1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Chapter 66 How does he charge?

Zhou Yan knew why Fang Xiu was having difficulty. Yangyin's Western percussion major started very early, but its subsequent development was very slow.

In the mid-50s, their school had a percussion expert class opened by Soviet experts. However, it was stagnant for a few years due to special reasons. Later, it began to slowly expand the field of percussion in the 80s.

However, Yangyin’s percussion music mainly focuses on the teaching of keyboard xylophones, marimba and other musical instruments, which are still different from drums.

Jazz drums have really entered the domestic performance stage for a very short time, probably less than ten years. For many people, this is a new thing.

Some rock bands will use drums during performances. This instrument is very cool to perform and is especially popular among young fans.

Western percussion also belongs to the orchestral department at Yangyin, which means it is the same department as Yu Ran and his cello counterparts, but generally when it comes to this major, no one associates them with orchestral music.

Moreover, their major recruits very few students every year, and it is almost one-to-one teaching, so they have little sense of presence in the school. Some students don't even know that their school has this major.

"It doesn't matter, I'll go find out myself."

Zhou Yan was going to go back to Jia Guoping to ask. Lao Jia knew the situation in the school better. If there were people in the school playing these two instruments, he should know.

If he really couldn't find it in school, Zhou Yan was going to look outside the school.

Currently, the development of percussion and electronic music in China is lagging behind, and there are not many people playing drums, but you can't find them if you really want to.

Zhou Yan's requirements are not high. He just needs to find someone to support the place when the time comes, and his playing level doesn't need to be very high.

……

The next afternoon, Zhou Yan was in the classroom exchanging knowledge about orchestration with Xu Lang and his fellow juniors, and Sun Qin walked in with a smile on his face.

"Director Zhou, the things have been delivered to you."

Knowing that the synthesizer had arrived, Zhou Yan couldn't wait to follow Sun Qin downstairs to the classroom.

Standing downstairs was a tall, fat man with long, thin and curly hair. The whole person looked very uncoordinated.

"This is Hu Guanglei, I'm a kid." Sun Qin introduced with a smile, "This electronic synthesizer was kindly sponsored by him."

"Hello."

Zhou Yan shook hands with Hu Guanglei, then looked at the small trailer in front of him, which had several large and small boxes on it, "Are these all?"

"The big ones are synthesizers, and the small ones are accessories." Hu Guanglei glanced at Zhou Yan, with a suspicious look on his face, "Can you play this?"

Zhou Yan shook his head very simply, "No."

This answer was obviously beyond Hu Guanglei's expectations. After he was stunned for a moment, he looked at Sun Qin next to him, with the obvious intention of asking Sun Qin to give him an explanation.

Hu Guanglei and Sun Qin really grew up together. They were in the same class from preschool to high school.

After graduating from high school, Sun Qin went to the Directing Department of Yanjing Film Academy, while Hu Guanglei went to the Physics Department of Yanjing University of Technology.

After graduation, Hu Guanglei did not go abroad or enter a domestic graduate school like his classmates. Instead, he started a small band of his own. He usually studied some trendy music and rarely performed outside. It was a self-pleasure kind of thing.

Of course, being in a band couldn't support his life, so he also opened a store where he sold anything related to music.

Yesterday, Sun Qin went to the store to find him and asked to borrow a synthesizer. He didn't agree at first, but then he reluctantly agreed after hearing Sun Qin praise Zhou Yan for having something in the sky and nothing on the earth, and followed him over to take a look.

Mainly, he is also quite curious. After all, there are not many people playing electronic music in China, and most of them do it blindly.

But who knew, Zhou Yan actually said that he didn't know how to play synthesizers.

Sun Qin was also a little confused. He heard Zhou Yan talk about asking for a synthesizer yesterday and thought Zhou Yan would definitely be able to use this thing. Unexpectedly, Zhou Yan didn't know how to use it.

Seeing the surprised expressions on their faces, Zhou Yan asked Hu Guanglei with a smile, "Boss Hu, can you do it?"

"A little bit."

Zhou Yan read a hint of contempt on Hu Guanglei's face, which seemed to mean: When I was playing with the synthesizer, you were still wearing crotchless pants.

Zhou Yan knew that Hu Guanglei must have played well.

Sure enough, someone gave me a pillow if I felt sleepy.

Zhou Yan smiled, nodded and said, "Oh, Boss Hu, you should be in charge of sales. You don't usually touch this thing. There are not many electronic synthesizers in China now. I got this myself and I have to explore it."

"What do you want this for?" Hu Guanglei asked.

"What else can I do? I recently wrote a set of music. There are some sounds in it that I can't achieve the effect I want with traditional instruments, so I can only try it with a synthesizer."

Sure enough, when he heard what Zhou Yan said, Hu Guanglei became a little interested, "What kind of sound do you want?"

"I need the sounds of some Chinese folk instruments, but they need to be more mysterious and ethereal. I know this is difficult to do, and most people can't handle it, so I can only explore slowly."

Hu Guanglei pondered for a while and said, "Maybe I can give it a try."

This was what Zhou Yan wanted. He smiled and said, "Boss Hu, I don't have the money to hire you."

"I know you have no money." Hu Guanglei curled his lips and looked at the small trailer, "You even borrowed the synthesizer from me. I don't want your money, just let me see your music."

Sun Qin punched Hu Guanglei on the shoulder and shouted, "Old Hu, you are so loyal."

"Your hands are so mean!" Hu Guanglei rubbed his arm and asked Zhou Yan, "Where do you put these things?"

"Let it go in our classroom."

Then the three of them moved the things to the classroom of the Composition Department and installed them. Students from Composition 88 gathered around them. They had never played with synthesizers before and were quite curious about this thing.

The students looked at the electronic synthesizer and asked questions. Zhou Yan threw all their questions to Hu Guanglei and asked him to answer them.

Seeing a group of composition students surrounding him, Hu Guanglei was also very happy. He could be regarded as a teacher for the professionals in the composition department.

With this kind of pride, Hu Guanglei taught everything he had.

In essence, electronic synthesizers, like other musical instruments, are just a musical tool. The key lies in the user's understanding of music.

However, unlike traditional musical instruments, electronic synthesizers also need to understand some "physical" knowledge, such as frequency, amplitude, etc.

……

Although Hu Guanglei opened a shop, he was actually an idler. Ever since he promised Zhou Yan to help Zhou Yan create the tone Zhou Yan wanted, he would go to Yangyin almost every day.

The two of them discussed and tried every day. First, they made slight modifications to the original sounds of some traditional instruments, trying to find the feeling Zhou Yan wanted. They would also try to break away from the sounds of traditional instruments and create some special sounds.

The timbre Zhou Yan wanted was in his mind, but he was not familiar with the use of synthesizers, so he couldn't make it directly. And no matter how carefully he described it, Hu Guanglei couldn't fully understand it.

So the two of them could only try slowly and try to move in the same direction.

As the study and discussion deepened, Zhou Yan became more familiar with electronic synthesizers. He was able to be to the point when describing it to Hu Guanglei, and the communication between the two parties became more and more in sync.

A week later, although many sounds have not yet been made, Zhou Yan is very confident that he will give them a few more days to complete it.

The most troublesome thing now is the lack of a jazz drummer.

Jazz drums can also be obtained from Hu Guanglei's place, but jazz drummers are more difficult to obtain.

Zhou Yan asked Jia Guoping and found out that they didn't play this game in their school.

He also asked Hu Guanglei if he could introduce a jazz drummer, but Hu Guanglei mentioned a few names, but they were all already famous people.

For example, Hou Muren was the first person to play drums in China, and he is currently busy performing across the country. How could Zhou Yan be able to hire him?

……

Ten days later, Zhou Yan still couldn't find a drummer. He had already begun to consider whether he could use snare drums, cymbals and other instruments instead. Anyway, the drum set was originally made of these things, but it was a bit troublesome.

At this moment, Sun Qin came to Zhou Yan.

The first thing Sun Qin said when he saw Zhou Yan was, "Director Zhou, I will introduce you to a particularly awesome drummer. Do you want it?"

Zhou Yan was lying on the piano, adjusting the score of "Memory of the Forbidden City". As he practiced during this period, he also discovered that there were still some minor problems in the music he had written, so he would make modifications whenever possible.

After hearing Sun Qin's words, Zhou Yan raised his head and looked at him, "The person you want to introduce is not from Houmu, right?"

When Hu Guanglei introduced Hou Muren to Zhou Yan before, he also said the same thing about Hou Muren.

Unexpectedly, Sun Qin asked with confusion, "Who is Hou Mu?"

Sun Qin really didn't know much about the folk art world. It was because he was thinking about the soundtrack during this period that he took the time to learn a little more about it.

"Then who do you want to introduce?" Zhou Yan asked.

A smile appeared on Sun Qin's face again, "Do you know Wei Hua?"

Zhou Yan nodded, "Of course."

Wei Hua was a host of CCTV before. She also hosted the Spring Festival Gala two years ago and was very famous in China. However, she suddenly resigned from CCTV the year before last and went to make music.

This incident was quite sensational at the time, but I didn't hear anything from Wei Hua during this period. It must be because the music career was not developing well.It seems that after Wei Hua resigned, he released an album and received average reviews from the outside world.

Sun Qin said with a smile, "There is a young jazz drummer in Wei Hua's band, who is not much older than you. He is very good."

Zhou Yan stared at the score in front of him and asked casually, "Really? What's his name?"

Sun Qin opened his mouth and said a name, "Zhao Muyang."

Zhou Yan raised his eyebrows. Although he was not familiar with rock music, he had heard of Zhao Muyang's name. Zhao Muyang seemed to have been the drummer of many rock bands.

These days, jazz drummers are a rare talent in China, and every band is in short supply, so Zhao Muyang was recruited into so many bands.

Zhou Yan must believe in Zhao Muyang's level. "Memory of the Forbidden City" does not have very high requirements for drummers, so it should be a piece of cake for Zhao Muyang.

But since Zhao Muyang can form a band with Wei Hua, he is quite a celebrity. Would he be willing to help?
"What's your relationship with Zhao Muyang?" Zhou Yan asked.

Sun Qin shook his head, "I have nothing to do with Zhao Muyang. I have never even met him. It was Sister Wei Hua who recommended him to me."

"Are you familiar with Wei Hua?" Zhou Yan asked again.

"We used to be colleagues." Sun Qin explained simply, and then said very confidently, "Director Zhou, as long as you are willing, I will definitely be able to call Zhao Muyang."

Of course Zhou Yan is willing. His requirements are not high, as long as he can find a jazz drummer. He will definitely welcome someone with Zhao Muyang's level.

"How does he charge?"

Sun Qin laughed out loud, "Director Zhou, why are you always thinking about charging fees... Zhao Muyang doesn't charge fees. I heard that he doesn't charge fees in the Breathing Band."

When he heard that there was no charge, Zhou Yan put his hands on his hands and said with a smile, "Okay, then invite him over, and I'll treat you to a big dinner later."

……

In the afternoon of the next day, Zhou Yan was practicing "Memory of the Forbidden City" with Yu Ran in the piano room, and Sun Qin found him with Zhao Muyang.

"Director Zhou, this is Teacher Zhao."

Zhao Muyang stood next to Sun Qin. He was in his twenties, of medium height, very thin, with long hair and a pair of sunglasses.

In recent years, as rock music has become popular in China, long hair, sunglasses, and jeans seem to have become synonymous with "cool".

Many rock musicians look like they came out of a barber shop, all dressed the same.

Young people have also followed suit. Nowadays, it is common to see young people dressed like this on the streets, and there seems to be an increasing trend.

They were indoors, and it was still cloudy today. Zhao Muyang was wearing sunglasses, which was really strange.If you meet some people who are more concerned, you may think Zhao Muyang is impolite.

However, Zhao Muyang, who looks cool, is very shy. When he heard Sun Qin call him Teacher Zhao, he said with some embarrassment, "Director Sun, just call me Mu Yang."

"Okay, Mu Yang." Sun Qin smiled and introduced him, "This is the Director Zhou I told you."

Zhao Muyang observed Zhou Yan through his sunglasses and was slightly surprised.

Wei Hua asked him to come, saying only that a friend wanted to make a song and needed a drummer.On the way over, Sun Qin was always called "Director Zhou, Director Zhou."

So Zhao Muyang subconsciously thought that Director Zhou must be a very old teacher. He didn't expect him to be so young.

Will he be a teacher?He looks more like a student.

In fact, Zhao Muyang likes to wear sunglasses, not only to look cool, but also because he thinks it makes him feel more relaxed because he doesn't have to look at others.

Zhou Yan walked over and took the initiative to shake Zhao Muyang's hand, "Teacher Zhao, thank you very much for coming."

"Call me Zhao Muyang or Mu Yang, it doesn't matter." Zhao Muyang seemed to be afraid of others calling him teacher, so he told Zhou Yan what he had just said to Sun Qin.

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "Then I'll call you Brother Muyang."

"can."

Zhao Muyang nodded. In fact, he didn't like Zhou Yan's polite tone. It was not true enough, and of course, it couldn't be said to be annoying.

"I know you are busy, so let's get straight to the topic." Zhou Yan took out a stack of music scores from his bag and gave them to Zhao Muyang, "This is the music score for "Memory of the Forbidden City." The drums haven't arrived yet, so you should take a look at the music score first. By the way, let me introduce to you, this is the violinist who will perform this time, Yu Ran."

Yu Ran took the initiative to greet Zhao Muyang, "Brother Muyang, hello."

Zhao Muyang nodded without saying anything. His attention was now on the score.

The first time he saw the score, Zhao Muyang raised his eyebrows. The drum score written by Zhou Yan was very beautiful.

There is no standard for jazz drum music, and domestic research on jazz drums is relatively late. Some bands do not even have special drum music when playing a certain song.

This jazz drum score by Zhou Yan very clearly records the position, timing, musical expression, performance techniques and other information of each drum set, so Zhao Muyang thinks this score is beautifully written.

In addition, unlike most of the songs that Zhao Muyang has participated in before, the rhythm of this song "Memory of the Forbidden City" is not so strong, nor is it so routine, presenting a very free state.

This is a challenge for Zhao Muyang, because he needs to temporarily put aside the "strong emotions" that rock music has brought to him in recent years to adapt to the leisurely and atmospheric nature of this piece.

After Zhao Muyang looked at it for a while, Zhou Yan said, "Brother Muyang, if you have any questions, you can tell me directly."

Zhao Muyang shook his head, "No problem, I can get started when the drum comes."

Zhou Yan smiled and nodded, "That's good."

……

The next day, after the drum set borrowed from Hu Guanglei arrived, Zhao Muyang, Zhou Yan, Hu Guanglei and Yu Ran began to practice "Memory of the Forbidden City".

I have to say that Zhao Muyang is really good at playing drums, and after a period of contact, Zhou Yan also discovered that Zhao Muyang is not only good at playing drums, he is also very talented in music and has his own set of understandings. .

Even Zhou Yan felt that it was a pity that Zhao Muyang spent all his time in a rock band every day. He could have been more involved in other music types while playing rock, which would help him develop better in the future. .

Domestic rock music will continue to be popular for many years, but in the end it will only be a flash in the pan. Many rock bands have experienced some deviations in their development. They are going to an extreme and may even be involved in some kind of self-struggle.

Of course, in terms of persuasion, Zhou Yan did not tell Zhao Muyang. What he had to do now was to quickly get Zhao Muyang and the others to record the music.

The key point is that Zhao Muyang is also very busy. He is also the drummer of several bands and has a lot of things to do. For Zhou Yan's song, he has delayed a lot of things in other bands.

Zhou Yan also felt embarrassed, so he kept working overtime to catch up on the work.

Zhou Yan previously told Sun Qin that he would give him the music in half a month, but Zhou Yan skipped the ticket.

From the day Sun Qin went to the classroom to find him, a total of 22 days passed before Zhou Yan handed over the tape recording "Memory of the Forbidden City" to Sun Qin.

Sun Qin looked at the tape and was a little excited. He also put in a lot of effort during the entire production of "Memory of the Forbidden City". The more he put in, the stronger the feeling when he reaped the rewards.

Sun Qin also went there several times while Zhou Yan and the others were practicing, but he had never heard a complete piece.

So after getting the tape, Sun Qin couldn't wait to go back and listen to it again. He directly asked for Zhou Yan's Walkman and headphones and listened to it live.

Zhou Yan and the four of them stood in front of Sun Qin, waiting for him to express his opinions after listening.

More than four minutes later, Sun Qin took off his headphones.

When Hu Guanglei was about to ask Sun Qin how the music was, Sun Qin said to Zhou Yan, "I'll take the Walkman first," and then ran away with the Walkman.

Before Hu Guanglei could react, Sun Qin had already disappeared.

Looking at the door where Sun Qin left, Hu Guanglei scratched his head with long, sparse hair, "Why is this guy so anxious?"

Yu Ran smiled and said, "Brother Sun must be anxious to send it to the stage to show it to the leader."

"Then it's not so urgent." Hu Guanglei muttered, "I'm still waiting to hear his evaluation. We spent more than 20 days making something, and he hasn't even heard a word of praise from him."

Zhou Yan gave Hu Guanglei a thumbs up and said with a smile, "It doesn't matter. If you want to give me a compliment, this piece is very well done. Boss Hu, you take all the credit."

Hu Guanglei curled his lips and said dissatisfied, "Since you are a songwriter yourself, it's boring to hear you praise me."

Zhao Muyang, who had been silent all this time, suddenly said, "I think it's good too."

Hearing Zhao Muyang speak, Hu Guanglei said with a smile, "Brother Muyang, I was very impressed by your praise."

Yu Ran asked curiously, "Why, Brother Hu, Brother Zhou Yan is the composer, but Brother Mu Yang is also a performer."

"Because Zhou Yan is so good at praising others. He praises people every day, and my threshold for being praised by him has been raised." After saying that, Hu Guanglei looked at Zhao Muyang again, "Brother Muyang, after today, we will have to see each other for a few days." Are you here? If you don’t consider taking off your sunglasses, I still don’t know what your whole face looks like.”

Hu Guanglei had mentioned this several times before, somewhat jokingly, but Zhao Muyang never paid attention to it.

However, this time Zhao Muyang actually nodded and actually reached out and took off his sunglasses, revealing his full face.

Seeing Zhao Muyang's face, Hu Guanglei joked again, "Brother Muyang, you'd better put on your sunglasses. I suddenly feel a little uncomfortable seeing you with eyes."

Zhao Muyang rolled his eyes, put on his sunglasses again, and said coolly, "I'm leaving."

　Thank you [Wisdom Teeth] for the 500 reward
　　Thanks to [Maxim Small Noodle Ball] for the 100 tip
　　Alas, I attended a college classmate’s wedding. I drove more than 300 kilometers for more than seven hours. I just got home.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)