Chapter 12
The time until filming the main stage was roughly one week.
In the meantime, I had a duty to struggle to raise our team's skill level as much as possible.
That was because if we slacked off and played around without practicing just because we seemed more or less finished, the production crew wouldn't have anything to film.
During that process, I asked the production staff whether we could receive help from outside personnel, and naturally got permission.
To be honest, our team's ensemble skills were already quite impressive.
That was because we weren't a hastily assembled team.
After two days of practice, Blooming had become capable of performing the song decently, even if they weren't perfect.
Of course, it would be nice if they could perform at a professional level, but that honestly wasn't easy, and Singerstar didn't demand that much from its contestants, either.
To improve the team any further, the only answer, honestly, was to raise each member's individual skill level.
For that purpose, I decided to make use of Uncle Park Han-su.
I asked him to give private lessons in electric guitar, the band's most unstable element.
However, something rather unexpected happened in the process.
“It seems our band members are interested, too… What do you think about having everyone appear together?”
“…I suppose that would be fine.”
And so, Black Canary's full-group appearance was decided.
* * *
For the sake of directing the shoot, I had deliberately kept Blooming's members from knowing anything about Black Canary.
“Hello.”
‘Why is this guy acting so politely when it doesn't suit him at all?’
Unlike his usual self, Park Han-su appeared while greeting everyone politely, and the instrument sounds roaring through the practice room came to a halt.
In particular, Park Hui-su, who majored in bass at an arts high school, nearly dropped her instrument when she came face-to-face with the leader of the genuinely world-class band Black Canary.
“M-Mr. Park Han-su…?”
“Teacher, my ass…”
“I recruited him. I happened to find out that he ran an instrument shop near our orphanage.”
In fact, the relationship between Park Han-su and me was roughly known to those in the know.
That was because Park Han-su had uploaded photos of me to his social media.
However, it wasn't a relationship that was widely known to the public, so it seemed Blooming's band members hadn't known about it.
Uncle dragged over a plastic chair from the corner of the practice room and sat down backward on it.
I signaled to Park Hui-su with my eyes.
If they were going to continue as a band, this was a mountain they would have to cross sooner or later.
They'd be better off thinking of it as getting a shot of preventive medicine from a legend.
The moment practice began, Park Han-su's brow furrowed.
The song flowed along the funky groove I had arranged, but to Uncle's eyes, its flaws must have looked as numerous as a mountain.
After all, Blooming was a girls' high school band. From the perspective of someone in a band that played on the world stage, they must have sounded amateurish.
Before the first verse had even ended, Uncle raised his hand.
“Stop. Hey, drums.”
Kim Seol, who was on drums, froze.
“Are you fighting the beat? The metronome is telling you to die, but you're running away trying to be the only one to survive. Put more weight into the kick. Your kicking is at an elementary-school level right now.”
The tirade that followed spared neither the bass nor the guitar.
Even Park Hui-su, who took pride in being an arts high school student, bit her lip when he criticized her playing as too straightforward and therefore boring.
‘To be honest, she hasn't mastered the song enough to add variations yet…’
By my standards, Park Hui-su's playing was flawless, and perhaps Uncle agreed, because he had no further criticism of her skill.
Apparently, he wanted to shape his on-air image into something like a strict teacher.
Yoo Seol-ha, who had been watching, had gone almost deathly pale at the thought that her turn might come next.
“And you.”
“Huh? Me?”
But Park Han-su suddenly pointed at me.
”Why are you holding a violin?”
“Someone has to do it, but I'm the only one who can play it… And I'm good at violin!”
“Even so, it seems like it would be better to use a backing track for the violin and have you come in on sub-guitar. You also have to do backing vocals; isn't the violin inconvenient?”
At those words, the shoulders of Jo Na-eun, who was holding the guitar, began to tremble.
It was, in effect, a direct shot at Jo Na-eun. However, the basis for it was perfectly reasonable.
To be honest, the weakest player in Blooming was Jo Na-eun on electric guitar.
A major reason I had brought Park Han-su in person was to improve her skills.
In fact, a single piece of advice from a master could become a far greater catalyst for improvement than plucking guitar strings dozens of times.
It might not help much with the stage in two days, but wouldn't it be a huge help to her life as a guitarist?
“Uncle, don't keep picking on the girls. Just get to the point. Can Na-eun's playing be improved in a short time?”
“For this song alone, it might be possible.”
“Oh?”
Park Han-su loudly chewed and swallowed a piece of candy before approaching Jo Na-eun. Under the pressure he gave off, Na-eun inhaled sharply and tightened her grip on the guitar neck.
“Hey, you. Relax your fingers. You're not some elementary-school kid twanging a rubber band, so do you think you'll get a decent tone by pressing down on the strings that hard?”
Uncle practically snatched the old Fender guitar from Na-eun's hands.
Then he roughly turned a few knobs on the amp and immediately struck a chord.
Ching-!
A sharp, rhythmic sound that seemed to slice through the air of the practice room.
It was a far more lively and funky tone than the MIDI sound I had recorded.
Na-eun's mouth fell open. The instrument that had sounded merely dull when she played it was running wild the moment it touched Uncle's hands.
“The key to this song is sixteenth-note cutting. You're only trying to match the beat, so the sound is dying. You don't match the beat—you ride it. Now, try again.”
Park Han-su stood behind Na-eun and began correcting the angle of her wrist as though he were giving her a golf lesson.
“Relax your wrist. Make your picking sharper. Don't strike the strings; think of scraping downward across them. Go ahead.”
Na-eun started playing again with trembling hands. Each time Uncle's touch landed, the uniquely awkward sound clinging to her playing was gradually erased.
“Uh… huh?”
She seemed surprised herself. She had changed only the angle of her wrist and the depth of her picking, but the groove of the song was coming alive unmistakably.
Park Han-su watched the scene from the side with his arms folded, then lightly kicked the sub-guitar lying beside my bag.
“Seo Si-yeon, don't slack off. Pick it up, too. Keep time with the bass and drums from beside her and guide her.”
“Aw, fine.”
Pretending I had no choice, I slung the guitar over my shoulder and stood beside Na-eun.
One-on-one coaching from the legendary rock star Park Han-su, combined with a guide performance from me, the person who had written the song. Could there be a more luxurious practice environment?
“Ms. Na-eun, mute the second string more firmly, just as Uncle said. If the sound leaks out there, the feel won't come through.”
At my criticism, Na-eun bit her lip tightly and nodded. The bewilderment in her eyes had been replaced by a fierce determination to seize this opportunity somehow.
Yoo Seol-ha and the other members watching them seemed infected by that passion and picked up their instruments again.
When the members of Black Canary arrived later, they each took one member and instructed her on her instrument.
Perhaps because it had been a long time since they had appeared on Korean television, they looked quite excited.
The camera director watched the entire process with excitement.
He had been filming the Singerstar series for years, but this was definitely a first for him, too.
I got the feeling that if this scene aired, it might cause quite a stir.
* * *
The video of the practice room's hell camp passed through the editing room and was immediately released on the official YouTube channel as a sneak preview.
The title was provocative.
싱어스타 5 선공개] 전설의 밴드 블랙 카나리의 기습 방문?!
The result was exactly as expected. Within an hour of being uploaded, the view count surpassed 500,000, and every online community was thrown into an uproar.
[What the fuck lololol Why is Black Canary there?]
I seriously doubted my eyes. Park Han-su is teaching kids guitar in a variety-show practice room lol.
Is it for real that all the members showed up and are giving the Blooming kids one-on-one lessons?
What the hell is Seo Si-yeon's deal? The guy from the instrument shop near the orphanage is Park Han-su?
What is this, some fantasy novel setup? lol
-If you look at Park Han-su's old social media, there are photos of Seo Si-yeon posted there. It was already well known that the two knew each other, but I didn't expect them to show it so openly on the broadcast.
-Hey, but look at Park Han-su playing guitar... The texture of the sound is on a completely different level. It's spine-chilling how Jo Na-eun—or whatever her name is—suddenly has a different guitar tone.
-The guys who kept yelling “rigged” are all dead, right? A world-class musician directly acknowledged her composing ability. Who would fake it?
-Kang Jun-hyeong must've been grinning from ear to ear while editing the moment Black Canary appeared. Upvote lol.
-But what's with Seo Si-yeon being so good at violin? Do they teach violin at orphanages these days?
Black Canary and Singerstar not only dominated the search rankings on every major portal, but clips from Singerstar's preview were also posted as popular entries across various communities.
The day of filming the second-round main competition stage arrived while Kang Jun-hyeong, who had successfully milked the promotional budget, was grinning slyly.
The first stage belonged to Joo Jin-woo's team, which had been considered a favorite to win from the very beginning.
“Uh… I don't know what to say. Did you all actually practice?”
“Honestly, failing to convey the lyrics… that's something that shouldn't happen on a stage like this.”
“Jin-woo's vocals were as strong as ever, but I would like to deduct points for his lack of ability to lead the team.”
Joo Jin-woo's team made history, in a different sense of the word.
It was the moment a legendary GIF was born—one that would later circulate under the name ‘Group Project Catastrophe.avi’.