Girls' Wishing Tree

Rupa asked Zhi to go downstairs to look after the store first, while she stayed behind to talk to Ying: "Ying, do you really think this band is a good choice?"

Takagi Sakura hopes that the band can continue, and Rupa can see it, but she doesn't quite understand it.

She had no objection to forming a band with Taoxiang, Miaomeng and others, but these band members did not seem suitable together in any way - she was well aware of Zhi's situation. He dropped out of school after graduating from junior high school and came to Tokyo with his dream of becoming a musician. While running the online music account "Red Ginger", he worked part-time to earn rent and living expenses.

Miao Meng is a streamer who looks quite glamorous, but Rupa herself is an online video host and knows that a video host like her can’t make much money. In addition, the cost of shooting beauty videos is higher than that of music videos, so it is very likely that she is not financially well off.

As for Momoka and Nina, they also support themselves by working part-time and making music out of their love. Nina is even attending cram school.

If these five people don't quickly achieve commercial success, they'll likely disband. But right now, it doesn't look like they'll be able to produce high-quality performances anytime soon.

In response to Rupa's question, Takagi Sakura gave the following answer: "Actually, I'm not particularly optimistic about the five of you forming a band, but..."

She paused here deliberately, changed the dialog box and said to Rupa: "I asked Ying to choose the five of you. Together, you can bring music that touches the soul to the audience."

After making sure Rupa heard the words in the dialog box, Sakura finished what she had just said: "I have a feeling that you five are the right five people."

Rupa was very surprised to hear the two voices, but she said nothing, thanked him and walked out of the shrine.

Takagi Sakura glanced at her phone and saw that Miao Meng had sent her a message, hoping that she could post some photos of the trial band. Takagi Sakura did not refuse, but asked her to blur the faces in the photos on the grounds that "the band has not been officially announced yet."

This band is really a cause for concern.

Sakura Takagi logged into the shrine's account, ready to interact with fans before starting to practice the piano, but she saw a private message.

[We have formed the strongest new-age girl band, officially named RAISEASUILEN.]

This is War! Declare war on Roselia! Declare war on Guitar Hero! Declare war on the shrine maiden of Sakura Shrine and her band! Declare war on all the girl bands that don't obey!

[Our first independent live will be held soon! All the girl bands in Tokyo, no, the whole world will tremble in front of us!]

[It’s not too late to admit defeat to the strongest girl band producer, CHU^2!]

After reading the private message, Ying really wanted to reply to CHU^2, "Are you the Queen Mother? You wrote a private message and still announced it." But in the end, she didn't show such a strong aggressiveness. She just replied with a smiley face, but it was a "funny" expression.

But since CHU^2 has already formed a band and specifically wants to "declare war" on me, I have to let CHU^2 know that the word "strongest" cannot be used casually.

When the time comes, I'll organize Taoxiang's band and let them sing a few songs they copied from Earth, which will make CHU^2 put away the arrogance that comes from nowhere.

Takagi Sakura was a little worried that the system would give another task like "defeat RAS", but it seemed okay at the moment, no such task had been released for the time being.

She was now somewhat terrified of the system's tasks. Some of the tasks offered by the system required her to shoulder the burden of other people's lives, while others would inflict unacceptable "torturing" punishments if not completed. There were some that were enjoyable, but they were few and far between.

For example, the task of improving her guitar playing skills. The deadline is not far away, but she still has no signs of making a breakthrough. She asked Goto Ichiri for help, but she just said that she already played very well and what she needed next was long-term training.

She also recorded an audio clip for Lenai, asking him to listen to where the problem was with her guitar playing. Lenai's reply was "It's not interesting enough." This abstract answer was of no help in improving guitar skills.

In the fourth episode of the guitar interview program, Ying found a luthier and Lenai to talk about guitar making. The response was not as good as the previous three episodes, but it barely passed the system's requirements. Now, as long as they do another interview program, they may be able to draw advanced guitar playing techniques, and the task will be naturally completed.

Since they have already set their sights on random rewards, it means that Takagi Sakura really has no other choice.

In the fifth interview, which is also the last one of this year, Takagi Sakura still failed to make an appointment with Hanazono Tae. Tae said that RAS was preparing for their debut, and PoppinParty also wanted to hold an independent performance. She was even busier as she was preparing for the two bands at the same time. But the good news is that Hikawa Hina helped him invite Roselia's guitarist Hikawa Sayo.

Among girl bands, Roselia is currently the most popular one. The lead singer, Hina Minato, has a wide vocal range and a majestic timbre. The overall musical style is also very popular among passers-by. It has successfully become a commercial student band.

Hikawa Sayo is the most popular member of Roselia besides Hina Minato, and is also considered by many fans to be the most beautiful member of Roselia.

Inviting her means we have found a suitable guest. All that’s left is to do a good job of the interview.

Hinata had already told Sakura that, apart from their sisterly relationship, she could ask any other questions, just try not to repeat herself too much from her own interview.

Takagi Sakura also had an idea for this program - PasPale and Roselia are two bands with completely different styles. All of PasPale's performances are planned by the agency, and it does not have much autonomy. Roselia has gone from a student band to a semi-professional band, and the role of the Staff is not that big, and more decisions are made by the members themselves.

In this case, it is very meaningful to talk about the emotional journey of forming a band.

Takagi Sakura added Sayo's contact information and sent her the prepared questions. Then she created an account on the Boliboli video site, which is mainly in Chinese, and sent the first interview with Chinese subtitles.

Although she has been working as a cherry blossom tree for ten years, she still feels that the Chinese community is more intimate, and to get the 100,000 fans that Miao Meng boasted about, she had to rely on Chinese sites with a large number of active users.

Chapter 71 Shrines, Festivals, and Monsters: 30. The Sound of the Strings Themselves

The autumn wind blew through the shrine, but Takagi Sakura was still wearing thin clothes - as a tree spirit of the cherry tree, she would not feel cold. The function of clothes was more reflected in aesthetics.

Now she has become completely accustomed to all kinds of women's clothing. Even if she doesn't wear a shrine maiden costume, she will change into various small skirts. Even the members of PasPale praised her for her increasingly feminine appearance in the way she dresses.

Sakura herself was somewhat helpless about this, but with her childish face and voice, coupled with her 1.55-meter height, it would only look weird if she were forced into men's clothing.

She tightened her collar, adjusted the position of her guitar strap, and continued to challenge some difficult guitar pieces - she remembered that it was after she practiced a difficult piece of music on the violin that the system recognized that she had broken through to the intermediate level of playing skills.

But her problem now is that her brain has caught up, but her hands are still lagging behind.

Yes, after reaching a certain speed, if you want to increase the speed further, it is easy to have flaws in the details. Those who can pay good attention to the details when playing at high speed are considered to be super great guitarists.

Takagi Sakura sighed softly and stretched her sore hands. According to Goto Ichiri, what she needed now was not to practice the songs, but to practice high-speed chord switching and climbing the grid.

But practicing basic skills for several hours in a row is a very boring thing. Especially after she was able to move around in Tokyo, her tolerance for this "boredom" decreased a little.

In particular, most people thought that her guitar playing was really amazing, which led to her being "roasted on the fire".

The two difficult guitar pieces she played at the Sakura Festival were becoming more and more outrageous on the Internet. During the Harvest Festival, if it weren't for Goto Ichiri's help, she might not have been able to get off the stage.

Just when she was worrying about her guitar, Hikawa Sayo walked into the shrine carrying a guitar bag.

Seeing the girl who looked similar to Hinata but had long hair, she immediately guessed her identity. However, she was a little puzzled by Saya's presence here now - the program recording time agreed with Saya was tomorrow.

"Hiroyu Sayo?" Sakura, who was holding a guitar, took the initiative to greet her, but there was a hint of doubt in her tone.

When communicating on the messaging app, Sayo and Sakura had already called each other by name, so Sayo didn't call out Sakura's full name, but instead called her name directly: "Sakura, excuse me, are you playing the guitar?"

"Well, I haven't played this guitar for a few days, so I'll stretch my fingers a little."

This was a lie. Sakura wanted to improve her guitar playing to the intermediate level as soon as possible. Her fingers had been rubbing the strings until they were almost smoking, and she had broken several strings alone.

But Sakura didn't want others to know that her guitar still required so much training.

“Yeah, whenever I play guitar, I feel really relaxed and like I have a more complex connection with the world.”

Saya walked towards Sakura, but did not focus too much on her, but looked at the old guitar in her hand.

This guitar is Space's spare guitar. It is not a high-end model. It shows signs of use by many people. The "Space" mark on the back and the paint on the guitar have become a little mottled.

"This guitar...it's quite old." Saya reached out and touched the headstock of the guitar.

"According to the serial number, it's almost 15 years old." Takagi Sakura took the guitar off and handed it to Saya. "I got it from Space. It used to be Space's public guitar."

Saya looked at the guitar for a while - although this guitar was very old, it was not as collectible as high-end guitars. It could only be said that it was an old guitar with key parts such as circuits and metal parts well maintained.

"I came here today to ask Sakura if my performance is up to par." Saya plucked a few chords on her guitar. "I've practiced the song you sent me these past few days, and Lisa said it's fine. But... I always feel like I should let Sakura listen to it again, since we're recording tomorrow, after all."

"It's okay, the song isn't very difficult. I've heard Sayo play, so there's definitely no problem." Sakura looked at Sayo, who was holding a guitar in her arms and carrying a guitar on her back, and suddenly felt that the person in front of her was like a samurai holding a sword and carrying a sword on his back on the eve of a duel.

It was just a show, is that really that exaggerated? The song I provided wasn't difficult, I just chose a song that suited Roselia's style - "Invincible".

There were many songs with this name in her previous life. She chose the background music of the fall of the Lich King in World of Warcraft. It was a song sung slowly with some sadness, which was just right for Glacier Saye's guitar.

Saya returned the old guitar to Sakura and said seriously, "This is a piece I've registered with the agency. As Roselia's guitarist, I must carefully present the best possible performance to the audience. Sakura is the composer, so it's most appropriate for her to make the final adjustments to my training—of course, it would be even better if Sakura could demonstrate."

"This song tells the story of a tragic prince who, through a twist of fate, severed all his family ties and became a demon king that made the entire world tremble. Finally, at the end of his rope, he fell into eternal sleep alongside his favorite mount."

Ying strummed a few bars of notes on her guitar. "This isn't a demonstration, it's just my own understanding of the piece... Well, if I had to describe it in words, it would probably be a tragic sense of fate."

Sayo opened her guitar bag and took out the guitar she was using.

This is a SuperStrat-style guitar with two double-coil pickups, which is more suitable for heavy music. It doesn't seem to match the Glacier Shaye under the stage.

"I didn't choose high gain when practicing this piece. Now that Sakura has told me the background story, I should try my best to maintain the original dynamics of the sound."

Hikawa Sayo gently stroked the strings, and the electric guitar without a speaker also made a pleasant vibration sound, but the sound was a little small.

In the deserted shrine courtyard, the sound could be heard clearly.

"There's a guitar speaker in the training room, and I've plugged in an amp for practice." Sakura pointed to a small cube plugged into her old guitar.

"Let's do it here. Let me feel the sound of the strings themselves." Saya hung up the guitar, put her hands in a playing posture, closed her eyes, slowed down her breathing, and adjusted for half a minute before starting to play.

Electric guitars have relatively low string action, meaning that strings can easily touch the frets when played normally. When connected to an amp, this slight fret-touching is barely noticeable and can even add flavor to the performance, with some players deliberately seeking this "dirty" feel. However, when played without an amp, this sound is a distraction.

Hikawa Saye did not lose her state of mind because of this small disturbance, but closed her eyes throughout and played the piece in immersion.

Sakura could sense the feeling she conveyed.

It is very delicate, like an observer who observes a story in the long river of time and then tells it exactly as it is.

PS: The author has sorted out the subsequent outline, and the solution to the system problems will be as early as possible without causing plot bugs.

Chapter 72 Shrines, Festivals, and Monsters: 31. Saya's Voice

"Roselia is not my first band." After playing the song once, Sayo opened her eyes and suddenly said this.

Sakura, who had just been patting the rhythm with her palm, widened her eyes a little - she had not expected that Sakura would suddenly talk about her past. She and Sakura were not actually that familiar with each other.

The only contact between Takagi Sakura and Roselia was before the Harvest Festival, when she invited the other to perform at the festival, but was rejected; as for Hikawa Sayo herself, she only added her contact information through her sister Hina, and this was the first time the two of them actually spoke face to face.

Sakura looked into Hikawa Sayo's eyes and waited for her to continue.

Sayo's eyes were like still water, and her tone was very calm: "My first band was very good. We had a lot of fun rehearsing together, and we had a very good relationship with each other. Maybe because it was too good, it wasn't so good for a band."

That’s great, but bad for the band?

Sakura didn't understand what Sayo was saying for a moment, so she just nodded with a puzzled look.

"Because the band has to produce works. Even if they are covering other people's works, they must pursue a certain stage effect. But if everyone is unwilling to meet the strict requirements, it will definitely be reflected in the ensemble in the end." Saya continued to explain.

"...I understand." Sakura finally understood what Sayo was talking about.

Of course, everyone in a band can get together and play, but if they want to play decent music, this is definitely not the way to go.

No one points out the shortcomings of teammates, and no one acts as a "pressure cooker" to supervise training. Unless the entire band is extremely self-disciplined, the band can only stay between "playing house" and "amateur relaxation".

If you have a passion for music, being in a band like this and the relaxed atmosphere can actually be a pain.

Sakura also understood the purpose of Sayo's telling this story - what she wanted to express was that she was a person with high demands on music, and would not accept casual playing or casual releases, but would do her best to perform this song for everyone.

"Come in, connect the speakers, and we'll take a look together." Ying walked towards the training room.

Saya and her sister Hina are really like two ends of a scale.

After receiving the sheet music for "One Flower of the World," Hinaya simply copied it down and began recording. Her piano sound is lively and vibrant, like flowing mountain streams, and she prefers to choose soothing tones. Meanwhile, Sayo, amidst her tranquility, possesses an extraordinary passion for music, a passion that even creates a certain edginess.

Ying has full confidence in her musical aesthetics.

Entering the training room, Sakura hung her guitar on the wall and took down her bass, "Saya, let me play bass with you."

Saya raised her eyebrows, but didn't say much. She just said "OK" and then started to adjust the tone.

The speakers here weren't what Saya was used to. She spent over ten minutes tweaking the parameters on her multi-effects pedal before finally finding the desired tone. During this process, Sakura sat quietly across from her, watching her sit by the speakers, tweaking the knobs on the pedals and speakers bit by bit.

Listening to Saya play "Invincible" again feels completely different than when it's not plugged in.

For narrative songs, some guitarists will choose the clean channel to tell the story with pure and clean sound.

But this piece of music is not only narrative, but also emotional, so Saya did not use the clean channel. Instead, she added a little chruch reverb and slightly adjusted the Gain to give the piano a slightly overloaded richness.

Combined with the unique high power of the active pickup and a slight tone knob, the songs played by Saya have a "virtual epic" feel.

Takagi Sakura had to admit that Sayo understood when it came to her choice of tone.

She used the bass to accompany Saya's performance, and simply played the root note, which made Saya's performance not so thin, and the overall effect was already very good.

After Saya finished playing this piece, she immediately asked, "Is there anything that needs adjusting? There are some problems that you can't spot by listening on your own, so I still need Sakura's opinion."

Takagi Sakura seemed to be hesitant to speak - she looked at the dialog box next to Saya, a little worried about what options the system would give her next.

Roselia is a mature band. If any other options are proposed, it will interfere with their development...

But the system also said that it would only list all the possibilities [Qileng put 5咝-琉吧画 out.

What about Taoxiang, Rencai, Hongshengjiang, and Miaomeng? Can a 1% probability even be called a possibility?

"Sakura?" Saya's voice brought Takagi Sakura back to reality.

"Oh, sorry, I was thinking about what to say." Sakura apologized quickly.

Sayo shook her head. "No need to apologize, just tell me straight away. If there are any shortcomings, I can correct them."

Sakura didn't really think there was anything that needed drastic changes, but since Sayo was so insistent, she couldn't let her think that she wasn't listening carefully.

"You could try high gain. Your guitar has active pickups, right? High gain might give this song a different feel."

Saya used to turn up the gain when Roselia played guitar, but she didn't think such a high distortion was necessary for this particular song. However, since Sakura had said so, she wouldn't directly deny her opinion.

"Sakura, can you help me adjust the tone?" Saya handed over the multi-effects pedal.

Sakura didn't know as much about guitar equipment as Sayo did. Her elementary guitar playing skills only gave her the most basic knowledge of tone adjustment. So when she got Sayo's, she could only bite the bullet and look at the effects chain she had set up.

Because it is an active pickup, I didn’t use noise reduction, but directly used compression, then used overdrive to push the tone, and finally added a very weak chorus.

"If you want to increase the gain, you must operate it on the speaker first..." Ying turned up the gain a little, turned down the volume a little, and added some low frequencies.