WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ My Fired Uncle Is a Genius Guitarist? ◈
Chapter 45: Let Me See That Guitar
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“We’ll take all four songs.”
I stopped walking without meaning to.
“All four?”
“Yes. The members and I have been listening to them on repeat for days, and there isn’t one we can leave out.”
When I sent four, I had expected them to take maybe two. But they wanted all four.
A team that had made it this far with original songs was saying they wanted to put four songs by someone else on their next album. Considering a band’s pride, it could not have been an easy decision.
“Are you sure about this?”
“It’s fine. Adding two more songs isn’t difficult.”
“Then let’s do that.”
“Ah, there’s one thing I wanted to ask.”
“Go ahead.”
“The songs didn’t have lyrics. May we write them?”
“Yes. I left them blank for that reason.”
I let out a brief sigh of relief inwardly. I had intended to hand over the lyrics from the beginning anyway. I was terrible at writing them, and it was better for the singers to write words that suited them.
‘That worked out well.’
“Thank you. And about the price.”
“Yes.”
“How much were you thinking?”
I quickly did the math in my head.
I had sold the songs to Muri for ten million won each. And I had already said I would charge these guys more than Muri.
‘Screw it.’
I should just say it.
“I was thinking around twenty million won per song.”
Considering how little my name was worth right now, it was an absurdly high price. I had named it expecting them to turn me down once.
The other end of the line fell quiet for a moment. It was not the silence of someone too surprised to speak. It was the silence of someone tapping away at a calculator in their head.
“...We’ll discuss it.”
“Sure. Let me know.”
The call ended. I slipped my phone into my pocket and started walking again.
‘I said the price, but...’
Whether to accept it was up to After Rain and CEO Hwang Insoo. The ball was in their court now.
#
The next morning, when I opened the studio door, CEO Hwang Insoo was not on the sofa behind the console as they had been the day before. They had personally confirmed that recording was underway yesterday, so they must have decided there was no need to stay two days in a row.
“You’re here. Let’s begin right away.”
Kang Taeo pulled out a chair in the control room for me. Today, they were recording “Speed Demon.” It would not be an exaggeration to say that the song’s success depended on Jeong Wooseok’s guitar solo.
Jeong Wooseok entered the booth and put on their headphones. Soon, the first take began.
Jeong Wooseok’s playing came through the monitor speakers. They were a professional, as expected. There was not a single wrong note, their timing was razor-sharp, and even the pitch of their bends was perfect. It was a flawless performance, no matter where you played it.
‘As expected.’
But it was too clean and safe. It was exactly the assessment I had made when I first heard Jeong Wooseok’s guitar in this world. On another song, that would have been a strength. But for a song that needed to race forward roughly, it was fatal poison.
I pressed the talkback button.
“Wooseok.”
“Yes.”
“That first bend when you enter the solo. Don’t resolve the end so prettily.”
“...Then how should I do it?”
“Push it all the way up and move straight into the next note. It’s fine if the sound floats a little. It needs to float.”
“Understood.”
In the next take, the bend came alive. It was definitely rougher than the first take, with more flavor to it.
‘He understands quickly.’
Baek Gibeom, who had been watching from the sofa, tilted his head.
“What changed just now? I can’t really tell.”
“...It changed.”
Kang Taeo answered. His arms were folded, and his eyes fixed on the speakers with unusual seriousness.
“Listen to the last note. Before, he cut it off right where it was. Now it keeps pushing upward instead of ending.”
“Is that so?”
“Listen again.”
Baek Gibeom picked up the headphones with a doubtful look. As he listened to the two takes back and forth, his eyebrows slowly rose.
“...Oh? You’re right.”
But the real problem was the final phrase of the solo.
“The last four bars are too restrained.”
“...Which part do you mean?”
“Right after the solo, just before the chorus starts. Don’t try to fit it perfectly into the beat. Try driving it forward like it’s spilling ahead.”
“Wouldn’t that pull the beat forward?”
“I’m not telling you to actually pull it forward.”
I leaned closer to the microphone and added clearly.
“I’m asking you to make it sound like it’s about to leap forward.”
Jeong Wooseok was silent in the booth for a moment.
“...I’ll try again.”
The third take began. Jeong Wooseok was clearly trying to play as though they were spilling forward. But in the final two bars, they inevitably returned to where they started. Out of long habit, they settled safely and neatly back into a pretty place.
“That got restrained again at the end.”
“...Did it?”
“Yes. You hit the brakes with two bars left.”
On the fourth take, he pushed from the start with sheer force. This time it was rough, but the control was gone. The fifth ended awkwardly somewhere in between.
A sigh leaked from the booth. Jeong Wooseok took off their headphones and came outside.
“I understand what you mean. But...”
He furrowed his brow. He did not look angry. He looked like he genuinely did not understand and was asking because of it.
“When I let it spill forward like you say, the timing falls apart. When I hold the timing, it becomes restrained again. Is it really possible to play like that without pulling the beat forward?”
Only then did I truly understand what he meant when he said he had been stuck on this for weeks. It was not that he had failed to find the answer because he did not know the method. He had never heard such a sound before, so he did not even know where to head.
If words did not make it clear, it was faster to show him with my hands.
I stood and held out my hand.
“Let me see that guitar.”
Jeong Wooseok hesitated, then handed me the guitar they had been wearing. I took it and entered the booth.
Through the control room window, I could feel Baek Gibeom, Jo Wonwoo, and Kang Taeo all turn their eyes toward me.
As I lightly gripped the neck, a familiar sensation ran through my palm.
My fingers felt much lighter than when I had played “RUN” on the Finals stage. Thanks to regularly going to the practice room and playing with the kids, my stiffened feel had noticeably returned. I had even grown fairly accustomed to these thick fingers that had felt so clumsy at first.
I could not call it the perfect skill of my former life at its peak, but at least I no longer felt frustrated trying to pull the sounds in my head out through my fingertips.
I gripped the pick and briefly plucked the strings.
“Start from two bars before the solo.”
The backing track came through my headphones.
The moment the solo began, I raked hard across the first note.
I was not trying to show off flashy speed playing. Instead of neatly landing the bend on the exact pitch, I pushed it to the end and smeared it directly into the next note. I mixed in slides and legato where needed so the phrase would not break off politely.
Then came the troublesome final four bars.
I rode strangely over the click’s downbeats, driving it hard enough to create the illusion that the tempo was speeding up. The performance poured forward precariously, as if it might topple over, then found its place perfectly back inside the click at the exact moment the chorus began.
The playing ended.
The control room was silent as a grave.
I came out of the booth and returned the guitar to Jeong Wooseok.
“This is the feeling. Sounding like it’s going to fall apart and actually falling apart are different things.”
Jeong Wooseok looked back and forth between the guitar and my face, then spoke hesitantly.
“...What exactly did you do before?”
I gave a small laugh and answered casually.
“I used to play guitar a little.”
“...You call that a little?”
Baek Gibeom let out a low whistle, and Jo Wonwoo closed his hanging mouth before speaking.
“Your definition of ‘a little’ is strange.”
Instead of answering, I gave a light shrug.
And Kang Taeo.
He did not say anything. His eyes lingered for a moment on my thick, blunt fingers covered in calluses, then slowly rose back to my face.
It was as if his gaze was asking how that kind of playing could come from hands like those.
“Wooseok, let’s do one more.”
Instead of answering, Jeong Wooseok adjusted their strap. Their steps into the booth were different from before.
The sixth take began. The sound had changed.
Jeong Wooseok did not simply imitate my playing. They kept their own clean picking while accurately layering on the rough, rushing feel the song required.
Especially in the final phrase, he boldly cast aside his habit of over-resolving everything and pushed forward as though he were pouring ahead.
‘There.’
The performance ended. I gave a short nod.
“Let’s go with this.”
Jeong Wooseok came into the control room, checked the take that had just been recorded, and let out a small breath seemingly satisfied.
“...So that was the sound.”
One of Jeong Wooseok’s limits had broken apart.
#
Once the most difficult track, “Speed Demon,” had been cleared, the remaining recording went smoothly.
From Thursday afternoon through Friday, I only pointed out the direction needed for each part. The members no longer doubted my feedback, and they immediately absorbed whatever I asked of them.
Late Friday afternoon, recording for all five planned songs was cleanly finished. Choruses, minor revisions, and mixing remained, but there was no reason for me to stay through that.
I was packing up to leave the studio when Jeong Wooseok approached and bowed deeply. It was a greeting filled with sincerity, clearly different from their dry attitude on the first day.
“I learned a lot thanks to you. I hope we get the chance to work together again.”
“I enjoyed it too.”
Baek Gibeom grinned easily and added a word.
“You worked hard. Next time, bring your guitar so we can play together.”
“Ha ha, I doubt that will happen.”
“Good work.”
Jo Wonwoo also bowed deeply. I knew that, for a man of as few words as Jo Wonwoo, it was the highest form of respect.
Kang Taeo was last.
“You worked hard. The CEO will sort out the payment and contact you sometime next week.”
“Sure.”
I took the hand he offered. The handshake was brief, but even after letting go, his gaze remained persistent.
‘...What’s he staring at now?’
He looked like he had something he wanted to ask, but he never opened his mouth.
That was how Muri’s three-day recording schedule came to an end.
#
Saturday afternoon, the practice room was lively for the first time in a while.
Jeong Sehyuk had sent the mixed tracks last night. I immediately forwarded the files to the kids, and it seemed they had listened to them over and over all night. Even that had not been enough, because as soon as they gathered in the practice room, they played the whole thing again from start to finish through the speakers.
“My drums sound totally different. Is this what it’s like when you record in a studio?”
“I, I’m glad the bass comes through clearly too...”
“...It’s not bad.”
“Ah, I want the tracks released already!”
Even while we drank water after running through a song, Yun Taerin would not stop talking.
“When the tracks come out, the school’s going to go crazy. Somi, have you made a signature yet?”
“Wh, who would want my signature...?”
“You don’t know anything. People will be lining up to get one soon.”
Practice began again. I played guitar as usual, listening to the sounds they made. But in one corner of my mind, practical calculations kept turning over.
Everything that had happened in the past few days.
We had successfully finished recording the five songs that would go on Muri’s album. The four songs I had given After Rain would probably be signed without trouble too. I also had to make songs for the kids and take responsibility for leading their band activities.
The work on the music side was growing like a snowball.
What about the company, though? Even just sitting in on these recordings, I had needed to use three days of annual leave while watching the department head’s mood. What if the work with After Rain got fully underway? What if Black Rabbit’s schedule increased even more?
Until now, the company had been my main job and music my side job. But now the balance had completely tipped the other way. The company was becoming the biggest obstacle standing in music’s way.
Trying to hold on to both had been impossible from the start.
I stopped playing for a moment and quietly watched the kids, sweating as they focused on practice.
‘Right. It’s time to sort this out.’
There was nothing more to weigh or regret. Reality had already given me a clear answer about where I truly belonged.
#
Monday morning, before I could even sit down at work, I went looking for Assistant Manager Kim.
“Assistant Manager Kim. Come see me for a moment.”
“Me? Right now?”
We moved to a corner of the break room. Assistant Manager Kim, who had followed without knowing why, stopped while pulling out a paper cup and watched my expression.
“Manager, what is it? Why do you look like that?”
“You know what you said at the barbecue place last time.”
“...What did I say?”
“About quitting the company.”
The playfulness disappeared from Assistant Manager Kim’s face.
I looked once toward the partitions, then lowered my voice.
“I think I need to get fired.”
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