Sunday, November 23, 2025: Practicing at the Piano Room of Studio Koyama R-branch

This was the day I had an appearance at Alca Festa in the afternoon.

I rented a studio for an hour in the morning for a final practice and a light vocal warm-up.

In terms of location, I wanted to try using

Cremonia Studio, which is a 2-minute walk (!) from Alca, or
Sinfonia
, which has amazing facilities, but both were already booked during the time slots I needed.(I'd like to use them next time.)

Expanding my search to include the Asagaya and Koenji areas, I looked for a studio with the following conditions:
・Not too large (since it's a two-person practice)
・Piano on-site (I wanted to avoid paid keyboard rentals if possible, due to cost and the time it takes to set up and clean up)
・Preferably inexpensive

What came up was the R-branch of
Studio Koyama, specifically the piano room.

It's incredibly cheap. For a two-person booking made last minute, it's 800 yen per hour. That's 400 yen per person. How is that possible... Even for one person, it's 450 yen per hour, you know...

Moreover, they currently have a Pianist Support campaign, so those using the upright piano can apply the last-minute booking rate starting from two days in advance... it's just amazing.

I waited until midnight on Friday and quickly secured the booking. The payment was completed online, and the reservation was perfectly set.

The location is a 2-minute walk from Koenji Station, very close. The entrance uses the same remote lock system as

Studio Bayd.

When I unlocked the door,

Oh, it has the feel of a live music club. And the smell of a live music club. This is truly a band studio... Exposed concrete walls. A dim, secret base vibe in the basement. The bulletin board is packed with live concert announcements, music school student recruitment flyers, and band member wanted ads. The unmanned shop has snacks, cup noodles, drinks, lighters, alcohol, and more, all purchasable with small change. So thoughtful. And there's a spacious rest area with tables and chairs where you can relax and enjoy those items. It's at a level where you could live there (though there is a note saying 'please do not sleep here'). You can even change the background music in the shop. The Beatles were playing that day. It's full of the lived-in atmosphere of band members!!!
This vibe reminded me of when I used to go around to live houses to listen to indie bands in high school, and when I practiced with the light music club (technically it was folk) I joined in college. So nostalgic.

Since everything is self-service, you have to find the rental equipment yourself from the reception area, bring it to your room, and set it up. Even though I said 'find it,' there are many types of items, but there are kind, detailed guides everywhere using POP signs (some were cute and handwritten), so I wasn't really confused. I was able to figure out how to set up the mixer in the room by scanning a QR code to watch a video. The mixer model in the video was slightly different from the one in the room, so I struggled a bit with the knobs. I'm a total PA amateur.

In addition to individual Wi-Fi for each room, there were three more spread throughout the shared space, so the signal was flying around without any issues.

With that, we did a light run-through, and an hour passed in the blink of an eye. We hurriedly cleaned up—everything being self-service, of course—and left.

Then we left the studio and moved to Ogikubo Station. We took a leisurely stroll through the Ogikubo shopping street while looking for a place to have lunch. It's really nice to see a lively area crowded with various individual shops. While finding many delicious-looking restaurants... (the tempura place looked good)... we had plenty of time, an hour and a half until the start time when we could start playing music, so we went to a popular bakery called

Edaone

. The eat-in area was full, so we waited for a while. Customers kept coming. People were constantly arriving for both eat-in and takeout. Bread was sold, fresh batches were added, and it was constantly being replenished and sold out immediately. A happy sight. Every bread looked very delicious. Hungry after practice, we struggled with what to order, but we each ordered a sandwich from the lunch set. I had the Cuban hot sandwich. The bread was surprisingly crispy and chewy, and it was very delicious. I thought it was worth the wait. I felt like I could have easily eaten another plate. In the shop with bright, soft lighting and an atmosphere where you could look outside through a large window, we had an elegant lunch, and after we each enjoyed some herbal tea and coffee, we headed to the venue while taking a walk.

(To be continued)