Chapter 308 King of the New Century

When the ethereal sound of bamboo flute resounded in the concert hall, many audience members showed satisfied smiles on their faces. Sure enough, Zhou Yan was worthy of his name. A brief opening caught people's ears.

And the taste of this song was just right. Although it was played by bamboo flute, the New Age style could still be heard, and New Age music was Zhou Yan's forte.

Some people once jokingly called Zhou Yan the "King of New Age", but this title was opposed by many of Zhou Yan's loyal fans, because these fans believed that Zhou Yan only played New Age music occasionally and should not be labeled as a New Age. He was an all-round player.

At first glance, this opening sounded melodious and light, but after listening carefully, a hint of tension could be felt, just like the calm before the storm.

The audience's feeling was right. The light and melodious melody soon ended, and the mood of the melody gradually became tense, and gradually there was a feeling of preparing for battle.

There was no fierce fighting, only the tension of everyone getting ready before the battle.

No, it is not just a simple feeling of tension, but also carries a variety of emotions, such as anxiety, expectation, excitement... It depicts the complex emotions of people when the war is about to come.

The clouds in the stream rise and the sun sinks into the pavilion, and the mountain rain is about to come and the wind fills the building.

Many viewers now understand why Zhou Yan named this song "Beginning". Isn't this just depicting a scene of the war about to begin? This name is very appropriate.

The song "Beginning" is not Zhou Yan's original creation, but the background music in the movie "Red Cliff". The name is also "Beginning". Zhou Yan did not change its name.

The movie "Red Cliff" has been criticized by many people. Some people think that the production level of this movie is very high, and the costumes and special effects are much better than the same period and similar film and television works, but some people think that this movie is just artistic garbage, with only appearance, and there is no connotation of the Three Kingdoms story at all.

Overall, the evaluation of this movie is average. Many people can't remember what the movie is about after watching it, and the casting of the movie also makes many people out of the play.

Although the actors who participated in the film are all very well-known, they feel that nothing is right when they are put in the roles. The key is that the director is unwilling to dub these actors and insists on using their original voices, and the lines are uncomfortable to listen to.

Especially when seeing Xiao Qiao speaking with a Taiwanese accent, many viewers were confused.

And the most famous thing in the movie is the sentence "Meng Meng praises it" said by Lin Chiling.

But no matter what, the soundtrack of this movie is still remarkable.

The soundtrack director of the movie is Japanese musician Taro Iwashiro, and the song "Beginning" in it is also composed by him.

Although Taro Iwashiro is not as famous as Kitaro, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Joe Hisaishi and others, he is by no means an unknown person. He has been active in the fields of games, TV series and movies.

In addition to "Red Cliff", the works he participated in the soundtrack of are most familiar to Chinese people, such as "Memories of Murder" and "The Crossing", among which "Memories of Murder" is the most popular.

Taro Iwashiro is probably only in his thirties now. He has just made his mark in Japan, but he is not very famous.

The original instrumentation of "The Beginning" is Western orchestral instruments, and it is also accompanied by some more Westernized drum beats. After Zhou Yan took it, he made some adaptations based on the timbre and playing techniques of the bamboo flute, which sounded quite different from the original.

However, Zhou Yan did not choose to put this song in "Three Kingdoms" at that time, because even if it was an adapted version, it was still not in line with the overall soundtrack style of "Three Kingdoms".

In fact, there are three pieces of music in "Red Cliff" that Zhou Yan was most impressed with. One is this "Beginning", another is the guqin piece played by Zhou Yu and his team, and the last one is the flute played by a child on the hillside when Zhou Yu's army was training.

Among these three pieces of music, Zhou Yan's favorite is the guqin piece, which was written by their teacher Tang Jianping from the Central Conservatory of Music, but there are too many goofs in the movie, even the position of the piano during the performance can be wrong, the props group and the on-site music director are too unqualified, and such low-level mistakes should not be made.

The music was written by Tang Jianping, and Zhou Yan knew Tang Jianping very well, because they were colleagues in the same department.

Tang Jianping knew Chinese folk instruments very well, and if the director had consulted Tang Jianping, he would not have made such a low-level mistake.

Zhou Yan also liked the flute music played by the child, but this was a big mistake made by Taro Iwashiro.

The mode of this flute music is the "Gagaku Seven-tone Feather Mode", which has a Persian style. It can be heard in northwest China, but it is impossible to appear in the music of Jiangnan. It is really a bit outrageous for a child to play it.

Taro Iwashiro didn't understand these things at all, so when he composed the music for the movie, it was easy to get out of touch with reality.

This is also the problem of finding a foreigner to be the music director. Taro Iwashiro's musical literacy is of course no problem, but he doesn't have an accurate grasp of the style of Chinese folk music.

Later, when some Chinese movies were filmed, they would choose foreign musicians as music directors, trying to be "international", but in fact many of the results were not very good.

In fact, Taro Iwashiro's performance was quite good. What impressed Zhou Yan the most was another movie "Heroes of Heaven and Earth". The director invited the famous Indian composer Rahman to compose the film's music.

Rahman's level is certainly no problem. He is a world-renowned musician, but his style does not fit with Chinese movies. As a result, the music of "Heroes of Heaven and Earth" is quite nice when taken out alone, but it seems a bit out of place in the movie, which makes many people difficult to accept.

Moreover, Zhou Yan believes that there are too many music sections in "Heroes of Heaven and Earth", and it is even a bit like a musical. In some places, the music sections are too close to each other, which makes people feel suffocated. This not only affects and weakens the movie itself, but also weakens the role of music.

If "Heroes of Heaven and Earth" can find Zhao Jiping or some other excellent Chinese composers to serve as music directors, the performance of music will definitely be better.

However, for a period of time, Chinese people lacked confidence too much and always liked to pursue internationalization.

In terms of movies, as long as it is related to Oscar, they will believe it without thinking.

The adapted "Beginning" is slightly longer, with a total of nearly six minutes, but Zhou Yan plans to make this version longer.

After the formation of Qingyinfang, although it can rely on his previous old songs to develop, it is still a bit lacking.

So Zhou Yan wanted to leave some songs for Qingyinfang, so that the audience would think of Qingyinfang the first time they heard these songs in the future.

Based on the "Snow Flower", Zhou Yan was ready to leave "The Beginning" for them.

After Zhou Yan played "The Beginning", many audiences couldn't help but stand up again and applaud Zhou Yan.

This previously unreleased song gave them too many surprises.

At first, when Zhou Yan said that "The Beginning" was a song eliminated from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", many audiences subconsciously thought that this song would not be very long. After all, even the music that became the soundtrack was not long. Could Zhou Yan write a long song that was eliminated?

But what they didn't expect was that this song was as long as six minutes, and it was so complete that it didn't seem like a casual work at all.

After listening to "The Beginning", many audiences also expressed doubts, why such a beautiful song did not become the soundtrack of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"?

Of course, many audiences understand that the song "Beginning" is indeed very nice and impeccable in all aspects, but it is not suitable for "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" because it does not fit the overall style of the soundtrack of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

Amid the enthusiastic applause of the audience, Zhou Yan put away the bamboo flute, and then stood on the stage and waited for a while, letting the applause continue for a while.

When the applause gradually weakened, Zhou Yan walked forward, bowed to the stage and greeted, and then said: "There is an old Chinese saying that there is no feast that will not end. Thank you for spending such a wonderful night with me. See you tomorrow."

After that, Zhou Yan waved his hand and said, "Auntie washes the railway."

The audience has formed muscle memory at this time. When Zhou Yan said "Auntie washes the railway", they will also reply with "Auntie washes the railway", and it is already very neat.

The second time, some people shouted "Auntie washes the railway", and some people shouted "I love you".

Zhou Yan smiled, this is good, although it is a farewell, but there is no goodbye in the audience.

After Zhou Yan went down this time, he never came back.

Although some audiences still called Zhou Yan's name, most people knew that Zhou Yan would not come up again.

Gojima Takashi did not look for Zhou Yan again. The effect of tonight had greatly exceeded his expectations.

After that, the Radio Art Troupe came back twice, and tonight's concert finally ended.

…

Later, the Radio Art Troupe went outside the concert hall and performed a few more programs for the audience who did not buy tickets, but Zhou Yan did not go up this time.

Gojima Takashi was very happy that Zhou Yan did not go up.

As the organizer of this series of concerts, NHK certainly hopes that the audience can buy tickets. Those who did not buy tickets should not be allowed to see the performance, otherwise it will reduce the overall enthusiasm of the audience to buy tickets.

They should let them know that if they can't buy tickets, they can't see Zhou Yan.

In this way, if you want to see Zhou Yan, you must buy a ticket, and their tickets can be sold at a higher price.

…

The next day, as Gojima Takashi expected, all major media reported last night's concert.

But what Gojima Takashi didn't expect was that the most popular person at this concert was actually Shizuka Kudo and Akina Nakamori who went to the concert together.

Although Shizuka Kudo and Akina Nakamori disguised themselves well, they were still recognized and photographed.

The reporter who took the photo of them should have noticed them a long time ago, and there were even photos of them entering the concert hall.

There were also photos of the two sitting in the first row and shouting with other audience members.

Originally, two female stars going to a concert was not a big deal worth discussing, but when the two female stars were Shizuka Kudo and Akina Nakamori, the situation became different.

Let's talk about Shizuka Kudo first. Since the beginning of last year, she has been at the top of the list in the Japanese singer circle, and she usually attracts a lot of attention for everything she does.

And she and Zhou Yan have been rumored to be in a relationship, so when she appeared at the concert, the reporters must have paid close attention.

Let's talk about Akina Nakamori. She has rarely appeared in front of the media and the public recently. There are rumors that she is going to retire, and some people directly speculate that she has committed suicide.

It was indeed a surprise that she appeared at Zhou Yan's concert this time.

And judging from the photos taken by the reporter, Akina Nakamori seemed to be in a good mood, and she would shout like other audience members at the scene.

The next day, this was the hottest news, followed by Zhou Yan saying "Auntie washes the railway" and "I love you" at the concert, and he played another long-forgotten song "Beginning".

But anyway, because of these news, the popularity of the "Three Kingdoms" theme concert soared, and it also aroused the desire of many people to buy tickets to listen to the concert. However, when people went to buy tickets, they found that the tickets for the first three shows were sold out.

Now if you want to buy tickets, you can only buy the next three shows, but the remaining tickets for the next three shows have increased in price.

The sixth concert was held in Nagoya, and the ticket price for this show was 25% higher than the ticket price for the first show in Tokyo.

Nagoya's population size, economic level and music market are completely incomparable to Tokyo. If you want to say which show has more expensive tickets, it should be Tokyo.

But the fact is the opposite. The ticket price of this show in Nagoya is also the most expensive in the whole series.

Zhou Yan didn't care about the ticket price of the concert, because no matter how much the ticket price was, it had nothing to do with him, and he was getting a fixed salary this time.

For a period of time afterwards, Zhou Yan followed Li Yiding and others to hold concerts every day, and wrote his own scores when he had time.

The score of "Snow Flower" has been written, but the score of "Beginning" has not been finished yet. Of course, it was basically at the end. Zhou Yan had a lot of leisure time every day these days, and his work efficiency was much faster.

As for Qingyinfang, Zhou Yan naturally had no time to follow them, but every time their activities ended, Zhou Yan would go to care about the specific situation.

After the concert of Dongyi ended, relevant units soon found Qingyinfang and wanted to cooperate.

Now Qingyinfang has added two university concerts, and has also accepted an interview and two commercial performances.

Zhou Yan nodded and agreed to the two commercial performances after watching them.

According to the current rhythm, I am afraid that Qingyinfang will not leave Neon in the short term. Zhou Yan is already considering setting up a studio specifically for Qingyinfang in Neon.

The nine people in Qingyinfang are only responsible for the performance, but the logistics and external relations work need to be done by dedicated people. (End of this chapter)