Songspiration

[Ontae] Crescendo

Noun: The highest point reached in a progressive increase of intensity

The training room was filled with the sound of the piano.

"Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, la, t-" the note went off tuned. The piano stopped and the singer sighed in dejection, grabbing his bottle on the top of the piano, gulping it down.

"You need to take this easy, Jinki." Mr Kim, the vocal trainer said.

The stubborn leader of K-pop group, SHINee shook his head, "Let's do it again."

Mr Kim nodded but not before saying, "this is the last try Jinki. You know we can't push this. We are stuck at this note for the past hour."

Hitting the neutral note on the piano, the singer started again. "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, l- "Jinki could very well feel the strain on his vocal cords. Letting out an angry grunt, the man slumps down of the floor, head lowered, dejected tears threatening to fall.

The vocal trainer look down at the singer and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "We are in the early stage of rehab. You are doing good, Jinki. We have come really far from the first note." Seeing no response from the dejected singer, he collected his things and continued, "Let's end the session today. Go back and have a rest. We will try again next week."

Kim Yeon Woo left the room but not before looking back again at the singer. Closing the door, he sighed.

SHINee's leader, Onew, had to put a halt to all his individual and group activities for the removal of a vocal polyp 3 months ago. The inability to speak, sitting out on concerts that could not be cancelled, giving up on gigs that he had worked hard on and having his teammates covering his schedules had taken its tolls and built an unknowingly pressure on the responsible leader. It had taken one month after the surgery for him to make sounds, another for others to hear him speak and while he was elated, the doctor had cautioned about singing. Numerous vocal therapy that felt like he was learning to speak all over again, he was finally given an all-clear for singing. Excited that he was finally able to get back on stage, the singer had excitedly hopped into training with the company's vocal trainers and it turned out to be a disaster. SHINee's leader and lead singer, Lee Jinki, could not hit the vocal range of a rookie singer and his voice projection was so bad, the trainer did not know how they could put him back into the team.

When Mr Kim checked on his protégé, he learnt about the hurdles they were facing with the singer and how he was all dispirited and thinking about his future. All for his favourite young singer, the well-known singer and vocal coach volunteered for the job. He had slowly pulled the depressed singer out of his rabbit hole and they started from basic, the solfège scale in crescendo and how to project the voice without giving undue stress to the vocal cords. Another month had passed and they had made progress, but not fast enough for the anxious singer. Without mastering the scale, there was no way the teacher could move them into the actual singing of a song.

In the room, Jinki raised his head and leaned it against the legs of the piano, tears rolling down from the corners. He wanted to shout, wanted to scream, wanted so much to go back on stage, in front of the Ocean of Pearl Aqua.

"That's where I belong." He thought as he wipes the tears away. "This is so hard. Everything is so hard." Letting the emotional surge ride itself away, Jinki grabbed his medication and downed the rest of the liquid in his bottle. Picking himself off the floor, he exited the training room.

He peeked into other training rooms as he walked down the corridor. There were company's trainees practising their dance routine, singing with the aid of vocal coaches and playing with instruments trying to link chords together to compose a song, some greeted him as they met along the corridor. His legs unconsciously bought him to the rooftop of the building. He walked to the edge and look down at the view of the city. Back in 2006, when he too was a trainee trying to make it to the industry, trying to find a space to train his vocal. There were trainees everywhere and he had ended up on the rooftop, away from all the noise and people,