Second Performance (2)

Myeongjeon plucked the guitar a few times. It was a song with a sorrowful melody based on the pentatonic and blues scales. The previous night, after wondering what kind of song he should write, he had been inspired by Gary Moore’s “Still Got the Blues” and written it in one go.

He hadn’t added the bass, drums, or keyboard yet, but the main melody itself was finished. It was somewhat guitar-focused for a band song, and he hadn’t even written the lyrics yet.

…Actually, to be precise, he had tried to write lyrics. No, to be even more precise, he had sat at his desk and thought about it for roughly three hours. As he mulled things over, he had scribbled down whatever lyrics came to mind.

But nothing came to mind at all. So for now, Myeongjeon decided to make do with humming.

‘Maybe I don’t have any talent for this sort of thing.’

That much was clear from the time he had named his YouTube channel “Guitar Heaven” and been mocked by an anonymous internet user. Hadn’t they said something like, [What are you, some geezer from the ’70s and ’80s? What the fuck is this?]

Thinking about it, Myeongjeon decided he might not have much of a gift for it. Looking on the bright side, he hadn’t had any talent for composition—or for the creative side of things as a whole—from the start… Now he was only untalented at writing lyrics, so that was good enough.

‘But looking at it from that angle… isn’t the song too old-fashioned too? Would a song like this even catch on?’

Comments like that had appeared on the songs he uploaded to YouTube too. [A high school girl playing blues? The vibes are insane…], [Her skills seem way beyond her years!] and so on.

He wasn’t sure what exactly was supposed to be insane or what wasn’t supposed to match her age, but it did seem clear that his music didn’t fit the sensibilities of his physical age—or of a ‘high school girl.’...