1990: Starting from Baojia Street

After hanging up the phone with Zhang Youan, Zhou Yangang was about to go back to the bathroom to continue brushing his teeth when the phone rang again.

He thought Zhang Youan had something to say, so he picked up the phone and asked, "What else do you want to say?"

"Hmm?" A puzzled voice came from the other side. "What's the matter? Zhou Yan, you got the wrong person. I'm Liu Lin."

"Oh, Principal Liu, I thought it was a friend of mine. He just hung up the phone with me."

"I was wondering why you answered so quickly." Liu Lin smiled and then congratulated Zhou Yan, "Congratulations. I know everything about yesterday. It's not easy for you to win the second prize."

"Our school's teachers also won a lot of awards this time."

"Well, that's right, but your second prize is still the most important. Do you have time to come to school today? I have something to tell you."

Zhou Yan looked at the time and asked, "Then I'll go there in the morning?"

"Okay, I don't have anything to do in the morning, so I'll just wait for you."

"I'll be there in half an hour."

"No rush, as long as we can see each other in the morning."

……

After talking to Liu Lin, Zhou Yan quickly washed up, then rushed to school and went to Liu Lin's office.

Seeing Zhou Yan coming, Liu Lin, who was working at his desk, stood up and walked to the sofa with a smile, "Sit down, I'll pour you a cup of tea, what do you want? We have Pu'er and Maofeng."

"You're welcome, Principal."

"Then let's have Mao Feng." Liu Lin didn't give Zhou Yan a chance to refuse, and went straight over to pour Zhou Yan a cup of tea. "I've heard from many people that the tea in your studio is very good. I don't have any good tea here, so I can only ask you to make do with something simple."

Zhou Yan took the teacup with a smile and shook his head, "Principal, you are joking. I drink tea like a cow chewing a peony. I can't tell good tea from bad tea. And I know your tea is good just by looking at its color."

Liu Lin said with a smile, "You said you don't know tea, but you said you can tell that my tea is good. You said both good and bad things to me. I told you long ago that we are brothers from the same sect. You don't have to be so formal with me."

Zhou Yan did not respond to this conversation, but just smiled. He knew that Liu Lin might have something else to say.

As expected, before Zhou Yan responded, Liu Lin continued, "In the past twenty years, the composition department has been developing very well. In the past few years, the school was worried that the old teachers would gradually retire and there would be a shortage of teachers in our department. However, the facts have proved that we were worrying too much. Now the composition department has developed very well, and the team of young teachers is very large. After Guo Wenjing and Ye Xiaogang returned to the school, they filled a big gap."

Zhou Yan's brain was working rapidly, wondering why Liu Lin mentioned this matter at the beginning. What exactly did he want to say by calling him over today?
However, he lacked key information and had no way of understanding Liu Lin's thoughts. He could only follow Liu Lin's words and said, "Indeed, the composition department's faculty has gradually stabilized in recent years. I've heard some students complain before that there are fewer and fewer places for staying in the department in the past two years, and there is basically no hope for undergraduate studies."

"Well, it's indeed much more difficult to stay in school. In the past two years, fewer and fewer teachers have gone abroad. If I remember correctly, the last person from our composition department who went abroad was Li Bingyang."

Li Bingyang was the head teacher of the composition class of 88. At that time, he was going to study abroad at the University of Louisiana, so he handed over the work to Jia Guoping who had just graduated and stayed in school.

Zhou Yan, who had just failed a grade and was held back in 88, stepped forward to help Jia Guoping with many things because Jia Guoping was too busy. At that time, students privately said that Zhou Yan was actually one of the class teachers of the composition class of 88.

In fact, after Li Bingyang, there was another person who went abroad, and that was Jia Guoping.

However, the situations of Jia Guoping and Li Bingyang are different. When Jia Guoping left, he said that after graduation he would return to the Central Conservatory of Music and continue teaching in the Composition Department.

Jia Guoping's study abroad was more like a school assignment for further studies.

Although Liu Lin was not 100% sure that Jia Guoping would come back, since Jia Guoping had vowed to come back, Liu Lin did not mention Jia Guoping and Li Bingyang together.

During the time when Li Bingyang left, many teachers left the school. In their composition department alone, two young teachers, Li Bingyang and Qu Xiaosong, left one after another.

At that time, the entire composition department was very anxious and wanted to keep a few more students, so only two people, Zhou Yan and Jia Guoping, were retained from the undergraduate class of 87.

Later, the department actually wanted to keep Li Tao, but Li Tao himself was unwilling.

Li Tao's ideas are different from those of ordinary people. He himself believes that he does not have the ability to be a teacher and lacks a sense of responsibility.

Rather than being a teacher without professional ethics, it is better not to touch this matter.

It happened that Zhou Yan asked him to go to the studio at that time, and he readily agreed.

"The domestic environment has improved slightly in the past two years. Not to mention academically, at least there are more ways to make money."

People are very realistic. So many people go abroad to study. On the one hand, it is to conduct better academic research, and on the other hand, of course, they can earn more money abroad.

Otherwise, why don't those who go abroad to study come back?
The income gap between domestic and foreign practitioners is really too huge.

As the reform and opening-up become more and more in-depth, artists have more and more opportunities to make money, so naturally some people are willing to come back.

Liu Lin nodded. "So I always think that your development direction is very good. Excellent graduates like Li Tao can choose another path. Your studio is very famous now. Last time I attended a meeting in Shanghai, when I chatted with many colleagues, they were very curious about your studio. Principal Jin of Shanghai Conservatory of Music was particularly interested and asked if he could visit your studio when he had time."

Zhou Yan raised his eyebrows and thought to himself, Liu Lin said so much just to bring up this matter?
"Principal, if you want to bring someone to my studio, please let me know anytime and I will arrange it for you."

Hearing Zhou Yan say this, Liu Lin smiled. He sighed in his heart that Zhou Yan really didn't look like a young man in his twenties. He was very careful with his words. If someone else came, he would probably directly welcome Principal Jin of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. But Zhou Yan didn't mention the Shanghai Conservatory of Music or Principal Jin. Instead, he threw the topic back to him and gave him the decision-making power, which was also a statement of his position.

"If they really want to go, I'll have to trouble you. In fact, I understand what Principal Jin and the others are thinking. Your studio is doing very well abroad and it's a good career path. Nowadays, all music schools are considering subdividing their majors, with the intention of allowing more students to join the industry after graduation. Film and television music is a good direction. They seem to have the idea of ​​setting up a music engineering department and want to open a new major to recruit professional talents related to music. What do you think of this?"

"Film and television music?" Zhou Yan asked.

"Film and television music is only one aspect. The main purpose is to cultivate technical talents in sound engineering, music recording, music information collection and editing for radio and television, mass media, and even the Internet."

Zhou Yan glanced at Liu Lin, wondering whether it was the Music Engineering Department of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music that wanted to open such a major, or whether Liu Lin wanted to open a related major in the Composition Department.

After a moment's silence, Zhou Yan said, "This is a good idea, but I'm afraid it will be difficult to realize."

Liu Lin frowned, "What do you mean?"

Zhou Yan organized his words a bit, and then said, "The first problem faced by the opening of such a major is the enrollment standards."

Liu Lin was surprised, "I thought the first problem we would face would be the establishment of professional courses."

"The opening of professional courses is still to come, and is closely related to this issue. The first thing to consider is whether students of such majors need to pass the art examination. If they do, what are the standards for the art examination? Let's first talk about the situation where there is no need for an art examination. If students do not need to take an art examination to apply for this major, most students do not have much music foundation before entering the major. Then when the courses are opened, the music course arrangement cannot be in-depth. The final result is that students study in school for four or five years, but in the end they still cannot learn to make music, and they learn more about some basic music theory and related concepts."

Liu Lin nodded thoughtfully, "What you said does make sense, then what if I need to pass the art exam like other students?"

"If that's the case, I'm afraid few people would be willing to apply for this major, at least not for a major like ours. Compared to our school, Communication University should have more advantages. The directions you just mentioned, in fact, involve a lot of new technologies, and these contents are the shortcomings of our traditional music schools. Let me give you an example from my own experience. In order to create new age music such as "Memories of the Forbidden City", I specifically asked someone to spend time learning electronic synthesizers, which no one in our school can teach. And electronic synthesizers are only a small part of new technologies. Future students may also need to learn programming, film and television technology, digital signal processing and other professional knowledge."

Liu Lin was somewhat surprised to hear Zhou Yan explain so clearly, "How do you know so much about these things?"

What Zhou Yan just said about digital signal processing and programming was completely in his blind spot. He didn't understand why Zhou Yan knew all this.

"I prefer to study new things, especially when we are making movies, we need to use a lot of new technologies. The continuous innovation of technology has always been the development trend of the film and television industry."

“That’s why you study New Age music.”

"I guess so. New Age music is not something new. It's just a good attempt outside of traditional music." Zhou Yan took a sip of tea and asked casually, "Does the Shanghai Conservatory of Music have any plans?"

Liu Lin nodded, "Yes, there is a plan. In fact, the plan is about to be implemented."

"It's almost landing?" Zhou Yan was a little surprised. Why was the Shanghai Conservatory of Music moving so quickly?

"Yes, their composition department will open a new major next year called 'Music Sound Director'. I have seen the introduction of this new major. There are many contents to be cultivated, but I can't remember too much because there are many things I don't understand very well. I only remember that there are some electrical, electroacoustic, digital audio technology, etc."

Zhou Yan raised his eyebrows. He had to admit that the Shanghai Conservatory of Music’s concept was quite new and very bold.

The profession of music and sound director can be said to keep pace with the development of the times.

But the idea is beautiful, but the reality is cruel.

As Zhou Yan just said, this type of major faces many problems.

These problems may not be unsolvable, but Zhou is sure that with the current conditions of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, they cannot solve these problems.

In fact, Shanghai Conservatory of Music's move is just a trial by heart.

When the major is actually opened, they will find that traditional music colleges like theirs do not have the conditions to train music and sound directors.

“Perhaps the leaders of Shanghai Conservatory of Music have their own considerations.”

Liu Lin shook his head. "I originally thought that the direction of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music was not bad, but after listening to your analysis today, I found that the Shanghai Conservatory of Music was not well prepared, both in terms of practical operation and psychology. I don't quite understand some of the things you said, but I can be sure that those people in the Shanghai Conservatory of Music don't quite understand them either. In fact, I originally had the idea that maybe we could set up a similar major in our composition department, but now I have no idea at all."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "Actually, I think that if you want to cultivate relevant talents, you don't necessarily have to set up relevant majors. Our composition department has several majors. If there are students who are interested in recording and sound, they can come to our studio to study. Students in this department will definitely have no problem with music theory, and they can also learn arrangement and production in school, and modern technology can be learned in the studio. The equipment and technology in our studio are constantly being updated, and we are definitely better than schools in this regard."

Liu Lin's eyes lit up. "That's a good idea. The technology of your studio can indeed make up for the shortcomings of our school. The key is that we don't need to open a new major, and the cost is much lower. However, in what form should the school cooperate with your studio?"

"This is simple. We can adopt the school-enterprise cooperation model."

"School-enterprise cooperation?" Liu Lin was not very familiar with this model.

School-enterprise cooperation is nothing new. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, with the development of industrialization, school-enterprise cooperation models appeared in Germany and the United States.

Germany is famous for its "dual system", where students learn theoretical knowledge in school while entering companies for practical skills training.

In the United States, the University of Cincinnati proposed the concept of "cooperative education", and its specific implementation method is similar to the German dual system.

However, in China, the concept of school-enterprise cooperation has just emerged, and it has only appeared in technical schools. It is normal that Liu Lin does not understand it.

Zhou Yan explained, "We can allow some students who are willing to work in our studio. They learn music-related theoretical knowledge in school, and practice related techniques in the studio." (End of this chapter)