Chapter 8 Time is short, speed is fast

  As he walked into the broadcasting hall, Qi Wei felt a thrill of excitement at the scene of the final. Use the ad-free reader to read millions of books!

  Because there is an audience under the stage!

  And there were many spectators, filling the entire auditorium!

  Xiong Baozi took everyone into the contestant rest area, which was located near the stage on the far right side of the audience seats.

  From 34 provincial-level administrative regions across the country, with each region having five to three contestants.

  Hundreds of guitar enthusiasts gathered together, chatting and laughing with each other without any reserve.

  Qí Kuì and others had just sat down when staff members came over to register them.

  Then more and more people came in until everyone was present, and the game began.

  It was already five minutes past two at this time.

  A burst of rock music served as the opening act, followed by a deep male voice coming from the speakers around the auditorium: "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host, Bai Yunfei!"

  "Hello everyone!"

  The host ran all the way from backstage and jumped onto the stage with a few light and happy steps!

  "I'm Xiaobai, today! The national second guitar fingerpicking competition final will be held in Longcheng! So first of all, let's thank the organizing committee for providing this opportunity, and also thank the leaders of the Longcheng City Cultural Hall for their strong support! Thank you!"

  As he spoke, Bai Yunfei bowed, and the audience erupted into thunderous applause.

  Qí Huì looked around and carefully observed the so-called audience, who seemed to be from certain units or universities that had come to watch as a group.

  Then, Qi Hui also began to suspect that these people had rehearsed in advance, and their applause was so uniform!

  "Thank you! Thank you everyone! Thank you to the audience friends for your enthusiastic applause! Now, we invite the Chairman of the Organizing Committee and Chief Judge Cui Jian to announce the rules and awards settings for us!"

  Choi Jin? The contestants are all excited, didn't expect Choi Jin to come too!

  This is a rare opportunity that comes once in a hundred years!

  Hu Yilin, sitting next to Qi Wei, slapped his thigh and exclaimed: "I'm so awesome! So cool!"

  Teacher Cui Jian walked onto the stage and smiled as he took over the microphone from Bai Yunfei.

  "Hello everyone! I am Cui Jian!"

  "Good!"

  The audience erupted into thunderous applause.

  "Thank you, thank you everyone. This time, we prepared for a whole year. I remember last year's first session, because of the lack of experience, there were many regrets. This time, we improved a lot, including the judges. We increased from five judges in the previous session to four main judges and 100 review committee members."

  As he spoke, the lights on the left side of the stage lit up brightly, with four main judges in front and a hundred-member jury behind them.

  Qī Huì carefully identified them one by one and couldn't help but feel shocked secretly. The four main judges in front of him were all big shots!

  There's Hei Bao's band, and also Chao Yue's band with Huang Guanzhong. Even Zheng Jun and Di Ke Lao Die came.

  A strong lineup makes all students dazzling.

  Even the next hundred judges were all big shots, some were new singers, some were popular artists, and some were teachers or professors from music academies.

  "This time, we implemented a challenge system in the competition. The 42 players who directly advanced to the final from the preliminary round formed the champion group, while those who participated in the rematch and entered the final formed the counterattack group!"

  Cui Jian said: "The two groups of contestants will challenge each other, and the main judge will select the challenger by pressing a key. The challenger will then choose the opponent to be challenged from the opposing team. Finally, I will announce the prize settings for the competition. The champion will receive an American-made Arriveeom-03R all-solid wood guitar worth 10,000 yuan and 2,000 yuan in cash. The runner-up will receive a Vietnamese-made Aerso-03 all-solid wood guitar worth 7,000 yuan and 1,000 yuan in cash. The Super Pet System full text is also included. Contestants ranking third to tenth will each receive 500 yuan in cash as encouragement!"

  Since hearing the rules, Miao Wei has been constantly asking Qiqi who to choose.

  But Qiqi just didn't speak, and was too lazy to bother with Miao Wei.

  Miao Wei sneered inwardly, but on the surface, he pretended to be sincere and looked at Qi Kuai, saying: "Qi Kuai, I want to challenge you, how about it?"

  "Whatever!" Qi Hui smiled and didn't say anything more.

  "Then you can choose me later!"

  Miao Wei was confident and thought that if he were to PK with Qi Heng, he would definitely win. Otherwise, he wouldn't have advanced directly to the finals in the first place.

  After the game started, the contestants who went up first performed calmly and some were particularly impressive, all of which were secretly noted by the judges.

  One by one, all matches were completed, basically selecting the same competition area, everyone just knew each other, but weren't close acquaintances.

  There are many who also met for the first time today, so it's no big deal if we PK each other.

  It's finally Ziqi's turn to take the stage. As he stood up and left his seat, Qiqige said: "Add oil!"

  Although this voice was flat and unremarkable, Qi Heng's confidence greatly increased.

  Miao Wei, who was standing beside him, sneered and said: "Remember to choose me!"

  Qī Huì glanced at him and smiled as he went on stage.

  Now with the blessing of having a goddess, are you afraid that you can't become a tall, rich and handsome guy?

  Bai Yunfei saw Qi Huan walking up and smiled, saying: "Another young handsome guy, tell me how old are you this year?"

  "Sixteen!" Qi Hui said with a blush.

  "Sixteen? Truly a hero emerges in youth! However, the competition is cruel. Tell me, who will you choose as your opponent?"

  Zhī Kuì said without hesitation: "Miáo Wěi!"

  "Miao Wei!"

  The host said loudly, and at the same time, a staff member next to him took out Miao Wei's name from the champion group and hung it on a paper wall.

  Between the two names, written in big letters: VS!

  At this moment, Qi Hui also couldn't see the expressions of Hu Yinlin and others, but only saw Miao Wei walking up with confidence.

  Zi Ke secretly despised him, really didn't know where he got his confidence from. At noon, he had a quick and intense battle with that lovely young girl, but it was unclear whether he was pretending or not.

  "Alright, both contestants are now on stage. Let's get ready to enjoy the exciting competition! First, please welcome Qi Lei to perform, and Miao Wei will make some preparations!"

  Bai Yunfei finished speaking and led Miao Wei to wait at one side of the stage.

  In the center of the stage, only Qi Hui was left.

  Sitting on a circular stool, Qi Kai tuned the strings of his violin and then pulled the microphone stand to his mouth.

  The final also used the electric guitar provided by the organizing committee of the competition, which is an acoustic guitar with a pickup installed on it. The sound can be transmitted directly to the speaker through an audio connection line.

  louder and clearer than directly using an acoustic guitar to convey sound.

  Fingerstyle guitar playing is already quite challenging, and adding singing makes it even more difficult.

  Although there were such performances in the past, few people performed like this. Only recently this year did a guitar master from the United States start performing like this and became very popular, causing people to pay attention to fingerstyle singing.

  Qí Kuì this time sang an original song, and quoted ancient lyrics, a Chinese flavor is presented in the song.

  "Rainy Night Brings the Chilly Cicada's Plaintive Song" is a work by Song Dynasty poet Liu Yong, and also one of Qi Mei's favorite Song poems.

  The upper part of the poem vividly depicts the scene of lovers' farewell, expressing the sorrow of separation. The lower part focuses on describing the desolate situation after parting in imagination.

  Zi Hui will sing the upper part in a low pitch and the lower part **, using an octave higher voice to sing.

  The entire song is unpretentious, vividly and naturally depicting the scene, with a smooth and elegant structure, blending emotions and scenes, conveying the true feelings of lovers parting ways in a lingering and heart-wrenching manner.

  Zhi Ke's piano skills were not the best.

  But it was the only one among so many contestants who sang an original song.

  This won the favor of many judges.

  The song ended, and Qi Hui was still savoring his own voice.

  Until the applause woke him up, Qi Hui finally came back to his senses.

  "Great, thank you very much Qi Hui, this is the first original song since the start of our final, although the lyrics are ancient words, but the melody is written extremely well!"

  Bai Yunfei smiled and said, "Even I, an outsider, was moved."

  "Thank you! Thank you!"

  Qī Huì expressed his gratitude in a series of successive words.

  Bai Yun smiled and said: "Let's listen to the judges' opinions first!"

  In order, the first comment was from Huan Shu, who picked up the microphone and said seriously: "This original song is very good, but the contestant's singing skills need to be improved. However, we are not a singing competition, we just want to test the contestants' originality and composition ability. Based on this alone, I will give you high marks!"

  The audience applauded for Qi Hui's performance, and he finally felt relieved that someone appreciated his original song. However, the arrangement wasn't done by himself alone, which made him feel a bit uneasy.

  The second commenter is Huang Guanzhong, who looks very much like Chen Xiaochun today. "Do you play in a band?"

  Zi Hui shook his head, "No!" Huang Guanzhong had a regretful expression: "If you play in a band in the future, your band will definitely surpass many seniors."

  Being able to get such a high evaluation, Qi Hui's heart was very excited, but for now, he couldn't show it.

  Next was Zheng Jun, who shook his head and said: "Let's rock! The future of Chinese rock 'n' roll is in your hands, young people!"

  The last one was Di Ke Lao Die, who looked at Qi Huan with a serious face.

  "Our Chinese music scene's songs, no matter what type, always just use those same few chords, basically the same template, never really innovating! Especially for singer-songwriters of the same genre, the imitation is too heavy!"

  "Dikou Lao Die said seriously: 'I've told many young creators that creation is a very dull thing, we must create something extraordinary while maintaining our own style, so that the result can be beautiful.'"

  "Many young creators don't understand, thinking that following the trend and creating something popular is good enough, but they ignore the most essential thing about music. In my opinion, 80% of Chinese music is a waste of resources. What we need is not imitation, but real originality! I hope you can understand, there are still many things you need to change. Young people, keep working hard!"