1990: Starting from Baojia Street

After breakfast, George took Hardison and Jessica to the campus of the Central Conservatory of Music.

Originally, the Central Conservatory of Music was just a small tourist attraction for foreign tourists, but as Zhou Yan and the Piano Youth Orchestra became more and more popular, more and more tourists came to visit the Central Conservatory of Music.

When tourists arrive at the Central Conservatory of Music, they first take a photo at the entrance. When Hardison and his friends arrived, they saw many tourists posing at the entrance.

"Come, let me take a picture of you too," said George.

Seeing that there were many people taking pictures at the entrance, Jessica smiled and said, "Let's take pictures at the entrance of the concert hall."

She also thought the entrance of the Central Conservatory of Music was nice, but compared to the school gate, she was more interested in the concert hall.

After entering the campus, George introduced them, "As you can see, the Central Conservatory of Music is different from ordinary modern schools. This was originally the palace of Prince Chun of the Qing Dynasty. The second emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Guangxu, was born here."

"Is this the emperor's birthplace?" Hardison asked in surprise.

George nodded, “Well, to be precise, Guangxu was born in Huaiyinzhai, and many things here are well preserved.”

"This is the breath of history." Hardison looked at the busy roads on campus and said, "There are quite a lot of people in the school."

"Many people here are tourists, just like us. The Central Conservatory of Music itself doesn't have many students. Although there are many more students applying for the Central Conservatory of Music in recent years, the number of students admitted by the school each year has hardly increased."

As Zhou Yan's fame in Europe and the United States grew, the Central Conservatory of Music has almost become a must-visit place for foreign tourists, so George usually pays close attention to the news of the Central Conservatory of Music, and he even knows about things like enrollment.

He is right. In recent years, more and more students have applied to the Central Conservatory of Music, but the number of students enrolled has not increased at all, so now the admission rate of the Central Conservatory of Music is getting lower and lower.

If we only look at the admission ratio, people would think that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get into the Central Conservatory of Music, but in fact, the difficulty of getting into the Central Conservatory of Music has not increased much.

Because most of these additional candidates have very poor levels.

The Central Conservatory of Music is the highest music school in the country. Most students who study music will try the Central Conservatory of Music as long as they have confidence. Therefore, the Central Conservatory of Music had a good source of students in the past, and students needed to have a very high level to be admitted.

Many of the additional candidates now are latecomers.

Seeing that Zhou Yan was an international star, famous and wealthy, some parents wanted their children to learn a musical instrument. Moreover, they did not know much about the difficulty of admission to the Central Conservatory of Music, so they applied without thinking.

Most of these people learn piano, some spend two to three years, and some only a few months. They can only play a few songs and have no idea of ​​learning basic skills, let alone music theory. In the end, they can only be cannon fodder.

Earlier, the Central Conservatory of Music recruited students from a group of candidates with scores above 60, and only admitted those who had scored 90 points, which was a selection of the best from the best.

Now, suddenly a bunch of candidates with scores of 20 or 30 have popped up. They can only lower the admission ratio but will not have any impact on the admission results. The students who should be admitted are still those with scores above 90.

If this trend of learning music can be maintained for ten or twenty years, the overall level of candidates will definitely rise, but the problem is that this trend will not last long.

Now many parents have realized that Zhou Yan’s success has nothing to do with ordinary people, and that it is too difficult to make a living by music.

Especially those students who study music intensively, not only can they not get into any good music school, but their original academic performance also becomes worse, which is tantamount to losing both the wife and the army.

In about two years, these cannon fodders will probably disappear.

We may have to wait until the next talented composer or pianist emerges before another wave of music learning can be triggered. This is the law of history.

George was very knowledgeable about the situation in the school and gave a very clear introduction. Hardison and Jessica listened and sighed that they had chosen the right tour guide.

The Central Conservatory of Music was so small that the three of them finished their tour in a short while. If George hadn't introduced it in detail and interestingly, it would have taken less than ten minutes to walk through the entire school.

Although the Central Conservatory of Music does not restrict tourists from entering the school, many places inside the school are not open to tourists at will, such as the office building, teaching building and piano room.

These three places are guarded by guards, and outsiders generally cannot get in, especially foreigners like Hardison, who can be easily seen as not from this school.

There are very few foreign students at the Central Conservatory of Music, only a few in total, and the security guards basically have an impression of all of them.

Jessica actually wanted to go and see the practice room. She believed that the level of a music school was closely related to the practice room. If the practice room was not well built, the school would not be very good.

Whether the practice room is good or not does not only depend on the hardware level, but more on the atmosphere of the practice room.

Even if it is an old or poor-quality piano, if it is well maintained, students will have no problem playing it.

Some schools have piano rooms with quite a few pianos, but few of them are usable. The staff do not maintain them properly and the students do not take good care of them. Over time, no one practices piano properly in the piano rooms.

Although Jessica was disappointed that she couldn't visit the piano room, she was still happy when she thought about attending the concert later.

It was almost time, so George took them to the concert hall.

The three of them entered the concert hall and found that it was almost full.

The seats in the front were full, so they could only find seats in the back.

Looking at the already full seats in front, George couldn't help but mutter, "There are more people again."

George has accompanied guests to listen to the 1995 Orchestra's live performances several times. They are a less famous orchestra in the Central Conservatory of Music. The orchestra has very few people and can only play chamber music, not any large-scale pieces.

In one performance, most of the time was occupied by the string quartet.

Such a performance is naturally difficult to attract audiences.

The performances of other well-known orchestras at the Central Conservatory of Music had larger audiences, so George didn't feel anything. However, after listening to the performances of the 1995 Orchestra several times, he found that more and more audiences came to the Central Conservatory of Music to listen to music.

Even for a performance by such an unknown small orchestra, so many people still came, and the entire concert hall was almost full.

If this continues, no matter what performance it is, we will have to arrive early, otherwise there will be no seats.

George suspects that if the audience continues to grow, more and more performances at the Central Conservatory of Music will require ticketed admission.

Making money is secondary. If you don’t control the entry, it will easily cause trouble.

In fact, George is in favor of buying tickets for admission, so that you don’t have to worry about coming early to reserve seats in the future.

Jessica and her friends were here for the first time and didn’t know the situation. Seeing so many spectators, Hardison asked, “Is this band very famous today?”

“It’s not very famous.” George laughed. “If it was a very famous band, there would be no seats left if we came at this time.”

“It seems that the concerts at the Central Conservatory of Music are really popular.”

"Yes."……

The performance began soon. After listening to the first song, George nodded repeatedly. He found that the performance level of this orchestra was gradually improving.

The reason why this orchestra is named 1995 is that its members are all students who entered the Central Conservatory of Music in 1995. When George listened to the 1995 concert for the first time last year, these students were still freshmen.

In more than a year, the performance skills may not have improved dramatically, but the orchestra's tacit understanding, the performers' experience and aura are no longer in the same state as when they were just established last year.

The stage of the Central Conservatory of Music is very challenging because there are audiences at every show. In many cases, the stage of the Central Conservatory of Music has more audiences than those of well-known concerts.

In this environment, the performers' hearts are slowly honed.

After listening to the first song, Jessica applauded the 1995 band and said to George, "Is this band really not well-known in their school? Their performance was wonderful."

"They are indeed good, but how about compared with the piano boy?"

"Well, it's still a little worse."

Jessica had heard the young piano perform live and was very clear about his level. Although he could not compare with those world-class international orchestras, he was definitely not comparable to ordinary student orchestras.

The 1995 Orchestra is not bad, but it is totally incomparable to the Piano Youth Orchestra. When she said it was a little worse, she was actually being lenient.

However, what he didn't know was that when the Piano Youth Orchestra was first established, it was not much better than the 1995 Orchestra, and it also came to where it is today step by step.

“There are many orchestras in the Central Conservatory of Music that are better than this one. If you have time, you will understand after listening to a few more performances.”

"I have time. We will be staying in Yanjing for a long time, so we can come to listen to more concerts."

Of course George was willing to accompany Jessica and the others to the concert every day and earn money just by sitting there, but as a professional tour guide, he still wanted to make Hardison and Jessica's trip to Beijing more fulfilling.

"If you want to listen, we can come back later. However, there are still many things waiting for you to experience in Yanjing. It would be a pity if you just listen to the concert here."

"Okay, then please find a performance of a higher level for us to listen to."

"No problem." George made an OK gesture.

At this time, the stage was about to play the second song, and Jessica and the others stopped chatting.

When the second song sounded, there was a sudden cheer from the audience, because many people recognized that the song was Zhou Yan's "Drinking the Yangtze River Water Together".

Many people came to the Central Conservatory of Music just for Zhou Yan, so they were naturally very happy to hear Zhou Yan's music.

Jessica was also very happy. Although she didn't get to hear the performance of the young piano player, listening to another orchestra from the same school playing Y's song was also a substitute.

……

"Give me an autograph."

In Zhou Yan's office, Mariah Carey handed a copy of "Shutter Island" to Zhou Yan.

Looking at Mariah Carey, Zhou Yan scratched his head and said, "I thought you wouldn't come."

Mariah Carey smiled and said, "Since you have sincerely invited me, I can only turn down more than a hundred recent announcements and come to the appointment."

Zhou Yan rolled his eyes. He didn't invite Mariah Carey at all, but he had to take responsibility for it because it was Zhang Youan who invited Mariah Carey.

Since she is willing to come, she is very loyal. Zhou Yan can't tell her that he doesn't want her to come.

Zhou Yan picked up a pen and signed his name on the title page of "Shutter Island". Mariah Carey was still not satisfied and pointed to the blank space next to it, "Write here, thank you for coming to your concert."

"Okay." Zhou Yan nodded and wrote in the blank space: Yanjing welcomes you, Mary.

Mariah Carey didn't know Chinese either. When she saw Zhou Yan's handwriting, she happily put the book away and said, "I have finished reading this book in just one week."

It took me a week to finish reading "Shutter Island". There's really nothing much to say about that. After all, most people can finish the whole book in one day if they concentrate on reading it.

However, Mariah Carey is usually very busy with work, so if she wants to read, she can only do so in fragmented time. Moreover, she is a very slow reader and prefers to read intensively. It is normal for her to spend a month reading a book.

So in Mariah Carey's opinion, it was not easy for her to finish reading the book in just one week.

"Thank you for your support. Do you have any suggestions after reading this?"

Zhou Yan was just being polite, but Mariah Carey started to think seriously. After a while, she said, "I think this novel doesn't describe much about the relationship between the hero and his wife. After reading the whole novel, I feel that his wife is just a symbol, not a flesh-and-blood person."

"Well, that's true."

Mariah Carey is right. The novel contains very little description of the protagonist's past with his deceased wife. The deceased wife is more like a cold name.

But Zhou Yan would never spend too much time and effort on his deceased wife, otherwise the pace of the whole story would slow down a lot.

Perhaps this slower pace is quite to Mariah Carey's liking, but it will definitely lose a large number of readers.

Seeing Zhou Yan nod, Mariah Carey smiled and said, "I hope it will be of some use to you."

"I'll consider it when I create in the future."

Zhou Yan's casual remark actually made Mariah Carey very happy. She put the book away with a smile, and then asked Zhou Yan, "Will you write something like this in your next book?"

"I don't know." Zhou Yan shook his head, "I don't have any ideas for the next novel for now."

"That's a shame. After the publication of Shutter Island, you will have many more fans of your books in addition to your music fans in the United States. Everyone will definitely hope to see more of your works, and it would be best if you could be as prolific as your music works."

"Well, I'll try my best." Zhou Yan nodded, then stood up and said, "Let's go eat together."

"No problem, where shall we eat?" Mariah Carey stood up.

"Let's eat in the studio cafeteria. A few friends will be coming over soon. I'll introduce you to each other. Of course, if you mind, we can separate."

Mariah Carey waved her hand and said, "No, let's go together." (End of this chapter)