Chapter 122
The Pianist's Village, Rachmaninoff's House.
Today, as usual, Rachmaninoff, sitting in the center of the room while painting on canvas, heard the sound of the door opening.
"Hello, master."
Today too, I heard polite greetings.
"Are you here?"
Today I received the same greeting. Soo-hyun saw the unchanging Rachmaninoff. Instead of pulling up a chair and sitting by the window as usual, he placed it next to him.
Rachmaninoff noticed Soo-hyun's behavior, which was a little different from usual. Soo-hyun said with an embarrassed smile as he sat in the chair.
"I'm going to try to draw a picture today."
Rachmaninoff stared at Soo-hyun and nodded towards the place where the art supplies were piled up.
"The ingredients are over there."
"Yes, sir."
Soo-hyun didn't know how to draw. After bringing materials similar to Rachmaninoff's, Soo-hyun hung the canvas on the easel and said,
'I don't know how to draw. Can you teach me?'
"I don't know either."
"…"
'I don't know, but you draw like this every day? What the hell are you drawing?'
Come to think of it, it was the first time he had seen what he was drawing. Rachmaninoff's canvas was reflected in Soo-hyun's eyes. On his canvas, rather than a painting, a feast of colors was unfolding. There were no imaginable forms at all, only curves, straight lines, and circles in various colors drawn in a metaphysical way. It looked exactly like a child's drawing done with watercolors.
'What the hell? Were you painting like this? If it's something like this, I can do it too.'
Rachmaninoff poured paint onto his palette. He filled a bucket with water and washed his brushes. Soo-hyun, who had no common sense about art, glanced at him and followed suit.
'I guess I can just paint on the canvas like that.'
Soo-hyun, who was holding a brush wet with paint over the canvas, stopped at a moment.
'It's strange. I'm just trying to paint on canvas. Why am I hesitating? I'm afraid that the pure white canvas will be contaminated by my clumsy brushstrokes.'
Rachmaninoff said, as he applied yellow paint to the canvas.
"Drawing is creating something from nothing, showing the greatness of nature, drawing a non-existent fantasy in reality, with a historical background. And, sometimes, drawing reality as it is, expressing a life story worn out by life."
'Soo-hyun speaks longer after meeting him.'
"When an artist paints, the most difficult thing is when he first picks up the brush. The painting changes depending on where and how he places the first dot. Perhaps it is the same when composing music."
'Are you trying to explain the difficulty of composition with drawings? If so, you can just say it in words. You don't have to spend days drawing, professor.'
Rachmaninoff, concentrating on the drawing without looking at Soo-hyun's eyes, spoke as if talking to himself.
"Pianists are beings who freely move their left and right hands and draw admiration from the public under the name of transcendental virtuosity. They usually start at the age of three or four and reach their peak in their twenties."
'I know that too, sir.'
"Starting at the age of three or four and continuing until the age of twenty. How long do you think an average pianist practices the piano?"
'Well, if you practice for five or six hours a day, there are 365 days in a year… Ha, is it math again?'
Soo-hyun was in tears. Fortunately, Rachmaninoff seemed to have given Soo-hyun the answer instead of giving him the problem.
"An average of 10,000 hours."
'10,000 hours. Just thinking about practicing for six hours a day makes my head spin when I hear that they practice a total of 10,000 hours.'
But Soo-hyun didn't know that his practice time had already exceeded that limit.
"Have you ever wondered how a pianist's hands move so fast?" Rachmaninoff said, painting on the edges of the canvas.
"Of course, professor. Of course, with 10,000 hours of practice, it would be different from what an average person would do."
"Are a pianist's finger muscles stronger than an average person's?"
'Hmm? I don't think so. Even before I had hands identical to Mr. Beethoven's, my own hands were fast.'
Rachmaninoff turned his brush upside down and pointed to Soo-hyun's head.
"The secret is in the pianist's brain."
"Brain? That wrinkled thing inside your head?"
"If you ask an average person to move their fingers as fast as a pianist, they have to move a lot of neurons. That means the brain consumes a lot of energy. But a pianist's brain is different. The neurons barely move. That means it spends less energy to move the fingers."
'So why is that, sir?'
"The brain has evolved to specialize in pianists. You can tell for sure when you get an electric shock. When a normal person gets an electric shock, their fingers curl up and it looks like their hands are grabbing something, but pianists' fingers move as if they are playing the keys."
'Well, if you practice repeatedly for 10,000 hours, your brain will change in that way.'
"The human cerebellum typically contains about 100 billion neurons. However, pianists use about 5% more neurons to develop left-hand movements than the average person, which makes it larger."
'Wow, is your brain bigger than an average person's?'
"Of course, there are parts that are smaller than an average person's, so don't imagine that the overall size will increase."
'Phew, that's a relief. I didn't want my head to get that big.'
"But a pianist's brain doesn't just give orders to move the body for playing," Rachmaninoff continued.
Soo-hyun nodded.
'The same goes for pianists. It's not just about moving your fingers to play, but constantly expressing emotions. It's the brain at work.'
Rachmaninoff finally put down the brush. Then he looked at Soo-hyun seriously.
"I've been hearing about you since the day you set foot here."
Soo-hyun's face became surprised.
'You knew from the beginning?'
Rachmaninoff made an unfitting joke with a straight face.
"Unfortunately, I'm the youngest here. So I had to find out what the professors were up to."
'I almost burst out laughing. How could he say something like that with such a straight face?'
He opened his mouth again.
"Six hours a day for ten years. What you need most right now is not practice."
"Are you sure?" Soo-hyun, who was calculating, asked.
"Sometimes you have to put your arms down and take a break. If you take a break from work and distance yourself, you'll clearly see how the harmonious balance of your life is broken. Rest is recovery. Even a short break has a greater restorative power than you can imagine."
Rachmaninoff said as he examined Soo-hyun's body.
"It's also what your body needs most right now. You are a human being, not a god."
Soo-hyun breathed a sigh of relief.
'It's not that the master didn't teach him anything. Maybe he was teaching him something more important than playing. At least he took a break while he was watching him draw blankly.'
Soo-hyun slowly stood up from his seat and arched his back.
"I misunderstood. I'm sorry, sir."
Rachmaninoff looked at Soo-hyun with an expressionless face and put more paint on the palette again.
"What should we do from now on?" Soo-hyun said.
Rachmaninoff said, dipping his brush in a bucket of water to wash off the original paint.
"I heard you went to a music school. The classes there probably last less than two hours a day."
"That's right."
"From today on, don't practice outside of those times."
"…"
'Is it okay? Some say my hands get stiff. They say that constant practice helps me grow as a pianist. I'm worried.'
Rachmaninoff read Soo-hyun's thoughts and added,
"Sixteen. If you don't rest at this age, you won't progress."
'You're not getting better? Why? If you practice more and try your best, you can get better, right, professor?'
He wanted to ask a question, but suddenly Professor Gruber's words came to his mind.
"And that teaching must be related to the piano. Sometimes you have to experience something to know the truth, rather than judging it by its appearance."
Soo-hyun swallowed his words as he thought about what he said.
'Of course, I don't believe Rachmaninoff just because of Professor Gruber's words. It is a blind belief that those who sent him here—Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven, and Schubert—would not have made decisions that would harm him.'
Soo-hyun, who had organized his thoughts, spoke.
"I'll do as you say."
Rachmaninoff, seeing that Soo-hyun's expression, which had been anxious every day, had improved, nodded briefly and then concentrated on the painting again.
'Perhaps the professor's drawing is also part of his relaxation.'
Soo-hyun quickly picked up the brush. Although he was a little scared, he closed his eyes tightly and swung the brush soaked in paint on the canvas. He never had any idea of what he was going to draw from the beginning. He just put paint on the brush and applied it to the canvas. But strangely enough, such a simple task was very interesting.
Soo-hyun was drawing a picture while smiling brightly.
'Art is really fun. But can you call what I'm doing art? It's like scribbling, but it's fun anyway, so it's okay.'
Soo-hyun was absorbed in drawing for about an hour.
'I think I can do this again tomorrow.'
This was the first time the words of returning came from Rachmaninoff, not from Soo-hyun.
"Just go back."
"Yes?"
He had an expression that said, "I'm in the middle of drawing, and already?" Rachmaninoff said, putting down the brush.
"From today on, sleep at least eight hours a day."
"Eight hours?"
Soo-hyun had never slept more than six hours since he started playing the piano. When he practiced with Beethoven, he once slept for two hours and lasted for three months. Rachmaninoff went back to focusing on the painting as if there was no need to say anything more.
'There must be a reason for this, right?'
Although it was a little disappointing, Soo-hyun stood up from his seat after organizing the canvas and paints and greeted them politely.
"Then I'll see you tomorrow, Professor."
Rachmaninoff just nodded his head. Rachmaninoff muttered as he stared at Soo-hyun's back as he opened his room door and went out as usual.
"They say you can only sleep after you die, but the changes that happen in your body while you sleep have to happen now."