"Endless Sound Hong Kong Music Season" is a music gift program specially planned by Mango TV, Hunan Satellite TV and Hong Kong TVB on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland. Looking back at the popular works in the program, we can find that music inherits the spark of Chinese culture and carries the spirit of the times.
What kind of song is a good song? What kind of words are good words? Confucius said: "There are three hundred poems in the Book of Songs. In one word, it is said that there is no evil in thinking." Many people today may not be able to fully understand the words in the Book of Songs, but this does not hinder the Book of Songs and the minds of today's people. Connected, because many of these passages express spontaneous, pure and beautiful emotions. Whether the lyrics are literary or colloquial, if they are well written, they can be circulated. The key is to match the lyrics to the melody properly. In addition to a certain writing skills, the lyricist should also be familiar with the melody. The words filled in should be in harmony with the melody. When the melody rises, if the words fall, the words and the music will contradict. The older generation of lyricists such as Qiao Yu strictly followed these basic aesthetic principles.
Good lyrics are excellent just by looking at the text, and when combined with the melody, they are above the text. There is a view that songs are based on rhythm, as long as the words filled in can be sung. That's certainly true, but it's not enough. A song that can be passed down for a long time and timeless must reflect the goodness and beauty of human nature. The literary pursuit, the singer's expression and the audience's position are not contradictory to each other.
In recent years, the rise of Guofeng music has enriched the types of contemporary music, allowing us to further develop our imagination. With such rich musical resources, we can use the harmony system and beautiful words to create works of great contrast or fusion. I have heard foreign composers use very modern harmony to interpret "Jasmine" so brilliantly. It sounds like oriental music, but it is not only oriental. People from different cultural backgrounds will find a sense of identity. This type of music, Guofeng, requires people to keep digging in depth and creative exploration.
How to more freely realize the localization of foreign music forms is also a topic facing popular music today. For example, rap, some dialects have developed well, but Mandarin still needs to be explored. Creators can find inspiration from Chinese folk culture. Oralized writing does not mean copying spoken language, but requires a unique connection to form a special logical relationship. "Nineteen Ancient Poems" is not difficult, and it can touch our hearts every time we read it. Why? Because they express meaningful truth in simple words.
The challenges that pop music faces today are roughly similar in nature to literature and fine arts, and the creators’ desire to seek innovation and change is also the same. From the perspective of history, many classics are popular culture at that time. After the test of time, they have become classics, and they continue to glow with their own brilliance and vitality, inspiring generations to come. Can our pop culture today produce classics? This is a double test for creators and audiences. As songwriters, we must keep our bottom line, stick to our position, do what we are good at, and never give up the pursuit of classicization.
Why do good songs never stop? An important reason is that it can sing what we think in our hearts. Just like what I sang in the last song on the show, "Fish can't live without this sea", fish will swim more happily only when they return to the sea. Only when pop music is closely integrated with the audience and the times can it be "sound endlessly".
(The author is a singer, interviewed by our reporter Ren Shanshan)