Henry: Big major three modulation, back to one. Get their chromatic mediant. Yeah!
Umu: Next you'll be reacting to a K-drama OST composed, arranged, and sung by Kim JeHwi.
So, this OST is called ''Dear Moon', and it's from the K-drama called 'My Mister',
which is a story about two adults facing the worst moments of their lives and trying to find support in each other.
In the drama, the moon becomes symbol that represents
tranquility, meditation, and hope the adults give each other.
Henry: Oh. I want to watch this. Elizabeth: Protip: Meditation is actually really great and very useful. Do it.
Umu: The solo artist IU, who acted as one of the lead roles in this
K-drama also wrote the lyrics, and said that, quote, "When you're in a dark place and all around you is pitch dark, the light you see is moonlight.
I hope even in the deepest corners, the moonlight, aka an adult, would be fair and shine some light, aka kindness."
It is a song that conveys conflicting feelings of poverty and loneliness, as well as the warmth that an unreachable moon provides.
Henry: Yeah.
Three, two,
one.
Elizabeth: Sol do (she's singing in solfege)
Kevin: Ayyyyy....goes up to three.
Sinks down. This is the sinking, falling feeling.
Ooh!
Jeremy: It sounds like a Christmas song. Hugo: I know, I was thinking either like Christmas or musical theater.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Gotta hit those bells.
Henry: Big major three modulation, back to one.
Get their chromatic mediant. Yeah!
Kevin: The song definitely sounds more optimistic than the title or the synopsis suggests, but I guess..
Ooh!
Falls.
I guess it is about hope and hoping in dark times.
Henry: Big left channel.
Brings it center.That's good stereo imaging right there.
Elizabeth: Ohh, yes.
Henry: This is really good.
Feels kind of like television-poppy, Elizabeth: Ooh, good vibraphone in there. Henry: but like, it does not take away from the fact that it's really good.
Wicked piano.
Very acoustic elements, interesting melody going to the flat seven.
Yeah!
James: Oh.
Melissa: Ooh.
James: Ah!
Melissa: Ooh!
Oh, my God!
Elizabeth: oohhhh cello! Henry: nice cello playing.
I played cello for a year. Henry: Did you for real?
Oh!
Hold on a minute. They bring the drums in after two minutes of it just being other
instrumental stuff. Very, very smart. Really, really, excellent pacing.
Kevin: I love how we landed on that major, but then it just kind of forces it back to B-flat major.
Jeremy: I like that tonicization. Hugo: I know, that was a cool...that was a cool moment.
Harmonic progression, as it were.
Elizabeth: Can he teach me how to phrase? I really like his phrasing.
Henry: That's like how gentle and honest his voice is. It's very unassuming. It's really not reaching for something that it isn't.
Kevin: And we go into....
Kevin: That's a key change if I've ever heard one.
James: His voice is so pure.
Melissa: Yeah.
Hugo: I like his voice a lot. Jeremy: Me, too.
Hugo: Like he's still on his core, but it's got a breathiness that is nice, that softens it, so it's not strident. Jeremy: Yeah.
Hugo: Plus, his mix and his head voice are really good.
Kevin: Drum sounds very cool.
So often in these poppy tracks the drums could easily sound more subdued. I think here it's perfect
Henry: Nice high harmony. Yeah. Really not overpowering in any way. Excellent.
Walking up the minor scale in a major key? That's him!
(hummimg)
Sometimes predictable harmony is just like
home.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Hugo: This is the song that plays during the credits of a sad but sappy and heartwarming rom-com.
Kevin: Umm, does the major three Picardy again.
So the material in the verse comes back after the second chorus to wrap up the song, I'm guessing.
Jeremy: I like this piano part.
There's some 'Bohemian Rhapsody' ending, right there. With the diminished chord, especially.
Melissa: Oh, the cello comes back.
Oh, I love that!
That's so cute!
Henry: Wow! I thought that was stupendous. I thought that was so good.
This is what I'm gonna go home and listen to. I love this.
I actually do. This sounds like a song I've been trying to write for a really long time.
Elizabeth: I got the tranquil vibe.
I mean, there was a lot of focus on vocal melody and vocal harmony. With uses like things like chimes,
xylophone, vibraphone, bells, things like that--
it's just, having a bell-like sound is very calm
and tranquil, because it's sort of like you get the accent at the beginning, but then it just sort of like,
disseminates very beautifully.
So yeah, I really thought that idea of tranquility was coming through. And even just the singing--the tempo was very laid-back,
so, you know,
the singer could really just like ease into all of the melodies, and the phrasing was beautiful,
understated,
and very nice. So yeah, I liked it too.
Jeremy: It was a very nice song.
It was very calming, and I could totally see it as a soundtrack.
The singer was sort of like
whisper singing, and you could tell he was standing right in front of the mic when he was recording it,
Hugo: Yep. Jeremy: but I really liked it, and that just like added to the
the feeling of it. Hugo: Yeah, it's just so heartwarming, Jeremy: Like, yeah, it was. Hugo: so like that heartwarming
feel, you know? Jeremy: Yeah.
Kevin: If you think about just pure melodic writing, the melody itself and the way it's constructed
really fits with the theme of the song, I think. So, the verse
focuses on
going downwards--falling. It starts with (singing)--that's a major third.
(singing) Or like, and then it goes into a major fourth or a major fifth.
It's like trying to go a little farther, and it's very step-wise, the verse after that.
So it goes up and down in a very step-wise way.
And then in the chorus you have these very wide melodic leaps,
(singing)
and that's the upward versus the downward of the verse. And not only does that make it more musically compelling and memorable between the
sections even though the style is the same, it also fits with the idea of finding hope and
feeling down, and I think it just
all works very nicely together. And
given that the song is major, it's nice that there's so much
variety, and it does feel hopeful yet melancholic,
yet happy, yet somewhat sad at the same time. Isaac: It's like something I did notice was the very
tasteful way of going from very simple
texture, Kevin: Uh-hmm. Isaac: so it's just like intervals, and then later flourishing with many instruments coming in, doubling up in voices who are
harmonizing with one another. And then later, the variance is like this trickling ritardando--
you're just taking time. Kevin: Yeah.
Isaac: So you're kind of like winding away. Kevin: Yeah.
Isaac: And it's very interesting because when you talk about like losing hope or losing the sense of hope, it's like when,
it's like time it feels so
prolonged. Kevin: Yeah. Isaac: Yeah.
Melissa: It's so pretty.
James: Wow
Wow. And just as far as like the instrumentation that they used and the chord progressions
they used, it was really expressive and really emotional, Melissa: Yeah. James: and kind of like would tug at you, and then...
Melissa: Especially the cello.
James: Yeah, the cello was lovely. Melissa: That's something you don't usually hear, like you always hear piano.
James: Yeah, the vocal slide, and the sigh that you were talking about. Melissa: The sigh--can I talk about the sigh?
James: Yeah, Melissa: I think, okay,
so he mostly, like his breathy tone was like
noticeably very breathy on the sigh, and I thought that was so cool.
And especially how in the beginning, he had words to that sigh. And there's a specific example--I don't know
what cantata exactly, but there's this Bach cantata, and I think he says the words like "weinen" or something,,
which means crying in German, and he's like, you know, talking about crying, and it just sounds like, you know crying or sighing, like (sighing). James: Yeah, yeah.
There were just like a lot of expressive emotion here, like flat 6 I kept hearing all the time.
It's that little twist that you hear right before the big resolution,
and it's just so gratifying to hear. And
also, just a note on melody, too: Like, we're familiar with a lot more orchestral melodies,
and there are just some composers who just know how to write a good melody.
Like, it sticks, it's harmonically interesting,
it stays in your head and it just like tugs at you,
you know, kinda just tugs at your heart strings, and I got that with this melody.
It was just so...it was just good. It was just well done,
so catchy, just everything. The song was awesome. It was really awesome. And I loved his voice.
Hello, everyone, I'm Umu, React to the K channel creator, and I'd like to thank you for watching this video.
I really hope you enjoyed or learned something from it..
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