Episode 3: Heartbeat of Graphite and Drum Beat

Episode 3: Graphite's Heartbeat and Drum Beat On the first basement floor of an alley in Hapjeong-dong, the air in the ensemble room that opened the thick soundproof iron door was filled with the dusty smell of an old vacuum tube amplifier and the spicy scent of maple wood. In the middle of that narrow space, the artist's 4B pencil quickly scratched the bottom of the white drawing paper and began to form the outline of a magnificent five-cylinder acoustic drum set. A massive 22-inch diameter bass drum, a 14-inch maple snare drum, and Zildjian hi-hat and crash cymbal bricks cast from golden bronze alloy. The pure white Remo coated skin of the drum head sparkles in the light of the stand light. 'widely! 'Tap, thud!'

At that time, an incredible sound echoed through the studio. It wasn't the sound coming from the speakers. The artist began tapping the mahogany desk and drawing paper surface with the graphite tip of the 4B pencil in his hand. Each time the pointed end of the pencil struck the paper, tiny graphite particles bounced off the surface of the paper like dust on a drum head. The shock wave of the blow spread out as concentric ripples through the fibers of the paper, and the vibration lines became the trajectory of a living soundwave and extended around the drum.

In the paper, Minwoo held a pair of thick hickory wood drumsticks in both hands. The veins in the knuckles of the fingers that held the stick were bristling, and the right foot was ready to powerfully step on the metal pedal of the bass drum. Minwoo's lips twisted and he let out a wild roar.

“Beat it! Wake up your heart!”

'thud! Pop! Thump thump—thud!'

The 8-bit rock beat exploded with the sound of a pencil striking, shaking the walls of the ensemble room and electrifying the world on paper. The Vic Firth 5A American Hickory drum stick held in Minwoo's hand was the pinnacle of ergonomic formative beauty. The hard and tough hickory wood from North America has a unique elasticity that flexibly absorbs the high-frequency vibrations generated when hitting, rather than directly transmitting them to the wrist joint. The stick's center of gravity (Balance Point) is located exactly one-third of the way from the grip, allowing explosive head speed to be achieved with only a small amount of force using the lever principle.

Whenever the Acorn-shaped oval wood tip touches the surface of the cymbal, it makes a brilliant silver bell sound, and when it hits the snare rim, it makes a thunderous rimshot burst sound. On the inside of Minwoo's palm, the memory of the thick calluses on the skin that had become soft from holding only a ballpoint pen and mouse for the past three years came back to me. The hand holding the stick was no longer the hand of a helpless subordinate holding the judgment board. It was the proud hand of a great percussionist who ruled the world with rhythm. The mechanical actuation of the bass drum pedal was a work of art with the most dynamic leverage achieved by human lower limb muscles and steel springs.

The toes of Minwoo's sneakers were tightly attached to the matte chrome pedal plate connected by a double chain drive using the heel-up technique. When I slightly lifted my heel into the air and pressed down with the weight of my thigh, the felt beater rotated at a 45-degree angle and fiercely struck the central oval patch (EQ Patch) of the 22-inch bass head.

'thud!'

The rebound force, in which the head is pushed back and bounces back, was thrillingly transmitted to Minwoo's Achilles tendon through the spring tension of the pedal. It was the ancient heartbeat of the earth resounding from the bottom of my chest. The legs that used to get cramps while sitting cross-legged under the desk in the office waiting for the court hearing had now become the most powerful engine that circulated the blood flowing through the blood vessels of the entire body, causing the entire space to vibrate. The mechanical engineering of an acoustic drum set was based on the precise physics of impact and resonance. The shell, which is compression-molded with 6 layers of North American Hard Rock Maple, has a unique warm and heavy mid-bass sustain, and the 45-degree bearing edge perfectly transmits the vibration of the head when hitting to the entire shell.

The amount of impact generated when the artist tapped the paper with a pencil lead evoked the instantaneous striking force of 50 newtons (N) applied by an actual drum stick to a 14-inch snare head. A high-pressure air wave emitted through the air vent inside the drum. The 20-inch ride brick of the Ziljian A Custom Symbol is made of B20 bronze alloy of 80% copper and 20% tin, and emits a clear and pure ‘ping’ sound into the air. Each time a line or a dot bounced off the paper, the graphite crystals were perfectly translating the air waves into a visual three-dimensional effect, like a fine acoustic pick-up sensor.

The sharp sound line of the snare drum (snare wire) engages with the steel body and emits a 'pop!' The sound was a thunderclap that instantly shattered all the oppression and anger that had been stored in my heart for three years. Minwoo's arms split the air like lightning. A delicate wrist snap that speeds by splitting the hi-hat cymbal into 16 beats, and a storm-like fill-in that descends by sequentially hitting tom-tom drums. Boom, boom, boom, boom! Every time the bass drum's heavy sound resonated on the floor tiles, Minwoo's heart rate (BPM) soared from 60 to 140, and finally to an extreme rock tempo of 180.

Seoyeon joined in the corner of the ensemble room, carrying a Fender Precision bass guitar. When Seoyeon's fingers plucked the thick 4th string, the heavy and sticky low-range bass line rotated in perfect gear-like gear with the drum beat. 'Dungu dugududu—dung, dung!'

The raw musical energy emitted by the two young people was a perfect storm. There was no partition of an Excel table or the sharp pressure of an approval stamp. Only the most honest physical vibrations emitted by one's body and soul dominated the space. The artist's 4B pencil engraved the sweat droplets bouncing off Minwoo's forehead and the afterimage of the swinging stick on the paper with thick motion lines. The tuning state of the snare drum was the tuning of the soul, representing the inner world of the performer. Before playing, Minwoo held the drum key and tightened the 10 tension rods diagonally, adjusting the upper and lower pitch.

The bottom head was pulled to a tight high tone to maximize the sensitive response of the snare wire, and the top head was aligned at medium tension for a heavy punch of rim shots. When I hit an open rimshot, hitting the rim and head at the same time with the tip of the stick, 'Bang——!' A sharp, tearing gunshot tore through the basement. It was a refreshing feeling like cider that penetrated straight through the tight walls of my chest. Seoyeon nodded and gave a thumbs up while holding the neck of the bass guitar.

“It’s perfect, Minwoo! This snare sound alone can shake the whole of Seoul tonight!” The high-frequency metallic roar of the crash symbol was like a silver blade that instantly purified the stuffy basement air. When I cut the rim of the Jiljian A Custom 18-inch Fast Crash symbol at an angle with the shoulder of the stick, I heard, 'Chamaaaaaaaaang——!' An explosive chord erupted. Ultra-high-pitched overtones above 12 kilohertz (kHz) emitted by the molecular structure of bronze alloy vibrating at high speed.

The sound created an enchanting visual afterimage, as if thousands of glass shards were shattering and scattering simultaneously under the sunlight. Minwoo tilted his head back and held his breath until the lingering sound of the symbol faded out. The strange silence that comes after drinking so much that your ears ring. In that silence, he was finally able to face the sacred silence within himself, completely cut off from all the noise of the world. Backbeat, the 4/4 beat of rock music, was musical cardiopulmonary resuscitation that restored the original heartbeat of humans oppressed by the hypocrisy of civilization.

The strong accent of the snare drum on beats 2 and 4 stimulated the reticular activating system (RAS) of the brainstem, causing a surge of adrenaline throughout the body. Every time Minwoo stepped on the pedal and hit the bass drum, the diaphragm inside his ribcage resonated, pushing out the toxins of silence he had been swallowing for the past three years out of his lungs. The syncopation played by Seoyeon's bass guitar pleasantly disrupted the standardized order of social time. The body, which had been moving like a machine in tune with the anchor, slipped into the gap of the misalignment and finally began to ride the groove of living, breathing freedom.

Music was not just entertainment. It was the most sacred weapon of the soul, destroying the timetable of slavery and reclaiming the sovereignty of the wild. At the very moment the music reached its climax, the artist's hand grabbed the pencil and rushed furiously toward the exact center of the drawing paper. A huge area measuring 20 centimeters wide and 5 centimeters tall. The pencil lead pressed down on the paper with such strong pressure that it seemed as if it would tear it, and began to engrave each and every majestic declaration in Distressed vintage gothic font. [I - N - D - E - P - E - N - D - E - N - C - E D - A - Y]!

It wasn't just a word. The dark shade of graphite flashed like a blade in each stroke of the letters, and the tip of the artist's pencil made tens of thousands of dots behind the outline of the letters, exploding the flash of colorful fireworks. Graphite torches scatter into the air like fireworks that decorate the night sky. Minwoo crossed his drum sticks, raised them above his head, and shouted out loud to the whole world.

“It’s my day! Today is my day!”

That cry went beyond the plane of paper and burned into a flame so brilliant and hot that it instantly burned away the darkness of a late autumn night and the cold silence of the city. The 3,000 stippling strokes the artist used with a 4B pencil were a sacred ritual unfolding on drawing paper. The tip of the pencil touches the surface of the paper at 0.05 second intervals. With each strike, the graphite powder was driven deep into the grain of the paper, forming tiny craters. The countless dots surrounding the outline of the letters [INDEPENDENCE DAY] were not just a background.

They were hundreds of millions of fireworks that broke through the shell of oppression and soared, and were the cheers of victory erupted from the souls of all the youth who had to live in silence due to the expectations of others and the world. The artist's wrist snap was perfectly synchronized with Minwoo's wrist as he sprinted while holding the drum stick. In this miraculous moment of drawing, where lines become surfaces and dots become light, the words on paper stood tall as a gigantic monument to the soul. The [INDEPENDENCE DAY] typography engraved in the exact center of the paper inherited the anti-establishment graphic design of London punk rock in the 1970s.

The artist used the blunt side of a 6B pencil to create rough edges on the edges of the type, and mixed diagonal hatching and stippling irregularly inside the type to give it a vintage weight, as if the metal type had been corroded. The graphite dots struck tens of thousands of times around the type formed a perfect Gaussian distribution, with density becoming sparser from the center to the outskirts. It created a fantastic visual effect as fragments of a meteor shower exploded in the night sky and rained down on the ground.

Each letter was engraved on the surface of the paper at a depth of 0.1 millimeter, radiating a solid pride that would never be erased by any wind or rain, like the immortal Declaration of Independence carved into a rock. In front of the two young people who came out of the ensemble room door, a long, steep, zigzag downhill asphalt road stretching from Hapjeong-dong to Mangwon Hangang Park stretched out. The artist's hand sketched a sharply curved maple 7-ply plywood skateboard at the bottom of the paper. Authentic cruiser board with aluminum trucks and 60 mm urethane wheels.

Without hesitation, Minwoo got on the board and rolled hard on the asphalt with one foot. 'Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh——!'

The urethane wheels began to accelerate furiously, scraping the road surface. 30 kilometers per hour, 40 kilometers per hour! The headwind blew into Minwoo's oversized T-shirt, swelling it like a giant wing. Every time he encountered a zigzag curve, Minwoo shifted his center of gravity to his heels and toes and made a graceful carving turn. The sound of friction between the wheels and asphalt rang out cheerfully, like the sound of a surfboard cutting through a huge wave. The author's pencil scrawled a phrase mocking all the taboos of the world in thick, rough handwriting along the cement curb of the roadside. [N - O R - U - L - E - S]! Minwoo smiled broadly and spread his arms into the air. “Wild and free! Wild and free!”

The run was the unstoppable glide of a truly free man, ridiculing the limitations of all the crosswalks and traffic lights created by the city. When Minwoo reached a steep S-shaped curve on the downhill road, instead of slowing down, he tried the backside powerslide, the essence of extreme sports. I lowered my center of gravity, rotated my upper body 180 degrees, and roughly slid the four wheels of the board perpendicular to the direction of the road! 'Keeeeeeek——!'

The irritating friction sound and white rubber smoke emitted as the urethane wheel scrapes the asphalt surface. Sparks flying from the edge of the wheel embroidered the paper with sharp lines of graphite. Minwoo, who had complete control of his speed, changed his posture to a switch stance and escaped the corner at the perfect angle. Instead of giving in to fear and hitting the brakes, the pleasure of facing the speed head on and taking control of it. His face was filled with the smile of a pure boy who seemed to have the whole world. The asphalt downhill road extending towards Hangang Park in Mangwon-dong was a runway blessed by gravity.

On a skateboard speeding at 40 kilometers per hour, the cityscape seen by Minwoo melted into fantastic light trails. The amber lights of the streetlights stretched out and turned into yellow neon ribbons that grazed his cheek, and the orange incandescent lights that leaked from every window in the residential area twinkled like a lighthouse floating on the sea at night. The brilliant headwind made the hem of my baggy T-shirt flutter like a flag. In that sense of speed, Minwoo’s body became completely one with the earth. This feeling of stepping on a urethane board with both feet and cutting through the air was no different from the primal joy felt by a beast that has broken its chains and finally runs toward the endless wilderness.

The downhill sprint on a cruiser skateboard was a road stunt that used gravity and centrifugal force to dominate the geometry of the city. The soft urethane wheels with a hardness of 78A gently absorb the impact of rough cracks and gravel in asphalt and maintain perfect grip even when driving at high speeds. When Minwoo tilted his body at a 45-degree angle when turning a corner, the polyurethane bushing inside the truck was distorted and the rotation trajectory was smoothened. Every time the centrifugal force tried to push his body out of the corner, Minwoo bent his knees deeper and tightened his bond with the earth.

The words 'NO RULES' written on the roadside were not a destruction of laws and regulations, but a noble declaration of youth to go beyond the absurd oppression imposed by others and follow the honest laws of physics within themselves. Seoyeon pedaled her bike and ran at the same speed next to Minwoo's skateboard. The streetlights repeatedly stretched the shadows of the two youths on the road and then shrunk. All the lines on the paper were flowing in one perfect musical rhythm. The author took a deep breath, holding his pencil and looking at the amazing trajectory of the glide.

The beat of the drum, the speed of the skateboard, and the grand declaration of independence called ‘Independence Day’. The moment these three things came together, youth was no longer a victim who was intimidated by what the world thought of him. They were the proud frontmen of a rock band who took charge of their own destiny, and sailors of freedom who tamed the wind. The graphite stains on the artist's fingers sparkled like the Milky Way in the night sky. At the end of the downhill road, the silver waves of the vast Han River flowing across Seoul at night were slowly filling their vision.

Finally, the downhill was over, and the open bicycle path and riverside berm of Mangwon Hangang Park appeared before my eyes. Min-woo got off the board and Seo-yeon, who stopped the bike, stood side by side leaning on the riverside railing and breathing heavily. “Haa……haa……!”

The white breath coming from the mouths of the two youths gently dispersed into the cold air of the autumn night. Above the river, the red and blue arch lights of Sogang Bridge and Yanghwa Bridge were swaying endlessly on the ripples. Seoyeon gave Minwoo a cool pat on the back. “What do you think, Kang Min-woo? Do you think you’ll survive?”

“Uh… I really feel like I’m going to live. I don’t think I’ve ever lived as excitedly as I do today in my life.”

Minwoo looked up at the round moon in the night sky. In his ears, the reverberations of the magnificent drum beats that had come out of the basement were still pounding as one with his heartbeat. The city was holding its breath in the distance, forming a huge sea of ​​neon signs, but the heat of rock music, hotter and more vivid than any forest of huge buildings, throbbed in the hearts of the two people standing on the riverside. Freedom was not a very grandiose revolution. Hearing clearly with both ears that one's heart is beating, believing in two strong legs that can run while feeling the cold river wind with one's whole body, and having the courage to boldly take a step outside the fence set by the harsh rules of the world.

Like graphite powder fluttering from the tip of a pencil, their youth was burning, drawing the most dazzling fireworks trajectory on invisible drawing paper. The 4B pencil that had been crunching on the writer's desk was also resting on the paper for a moment as if taking a breath, listening to the sound of the night breeze of the Han River. The three words 'NO RULES' written in the corner of the drawing paper sparkled softly like moonlight spreading across the river. It was the most solemn and pure boy's pledge to break away from enforced rules and the gaze of others, and to breathe entirely to his own beat.

Minwoo felt an overwhelming sense of joy and liberation welling up deep in his heart, and stretched out his arms as hard as he could towards the cool night sky that stretched out endlessly beyond the ridge. What is true independence? It was not simply an escape from work or hiding from society. It was to completely separate one's inner self from the numerous standards imposed by the world and the evaluation of others, and to declare the sovereignty of the soul to play the rhythm of life in accordance with only the beat of one's own honest heart. All the actions of kicking the drum, hitting the stick, and cutting through the asphalt at night with a skateboard were the most noble rituals to prove that one was alive as a leading actor on the great stage called life.

The beads of sweat around Minwoo's mouth shone like silver diamonds under the light of the streetlight. He was running, he was playing, he was finally fully alive and breathing. The stars in the night sky were giving a generous standing ovation to the unstoppable run of youth. On a small two-dimensional plane called drawing paper, the artist's graphite, Minwoo's music, and Seoyeon's sprint were converging into one gigantic cosmic orchestra. The writer felt that the tips of his fingers holding the pencil were tingling. Creation was not simply the art of reproducing an image, but a miraculous alchemy that breathed one's soul and body heat into a being on paper and finally made it breathe and run on its own.

Minwoo on paper had already left the writer's hand and was creating his own wind. That brilliant energy of liberation went beyond the boundaries of the desk and echoed endlessly, awakening the sleeping drum beat in the hearts of everyone who read this.