★ MARCH EVALUATIONS
song : < baby shark remix > on, midi fighter 64
There was the gentle crack of his fingers as he interlocked them and stretched them in towards his chest, an action he does while looking over the set up in front of him. MIDI controller to one side, laptop to the other, and his mind running over every button that he had practised until he was comfortable with the way his hands moved. During practices, he imagined this were something like a video game, garnering combos through the proper selection of keys and having to not hesitate on what button or he’d lose the momentum. Whoever told him that video games were never going to get him anywhere, must have been eating their words right then. The tip of Yuta’s tongue, pressing over his bottom lip as he adjusted the snapback that was on his head, setting it backwards on his head as a certain Pokemon master did before all intense battle sequences. He peers past his lashes at the coaches who were waiting for him to perform and he hoped they would understand his fickle rebellion.
Yuta was a dancer, he was a rapper, he was a performer -- he had zero intentions of taking this stupid evaluation seriously and his song choice was one made out of childish impulsiveness and the intention to catch them off guard. He had done what was asked, pick an instrument, practice on it, show them a song. Were they going to scold him for doing what he was told?
With one more lick over his bottom lip, Yuta situated his hand at the bottom and started with the first buttons in the bottom corner, announcing the song without hesitation. ‘Baby Shark’, happily coming from the speakers of the laptop and Yuta bringing his left hand in to start with the beat. Every dart of his fingertips to a button elicited the joyous beginning of the children’s song. He hoped they’d be stuck with it in their heads all day like he was. Waking up at 3am in cold sweats, murmuring the lyrics to themselves and sitting in quiet rooms, bobbing their heads along with the beat. Yuta had had to suffer through it while learning the song, and having his niece accompany it with the dance moves and the rest of the lyrics. If Yuta had to suffer through this evaluation, the coaches could suffer through getting this song out of their heads for the next day.
A smile tugging on Yuta’s lip as the beat paused for a second, knowing the next part was his favourite, where the children’s song got a bit of a remake. The singular ‘baby shark’ coming, then there was the slowly increase of the pace and then a deeper beat brought in. Yuta nodding his head along, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he denied his enjoyment to himself. This was his revolt at having to suffer through a month where they forced him to learn about music theory -- he was supposed to enjoy the childish amusement and not the song. Still, as the short song came to an end, Yuta forced himself to furrow his brow and wear a serious expression, only lifting his head when he inched half a step back from the desk and tucked his hands behind him.
“I hope you enjoyed the song,” coming from his lips, seconds before he bowed his head.
MARCH EVALUATIONS
CHOSEN INSTRUMENT: KIRBY OTAMATONE
PLAYING: THE OVERWORLD THEME FROM SUPER MARIO WORLD
└ ┘
when chanyeol had heard about the march evaluations, his swelled with delight, and it’s not for the reasons some might think. sure, he could go the easy route and choose to play the guitar or the keyboard, both instruments at which he’s already adept, and sure, he could learn any of the other instruments for which there are various workshops at the company, but he wouldn’t be himself if he did. no, he has to follow his gut; he has to follow his heart.
he has to play the otamatone.
for years, he’s been wanting to learn to play the happy-looking instrument but never had the time or motivation to actually go out and do it. finally, he’s given the opportunity to do so. what he didn’t expect was it to be so hard. it’s so different from the strings of a guitar or the keys of a keyboard, and it’s damn near impossible to stay on pitch. still, he is nothing if not resilient, and just like with any other monthly evaluation, he puts in his very best efforts to master it: practicing as he walks between lessons, eating his meals quickly to get back to the instrument, even uses some of the free practice hours to try and figure the thing out.
it’s not until he does some research that he finds a valuable tip. with a strip of tape, he labels each note on the otamatone so that he remembers where each key is, and from there, it isn’t exactly easy going, but it’s much more fluid and in tune than when he’d been going in blind.
the deadline for the evaluations quickly approaches, and while he’s not one hundred percent confident in the performance he’s about to put on, he hopes that it will still show how much work and dedication he’d put into it. the silence that takes over the room as he takes a seat with his chosen instrument gives him no hint of whether or not they’ll even take him seriously. but even if they don’t, he’s going to treat it as another regular performance and give it his all.
it doesn’t start off well. by the third or fourth note, he’s already hit a sour one, grimacing at the fact but still continuing on, recovering quickly. unfortunately, that recovery doesn’t last long as he goes off tune again and again, frustrations building. he finally hits his stride midway through the song, playing the rest of it with only one or two bad notes, and that makes him content with his performance, but not exactly satisfied.
he leaves the room with a bow, an apologetic grin on his face for having subjected the coaches to such a performance, and hurries off. he’ll conquer this instrument yet, he’ll make sure of it.
MARCH 2019 EVALUATION
ROYAL JSM COVERING ; JONAS BROTHER - SOS
seonho’s part ; joe jonas lines playing drums
this is an sos don’t want a second guess this is the bottom line
this months eval was one of great excitement for seonho as he loves any and all excuses to learn a new instrument. he grew up learning piano and will always love the piano, and then in the last year he had taken some time to learn the guitar. so when his hyungs and him had come together to try and figure out a plan for this eval, the idea for doing the drums had really just stuck with seonho. he wanted so bad to learn the drums. even if the song wasn’t really something he would typically do, the drums would be so much fun.
and he had been so right.
learning the drums through out the month of march had been great. he loved jamming away to them aimlessly and then also with aim. mainly though he’s been banging at them without a care in the world. he’d even gone and bought a drum set to put in his personal studio ( which he’s very glad that the studio hadn’t been under his moms name and that his dad doesn’t care enough to check because it means the studio was still his private place ). the drum set looked super awesome in his studio and he would spent a lot of time banging away and doing different combinations.
then there is the fact that this eval is once again with two of his favorite hyungs. jaehyun and minseok hyung are always so much fun to do evals with. their cool group of royal jsm which is kind of like a parody of the popular cbx ( and theyve covered a good handful of cbx already ) was a fun thing for them to put together. he always really does enjoy working with his hyungs.
the jonas brothers song--while not his favorite--is a good one. he’s jammed out to sos a few times before when he was strolling american song charts. and now he’s covering a a song of theirs. it feels so throw back but also really awesome!
and he’s playing the drums.
balancing the drums with vocals was kind of odd at first. seonho struggles with dancing and singing--which is why he tends to end up not dancing when its hit part unless its a whole group sings at once thing--but playing the drums was a whole new ball game for him. a challenge he was enjoying a whole lost. and his victims for testing were his poor hyungs and the poor instructors. all of which probably had ringing in their ears for a while.
seonho also had ringing in his ears for a while ( a month ) but he really had a blast with it! and he supposes thats what matters. so what he missed a few cue’s for his parts so the beat would start just slightly off, he was smiling the whole time. luckily his vocals stayed fairly steady. given, he’s worked his ass off for two years now and if his vocals aren’t steady when he’s spent so much time working only on those--he’d just have to give up and be a rapper.
he knows he has many years to go before he can even think to compare to baekhyun or any of his other sunbae in the company. but he thinks he’s starting to make his own headway. his own standing in the company. its nice to feel like he belongs.
immideately after he had become a trainee he realized, he had joined in the middle of an evaluation. jaehyun wrinkled his nose. after looking around he somehow found a group to perform with-- however he needed to learn how to play an intrument and well. jaehyun had never really had an interest in playing the guitar before. however he picked up one ( rather bravely if he could say so himself ). the group he had found? called themselves mistake... with the eight number.
jaehyun had been lucky enough to get to sing though-- even though it wasn’t one of his specialities, he liked singing karaoke so that was the energy he went in this with. now after diligently practicing the guitar, desperately, for a couple days. the only thing he had focused on was learning the rythm.
“uh, seokwoo... sunbae?” he approached the older male, “do you mind practicing a little together?” jaehyun had practiced seperately, just to learn the chords-- now he felt somewhat ready to practice togethe with someone.
Minhyuk had invited Minhee with him to Cancun for vacation. As he’s decided to use his one week vacation on an actual vacation far away from KT. The SSKT commercial was his last straw and he just needed to get away as far as possible from KT. The fact that he wasn’t even chosen despite having had years and years of experience in the field made Minhyuk mad so he needed to go somewhere blow off steam and relax. So, his usual resort in Cancun had been a great idea. Of course, Minhee had asked if she could invite friends and he agreed. More the merrier . It would be fun.
On the first night there, though, Minhyuk immeditealy hit the tequila, hard cocktails and just alcohol in general and ended up taking over the piano in the lobby. He was casually playing it with a happy grin. Seeing his travelling companion, he waved her over. “Come join me! We’ll play a badly written duet!” he said, laughing, taking a sip from the tequila lemonade on the piano close to the sheet music. “I’ve been day drinking and I feell fantastic!”
The bag of sweets had been secured from his hiding spot, mentally counting out each of the lollipops and checking their flavours when he made his way to where his group had been practising for evaluation. They were coming together nicely, at least, that’s what he thought, and they worked hard every session, getting better with each practice they had together. Seokwoo grinned to himself as he pushed open the door to the room, only to falter when he saw only one of his group remained. This was why he was never good at surprises, they never worked out for him -- he should have told everyone to wait. His nose crinkled, bottom lip jutting out as he realised his silly mistake with handling this. They would have stayed if he told them he was coming back with sweets!
“Did they leave already, Somi?” Seokwoo asked, glancing around the empty spaces that his group mates had been when he left, promising he’d be back in a few minutes. It was a rhetorical question, one that he had the answer for, but was hopeful for something else.
His gaze fell down into the bag of sweets, then lifted back to the lone girl.
It doesn’t take long to close the space towards the drumset, soon holding out the brown paper bag which was to hide the contents. A purposeful decision after he realised carrying around the original bag, brightly coloured and labelled with the sugar content, would make him an easy target for the coaches. “Do you like lollipops, Somi? These are my ‘after-practice’ lollipops! I have them, after practice. Especially when I’ve worked hard. They’re good flavours!” Seokwoo explained, flashing a grin at her and then remembering the others, smile crumpling at the edges and his shoulders sinking. “I was going to share them with everyone...”
Song: Summer Night’s Dream
rkevent: rkmar19eval
film members: @rksunwoo , @rkjohnny and @aronrk
When she was young her mother told her never to look at those around her and focus only what is in front of her. That is how comparison and insecurities are born. Her mother told her that she knew first hand through her own experience. Although it was clear that her mother had good intentions when she gave that advice, Naeun saw everything that was wrong in it rather than the good.
So as she stood there, nervous for her first monthly evaluations, she looks around her. She allows the tension to seep through her veins as she received encouraging smiles from her precious friends, Sunwoo and Johnny. As well as Aron, who though she had just recently met, was one of the sweetest and kindest people that she's ever come across. It made the whole experience a lot more enjoyable and comfortable.
There was a part of her that genuinely did not know where this anxiety and nerves were coming from. For someone who has been exposed to this sort of attention countless times before, she did not like where nor is she aware of where these hesitations were coming from. Despite this, Naeun tries to focus her thoughts on the people beside her.
She basks in their comforting gaze and effortless charisma. She might be the latest addition to the group and has learned to play an instrument in order to perform with them, yet she feels a sense of calm. A much-welcomed feeling in needed time. Looking up, she exchanges smiles with Sunwoo, in all honesty, she had him to thank for this wonderful experience.
When the evaluation for this month had been announced, Youngjae’s first thought had been ‘how hard can it be?’ He had never before played an instrument, but it couldn’t be that hard right? He’d just have to learn a tune, perform it and that’d all be it over and done with, easy peasy, and he could go about his day like nothing had happened. Of course the hesitation still remained in his body after last month’s fiasco -- could it really be so simple or was there any hidden inclusions this time again, any surprise eleements? -- but for now he could do nothing but take his classes and prepare for the worst.
Granted, when he actually had time to sit down by the piano and try tapping his fingers against the keys, it wasn’t as easy as he had thought it would be at all. Reaching nodes was one thing and Youngjae doubted he would be able to do it in this month if ever, and even worse was trying to get those nodes into actual sounds. He could sort of remember which keys to press. Sort of. It was a slow and very butchered tune that only bore a slight semblance to the original Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that emerged from within the instrument, and Youngjae’s face became sour. Even worse was it that he heard footsteps coming from behind and turned around to see Jeongguk. Immediately he went into defense. “If you’re here to laugh at me just get it over and done with quick please.”
