it was a relatively quiet store just past lunchtime on a weekday.
─♩♬♩♪♩
I played each key of the second-hand pianos one by one.
Not the grand pianos, just the upright ones.
Each one resonated with a very bright sound.
‘The tuning is really well done.’
In the meantime, the Teacher Tuner waved me over.
“Hey, Do-hee! How’s this piano!”
─♪♩♫
“Oh, the sound is clearer than the others. It seems old, though.”
“This one, you see, is over 20 years old, but the owner was very obsessive! They avoided dampness like the plague and never used a fan aimed at the piano in summer, only cranked up the air conditioner!”
“Ah~”
“And I know this because of a friend of a friend! I have a friend who’s a professor at a music college, and this was their daughter’s piano! Hahaha!”
“I see. Definitely, aside from its appearance, it doesn’t sound like a used one.”
“So, if you want to buy, you’ve got to buy stuff like this. Good quality and cheap!”
It was indeed a well-maintained piano that could confidently be introduced.
Of course, properly shaping it during the tuning process was probably an important factor too.
It seemed that the reviews online about skilled tuners weren’t just made up after all.
“But Chairman, did you personally tune all the pianos here one by one?”
“Of course! Do you know how many years of experience I have? I’ve only done this my whole life. Who would I trust to do it?”
“Oh, right?”
“But why? Are you looking for something specific?”
“Ah… yes, actually I am, but I don’t want to be rude.”
“Oh, come on! If there are no buyers, then it’d be rude not to say! Just tell me!”
After hesitating for a moment, I finally spoke up.
“Actually, they all seem to have similar sound qualities.”
But as soon as he heard my words, the Teacher Tuner chuckled heartily and smiled brightly.
“Wow, you can pick up on that? You really have an ear for this! It’s clear you have something in mind!”
The Chairman started nodding enthusiastically.
“Yeah, a performer must have an ego! And they should be stubborn!”
I could only nod in agreement.
“Ah, ah… that’s right. Yes, yes.”
“See, people coming to the shop don’t realize I tuned them all similarly! Only occasionally, decent pianists notice and appreciate it, right?”
“You don’t realize that I’ve let it go! Occasionally, some decent pianists notice it, right?”
“Ah~”
“Oh my, I’m currently a popular star! Because the popular star recognizes me! I’m feeling incredibly good right now?!”
“Haha… Yes, it just feels like all the tones are bright. I wonder if you’re a specialist in tuning?”
“Don’t be silly! I can adjust everything. You see, since I’m in retail, I have to display brighter tones in the store, don’t I?”
“Ah, I guess that’s true…?”
“Then~ Oh, so Do-hee found a dark tone, huh?”
“Yeah, I needed a piano for the special stage performance.”
“Oh, you need it for a performance!? Just say the word, I can tune it all for you! I can do it!”
“Uh… Sure.”
A thunderous voice, more of a shout than a cheer.
As the Teacher Tuner went to grab the tuning hammer, Manager Young-ho and I locked eyes.
‘Wow, her energy is on the level of Chiyo Unni.’
‘Do-hee, her energy is totally at your level!’
It seemed Manager Young-ho was thinking the same thing as me.
Anyway, in front of a well-maintained piano, the Teacher Tuner asked how she should tune it.
“…Um.”
“Go ahead, I can do anything for you, you know?”
“First, I need to make the tone darker.”
“Okay, and?”
“Well, when you usually pitch fix, it’s either a crisp sound or a dull, muffled sound, right?”
“Of course.”
“But I would like it to be crisp again… if possible.”
“Crisp? You mean with this perfectly good piano?”
“Yes, almost all new pianos are well tuned, so I specifically came to a second-hand store to get a more stimulating sound.”
“Hmm… Well, yeah. There are pianists who sometimes like that sharp thunderous sound.”
The Teacher Tuner didn’t seem like she’d give in easily, but eventually nodded.
“Is there anything else? Other than a dark, sharp tone?”
Honestly, this was the hardest part to say.
I was standing in front of the piano, after all.
“Um, the keys I’m pressing right now.”
“Ah~ You mean you want the sound to be different there? What kind of stage are you planning?”
“Oh no, it’s not like that. I plan to use the cluster technique.”
“Cluster? Ah~ You mean like banging the keys down?”
The cluster technique, in fact, had a separate name for the playing style.
As the Teacher Tuner said, it was just a playful way of smashing adjacent keys with one’s palm or forearm, something most kids have done once for fun.
It was just a method of playing that anyone would have tried out jokingly at least once.
“Yes, but the keys I’m pressing now only produce sounds when I smack them hard, or not at all, you know? In the new song.”
“Wow, a new song? I didn’t realize the special stage was for a new song! I’m really looking forward to that on the piano!”
“Yeah, but I think we need to make the performance flashy, so there are several scenes where I’ll be aggressively slamming the keys in the new song…”
“Ugh, why are you dragging it out? Speak comfortably. I’ll take care of everything. Crisp sounds, dark tones, you want them all!”
Honestly, it was only natural that I was stalling.
“Then… I need you to break a few of the keys so they won’t come back up after being pressed…”
I intended to turn this well-maintained piano into a worn-out product, even after it had been perfectly tuned.
“Um… Well, since you asked, I’ll go along with it.”
Thankfully, she didn’t seem to care too much.
“Thank you. And the very top keys, I’d like you not to touch those at all. It would be great if you could just remove those keys.”
“Empty? Seems like the stage is going to be really special… Well, since you’re not using that part… alright.”
“And then, for these two keys, if you hit them hard, I want the upper white ivory part to fall off due to the recoil, so if you could loosen the glue a bit…”
“Ah, I see.”
At that moment, the tone of Teacher Tuner changed for some reason.
“If I’d known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have fixed it.”
“Haha, but my new song is quite performance-heavy… So I need those kinds of scenes…”
Honestly, I just didn’t understand her at all.
She might have been grumbling about this for a while now, especially since her accent sounded like it was from Chungcheong Province.
“Yeah… Well, an artist’s heart can be like that. This piano has seen the world for 20 years.”
“So, I’d like to leave the repairs to you later…”
“Well~ There’s a separate guy for fixing. I still live for the satisfaction of fixing up old junk~”
…Is she really from Chungcheong Province?
“Um, but there’s still one thing…”
“Just say it. What’s one more thing gonna change?”
“I want the hammer striking the keys to be visible too.”
“Ah, you want the lid? You want me to take the top off?”
“…Yes, the top.”
“Well, what can I do? Right?”
No… You said you’d help with everything earlier…
“Oh dear, if this turns into a war, it might be useful for firewood.”
So I came here to buy second-hand…
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