musicians of old

Chapter 801 Symphony No. in A minor

The third or fourth day after entering "X Coordinate".

Rooms, perhaps, rooms one after another, stacked up like a honeycomb, and arranged crookedly due to collapse and disorder, thus forming this huge crimson circular ruins.

If you look into the distance from the gap, you can see the "circle opposite the circle" in the darkness - it is also a crowded broken wall that occupies the entire field of vision, and in the peripheral light on the left and right, it extends slightly in an arc.

"What could it be?" Sheeran turned his gaze back from the distance.

“An autobiographical symphony,” Fanning said.

The "desktop" for writing is a mass of stretched and twisted, unknown substance like rusted steel bars. He sits on the ground, holding a pen in a trance. Sheeran sits on an abandoned swing, deeply looking at the notes and ideas in his pen.

Symphony No. 6 in A minor, purely instrumental, four movements, Fanning wrote that it was "composed of a very heavy first and last movement and two intermediary movements that can be interchanged, but it follows a completely classical form, number of movements and tonal layout."

A completely classical structure.
Totally classical.

The order of two or three movements can also be swapped.

The ambiguity that remains undecided.

Sheeran stared at the adjectives written by Fanning, then looked at the score of the first movement.

With the even beat of 4/4, the bass of the strings played an introduction that could be described as "sonorous and powerful". After several groups of semitone modulations, it led to music in the style of a minor march.

Soon it serves as a connecting part, with a solemn tone similar to that of a "Hymn".

"The beginning of the March and Hymn?" she asked.

You know, the choral passages play an important role in Fanning's symphony.

The first, second and fifth symphonies all represent the seeds of hope.

"March of Darkness. Anthem of Darkness," Fanning said.

Dark March. Sheeran muttered to himself.

This theme is indeed dark enough. It begins with a downward leap of an octave and a third cut, and then there is an even larger falling pattern at the end, like a dark and severe force overwhelming the whole world.

Later, including this "Dark March" prototype, it presents 4 basic rhythmic or melodic patterns.

Form 2: "Falling" - Strengthens the status of the falling pattern, coldness, weightlessness, but later it is transformed into the sub-theme of "Earthly Love".

Form 3: "Sigh" - a continuous rhythm of eight at the beginning and sixteen at the end, with semitone homophonic repetitions separated by rests.

Form 4: "Mockery" - continuous descending chromatic scale.

In the subsequent musical ideas, they exist either clearly or implicitly, and even penetrate into the last three movements to varying degrees. In this way, Fanning has completely mastered the dark atmosphere that dominates the entire symphony!
Sheeran read page by page, line by line, as if trying to memorize them firmly in his heart, imagining that this was a kind of memory imprint that transcends time and space.

How many opportunities are there to accompany the creative process?

"Hey, here?" Her fingers lingered on a few bars.

There, Fanning wrote a very severe and tense rhythmic pattern in the timpani part, and then the wind instruments played a bright major triad.

But it soon abruptly lowered the third note and was directly combined with the minor triad of the same name, so the color instantly changed from light to dark, and the intensity also changed from ff to pp.

It's like when a person is talking and laughing happily, he suddenly remembers that there is a dark matter that he cannot face.

Since the Renaissance, songwriting has gradually formed a convention called the "Picardian third", which means that minor music does not end with a minor third chord, but with a bright major triad instead.

Now, that arrangement is reversed.

"It's called 'The Alert Chord,' and I just made it up," Fanning said.

"I've seen that written before," Sheeran said. "Huh?"

"In your 'Resurrection' first movement, the funeral march, the final ending phrase, I think I only saw it once, and I never saw you use it again."

Fanning was silent.

There was indeed only that one time before, a chance idea that came to my mind, which was no more than the size of two chords in the vast space of "Resurrection".

And now, this fixed motive runs through almost the entire song.

"Why?" Sheeran asked.

"It started with some individual pieces." Fanning thought deeply and spoke slowly, "It's not just the 'alert chords', many musical ideas are the same, some kind of unconscious mysterious power is proving its existence."

"Many times at the beginning, I often feel that these are not what I want to 'tell' the main point, and I want to write the ending sentence immediately, but they hold me tightly, like fate. Sometimes I want to give up or ignore these thoughts, but I can't help but add one more line or even a page of music to these fragments, and then, I suddenly realize that they are the most indispensable and powerful fragments in the entire movement."

Fanning said this, and when he looked up, Sheeran was gone.

In the entire "room", there were only clumps of colorful unknown substances constantly pouring out of the cracks everywhere - they might just be one's own eyeballs.

Fanning seemed to have taken similar things for granted. The loss in his eyes only flashed for a moment before his expression quickly returned to seriousness. He pursed his lips, quickly gathered up the scattered items, and put them into his backpack.

Take a step, cross the collapsed gaps between the rooms, walk towards the slightly higher ground in front, and continue walking like this.

If we ignore the unreasonable environment he is in, his back looks like just a student on his way home from school.

Fanning had indeed taken it as normal. Although the outside world had receded, the interior of the "X coordinate" was of course still an abnormal area. He had experienced this feeling of cognitive confusion as early as the last time he entered the abnormal area.

Everything is just a replay of yesterday's scene.

Fanning was not sure what state those people who entered with him were in now, but there should be some people who were like him, trying their best to maintain the coherence of cognition and keep up a tense rhythm of rest and hurrying forward - in this way, along this huge pile of ruins, they generally ensured that they were circling upwards in circles until they approached the sky high up that was collapsed like a garbage dump.

During this period, Fanning occasionally traveled with accompanying musicians of his own choosing;
He also has brief moments where he creates in the company of Sheeran, Roy or Joan;

He had met Poglieri or other executors;
He argued with Mr. Wax about the course of the secret history, questioning the dubious origin of his surname, and the truth behind Poglieri's choice to reuse this man;
He had encountered enemies, at least in the past, Rudolf Holmung, Norma Gunn, Owen Davis, and others, and sometimes these people asked him for help, sometimes asked if he knew about the "Hacker Gate", and sometimes he killed them.

He seemed to have bumped into Mr. F, who was wearing a black and white suit, a sun hat, and a cloud-like beard. The other party asked him if he still remembered the appointment at "preparation at noon and stagnation at noon" and if he longed to really see the beautiful starry sky above his head. It was very strange, so he ignored it;

Sometimes, after entering a dilapidated room, you would only see a charred human corpse on the ground or wall.
But most of the time, it was just Fanning moving and ascending alone.

He tried his best to maintain the continuity of his self-awareness, counting the time with his breathing and heartbeat, making sure there was still room before the ten-day high tide deadline.

Once we get to the ceremony location where everyone has agreed to meet, we don’t know how complicated the situation and troubles we will face will be.

This continued for the fourth and fifth days.
Fanning felt that his judgment that the direction was "circling and ascending in the ruins" was generally correct.

The colorful soap film in his eyes became thicker and thicker. Most importantly, he felt that malice - the overall malice from the world itself - although the perception from a distance was still very far and abstract, but the direction was becoming more and more concentrated and clearer.

It is right above this, above your head, at the top of the "X coordinate".

Fanning entered a room at a high place from one end, but the "wall" at the other end was rotten with a big hole.

He stood in front of the edge. The colors in front were too thick and he couldn't see anything clearly. However, it seemed that there was no place to land. If he jumped down like this, he would only fall into the circular ruins on the lower level. There was no need to try, and he didn't dare to try. The invisible force he could mobilize at the moment might be less than one percent.

Fanning narrowed his eyes and looked at the tattered ceiling of the room.

Snails infected with the "Diplodiscus" were crawling excitedly everywhere. He had inevitably crushed countless of them under his feet along the way.

There is an area slightly closer to the corner where the pores are slightly larger.

Fan Ning found some scrap bricks and stones, raised them as high as possible, then he pushed his feet forward, grabbed whatever he could, and climbed up!