I have a lot of favorite musicians, but Tenniscoats is undoubtedly a special one for me. Tenniscoats is a duo consisting of guitarist Ueno Takashi and vocalist Saya. Saya's vocals are my greatest aspiration—I wish I could sing as beautifully as she does. I also deeply admire Ueno's guitar playing. Their songs generally aren't technically demanding, so I can play a few of them, but at the same time, I'm sure that no one in the world can play them like Ueno does.

I first discovered Tenniscoats through the music video of Baibaba Bimba. It's probably the video I've watched the most—actually more than 200 times—and I never get bored. I'm going to try to describe what I love about it, though it's difficult.

This video was shot almost entirely in one take. You can hear the siren of an ambulance and the rumble and horns of cars and trains. Saya politely nods at a passerby. When she hits Ueno's guitar with her stick, he says, "There's a microphone in it." She just shrugs her shoulders apologetically, and the shot continues. Ueno doesn't strap his guitar on; he just holds it in his hands, and they walk and run while playing. Naturally, his playing is full of mistakes, but no one minds. His slip-ups, her winded vocals, colors faintly emerging against a backdrop of cloudy skies—all of these converge and the result is one perfect moment of music.

This song is really easy to play, so when I started learning guitar during the pandemic, it was the first one I tried. I'll never forget the unfamiliar feeling I had when I played the first two bars. The raw sound of the guitar brought me a lot of comfort, even though my playing was bad.