YouTube

“Good. At this pace, I think we should be able to perform at the festival without any trouble.”

After another performance ended, Myeongjeon nodded in satisfaction and spoke. Thankfully, the keyboardist had snapped out of their daze quickly. If things had stayed that way, they might have faced a rather troublesome situation.

Seoha smiled, while Hyeona, the person responsible for causing the incident, wore an awkward expression. Iseo casually tossed out a remark.

“That’s a relief~ So can we finally perform properly now?”

“Who knows… There are still some weak points. Especially the bass.”

“Ugh.”

Iseo made an exaggerated expression as though Myeongjeon had hit her right where it hurt. But Myeongjeon paid no attention and continued saying what they wanted to say.

“Every song you brought is difficult on bass. Especially the third one. To be honest, it looks too difficult for someone at your level to play live.”

“I can do it!”

“Sure, I’m sure you can. But being able to play it at home and being able to play it during a performance are two different things.”

Myeongjeon ran a hand back through their hair. They knew Iseo was trying. Recently, Myeongjeon had instructed Iseo to practice for two hours every evening and had continued checking Iseo’s progress remotely.

Iseo was following Myeongjeon’s instructions well, but… honestly, simply following them wasn’t enough.

“I know you’re trying. If you keep going at this pace, you’ll be good enough to perform. The others will probably think, ‘Hmm, this is listenable.’”

“Oh…”

“But a performer shouldn’t settle for that.”

The listeners might hear it without giving it much thought. They might think, The bass is off. Some might not even know what the bass is. They might think the bass sounds fine, or that the bassist is good.

But what about the performer? The performer knows their own level. And if that level isn’t good enough, they should rightly be ashamed and work to improve.

“I don’t know what you think, but in my opinion, you’re still not ready to perform. Practice more and work harder on your timing. Practice until you can play and keep time without looking at the tabs, with your eyes closed, and without a metronome.”

“Okay.”

At Suyeon’s words, Iseo nodded. She was well aware of her own shortcomings. Recently, she had started thinking, Maybe this is enough, but that harsh scolding had helped her steel herself once again.

‘Suyeon is so good at guitar that she’s beyond anything I could have imagined.’

Iseo had thought Suyeon was good from the first time she heard her play. But Suyeon’s guitar skills were increasingly beyond anything Iseo could get used to. She was so good that Iseo sometimes wondered whether the god of guitar had descended into her body.

‘And someone like that trusted me enough to join my band. Then I have to repay that trust.’

“And Hyeona, um… I’m thinking of changing the arrangement of the third song. Could you try putting it together in this kind of direction?”

Iseo steeled herself with a determined expression. Meanwhile, Myeongjeon had already turned their attention away from Iseo and was talking to Hyeona.

* * *

Myeongjeon looked at their newly revamped YouTube channel. After receiving various consultations, they had spent several days rebuilding it from scratch.

[White Room]

As for the name, since they couldn’t think of anything particularly clever, they simply took it from the title of a piece of music they liked. They had considered naming it something more blatant, like ‘Let’s Learn Guitar,’ but that didn’t feel right, so they abandoned the idea.

‘People used to say it was a total disaster…’

Their first channel had been [HSY’s Guitar Heaven]. No matter how many videos they made or how carefully they edited them, no new viewers came in. The subscriber count didn’t grow, there was no income, and the views didn’t increase.

Frustrated and wondering why this was happening, they tried every supposedly popular topic… When that failed too, they searched the internet and asked anyone they could for advice. They posted questions in practically every YouTube-related community they could find.

[I’m running a YouTube channel, but there are some things that don’t seem to be working, so I’d like to ask for some advice.]

(Image file showing view-count trends)

Why is this happening?

- Just quit, for fuck’s sake. At this point, lol.

- ??? What did you upload?

- Don’t let your spirit break; keep going to the end.

ㄴ What does “don’t let your spirit break” mean?? I don’t know much about it.

ㄴ Boomer.

ㄴ I’m not old enough to wear dentures yet, though.

ㄴ -Boomer-

ㄴ Wow, you’re seriously a fucking boomer, lol.

ㄴ Please refrain from calling other people “fuckers.”

But most people only said things whose meaning Myeongjeon couldn’t understand at all, without actually answering. Just as they were wondering how they could overcome this predicament, someone asked Myeongjeon a question.

- This old guy looks fucking serious. Drop the channel link and I’ll take a look and tell you what I think.

ㄴ (Deleted)

ㄴ ? I’m not an old guy.

ㄴ What the fuck is this, lol.

The person on the other end seemed dumbfounded for a while, but soon pulled themselves together and told Myeongjeon a few things.

- First, change that shitty channel name.

ㄴ But I chose it because I thought it was good.

ㄴ It’s shitty, so name it something else.

- Why are the video titles such crap?

ㄴ I wrote them that way because they clearly summarize the videos.

ㄴ No, lol. Then why are the tags such crap?

ㄴ Aren’t you supposed to add them like that?

ㄴ Fuck, this is giving me a headache.

- If you’re going to turn it into some national-pride TV channel, fine. But if you’re really sticking with guitar, establish a clear concept.

ㄴ What do you mean by a concept?

ㄴ Choose a theme for the channel. What kind of guitar videos are even on your channel right now? You’ve mixed in videos of yourself spouting nonsense at home, videos of making liquid monsters or whatever, vlogs where your face doesn’t even appear, and a bunch of other random stuff.

ㄴ Your channel has absolutely no identity. How do you expect the algorithm to make it show up in searches? Even if algorithms are mysterious, come on, lol.

- Also, you seem to be a woman, and in the YouTube instrument scene, “a woman who plays an instrument” gets bonus points just by existing. You don’t have to show your face, but show everything below your neck.

ㄴ I don’t really want to show that.

ㄴ Then just quit YouTube, for fuck’s sake. Why the hell did you decide to do YouTube with that attitude? Isn’t it to make money? Do you think YouTube is easy?

ㄴ There are tons of people like you who jump in thinking, “If I just do YouTube, money will print itself, lol.” To survive among them, you have to do whatever it takes. Did I tell you to flash your tits and dance to ‘Cocaine’ or something? I just told you to show that you’re a woman.

ㄴ I can’t understand why you wouldn’t use a cheat code when you have one available.

ㄴ Understood. I’ll consider it.

- And what the fuck is with those? I don’t know why you put them in, but can you please remove those shitty special effects?

ㄴ Aren’t they pretty?

ㄴ ??

His language was so rough that it was hard to tell whether he had a rag stuffed in his mouth—or was wearing one on his hand while typing—but he had analyzed Myeongjeon’s channel with surprising care and pointed out what needed fixing.

In return, Myeongjeon sent him a chicken gift card. After spending several days completely rebuilding the channel from the ground up, the result was…

[White room]

@whiteroomguitar 1,082 subscribers 5 videos

This was it. The final subscriber count of [HSY’s Guitar Heaven] had been four, one of them being Myeongjeon themself. This was roughly 250 times that number.

And astonishingly, that subscriber count was growing every day. Watching roughly 100~200 new subscribers join each day, Myeongjeon felt a thrill unlike anything they experienced when making music.

[Cream - White Room | Tab | Vocal & Guitar Cover | How to Play It Easily, etc.]

10.9K views | 7 days ago

This was the first video they uploaded after revamping the channel. It announced the channel’s identity while also showing why they had chosen that name.

The video contained a vocal and guitar cover of White Room, along with tabs, or guitar sheet music. Finally, they explained how to play the song effectively and how to practice the techniques it contained.

[“Hello. This is White Room. This is one of my favorite songs… The lyrics and melody are great, but the guitar solo in the latter half is simply the best. There are many versions of the guitar solo, starting with the album version… In this video, I’ll show you two versions: the album version and the 24 Nights version. I’ll perform them first, then explain how to play them and what parts to pay attention to.”]

When they first uploaded it, they hadn’t expected much. Even though they had received consulting, the advice had come from some anonymous weirdo who seemed to know nothing but how to swear, so Myeongjeon had simply thought, I’ll just try following it.

But when they checked the video a few days later, the subscriber count and view count had somehow skyrocketed.

[Could you tell me the email address where I can send you a message~? :)]

[I’m a fan. Please sign an autograph for me, unnie. I love you.]

[A very nice^^ composition. Thank you ^^]

[slowhand is here]

[Someone who plays guitar this well is a total girl-crush… Unnie, please upload videos often!]

[Is that guitar skill for real?]

[best white room]

[Thank you for teaching me how to play the solo. I’m American🇺🇸, and I’m very grateful to be able to practice this :)]

For some reason, comments had piled up, and the view count continued climbing steeply.

It was far fewer than the views on the video they had appeared in, which was racing toward three million… But after experiencing a video that nobody watched for an entire week, leaving it stuck at zero views, even ten thousand views felt like something to be grateful for.

‘And…’

Myeongjeon took a deep breath.

The video they were going to upload today was different in nature. They had originally considered not uploading it here, but in the end, they decided to do so…

A video containing the first original song they had written after becoming ‘Ha Suyeon.’

It was a pure guitar instrumental, with no vocals and the other instruments roughly programmed in MIDI just to fill out the arrangement.

And it was a song that contained their feelings.

After burying several decades of their past, they had begun making music alone with a new body and new talent, severed from every connection to their former life.

They had made the song to bid farewell to the shackles that had bound them throughout that former life.

Therefore, it was a song about liberation and a new beginning.

The title was, ‘Nothing Here’.

The title was, ‘Nothing Here’.