1990: Starting from Baojia Street

After Zhou Yan chatted with the audience for a few words, he smiled and snapped his fingers.

The crisp sound of finger snaps resounded throughout the entire venue, and the lights on the stage suddenly changed, becoming more brilliant. The already magnificent hall looked even more majestic and solemn.

The audience in the audience felt themselves suddenly enveloped by this solemn light, and entered a newly opened world just like Zhou Yan and others on the stage.

At the same moment the light changed, a loud bell rang, as if a huge curtain was pulled open.

Without Zhou Yan's introduction, everyone present could tell that the first song was "Memories of the Forbidden City".

As many people expected, "Memories of the Forbidden City" indeed appeared at today's concert.

Just as Sun Dong said, there is no reason not to include this piece of music in today's concert, because it fits the atmosphere of today so well.

Moreover, Zhou Yan originally liked to use "Memories of the Forbidden City" as the opening song for his concerts, because this song is indeed very suitable as an opening song and can immediately focus the audience's attention.

This time, Zhou Yan did not hide himself in the middle of the orchestra. He still sat in the most conspicuous place in the middle of the second floor. A beam of bright light shone on him, allowing the audience below the stage to see him at first glance.

Although this is a concert, the audience is mainly there to see him, so this wish naturally has to be satisfied.

Just after the song started playing, Jessica in the audience said in a daze, "This is the best "Memories of the Forbidden City" I have ever heard."

In terms of sound effects, today's version of "Memories of the Forbidden City" is definitely not as good as the previously recorded version, and even worse than the version in the concert hall.

The Temple of Heaven has no cover, so not only will the sound of the music be lost, some details cannot be heard, and some noise from outside will also come in.

Although these noises are not very obvious, they will actually offset the original sound of the music, and the overall listening experience is definitely not comparable to that in a concert hall.

These influences cannot be eliminated just because you have good equipment.

Jessica herself studied music, and her hearing is very sharp. She can hear many details that ordinary listeners cannot hear.

It’s just that the listening experience will be affected by the visual experience. Such a grand and solemn stage, as well as the hall behind the stage, add a lot of points to this song. The unformed pictures imagined in my mind have finally become concrete at this moment.

This time, you can also clearly see Zhou Yan playing the flute on the second floor, which makes the audience feel very good.

Many people at the scene had the same idea as Jessica. When attending a concert, visual satisfaction is also very important. They found that the Forbidden City Concert was not just a gimmick, but had musical significance in itself.

Zhou Yan did not wear a suit today, but a black Chinese long-sleeved double-breasted jacket. This suit was designed with the help of Dong Wenmiao. It is very similar to the double-breasted jacket handed down from the Qing Dynasty, but many details have been changed to make it more in line with modern people's aesthetics.

Dong Wenmiao is good at combining the ancient and the modern. She is always able to modify some traditional costumes to make them suitable for everyday wear. She also designed the costumes for the Piano Youth Folk Band, and everyone likes them very much.

The girls in the orchestra were particularly envious of the folk music band's costumes. They all shouted that they could play folk instruments and wanted to borrow some of their clothes.

Some people don't know how to play any traditional musical instruments, so they think about learning the erhu or something to make up for it.

……

After the first piece, "Memories of the Forbidden City", was played, there was almost no pause. Yue Lin waved his baton and the orchestra began to play the second piece, "The Great Wall of China".

"The Great Wall" had been playing for quite a while before some audience members finally realized that a new song had been played.

The styles of these two songs are very similar, and some adjustments were made during the arrangement, so that the transition was very smooth and there was no sense of incongruity.

Moreover, "The Great Wall" is very short, so it's a good choice to follow "Memories of the Forbidden City".

Before the concert started, many people speculated about the program. In addition to "Memories of the Forbidden City", "The Great Wall" was also a song that was mentioned frequently.

"The Great Wall" is not only related to ancient Chinese culture, but was also one of the theme songs for the Olympic bid that year. It has extraordinary significance for the city of Yanjing.

When the second piece of music was finished, Zhou Yan put down his bamboo flute and smiled into the microphone, "Thank you to all the performers for taking us on a journey through the long river of history for so long. Now we will let them go down and take a rest. We are going back to the modern era."

While Zhou Yan was speaking, the folk music band had already retreated backstage.

The good thing about the three-story stage is that since everyone is scattered across the three floors, it is very quick to evacuate, and the stage is very spacious, so they don’t have to take their instruments downstairs and can just leave them on the stage.

The instruments of the orchestra had already been placed on the stage, so they could just come up when it was time to change shifts.

Today, the performances of the folk band and the orchestra were alternating, with many shift changes.

In fact, Zhou Yan could also be a little lazy and divide the two bands' repertoire into two major parts, so that they only need to switch shifts once.

However, for the sake of better performance of the concert, Zhou Yan did not choose to be lazy like this, since everyone was used to taking turns anyway.

They had rehearsed this kind of shift change before, and the whole process took only less than two minutes. During these two minutes, Zhou Yan chatted with the audience.

“When you listen to this song, you probably won’t think of the Forbidden City or ancient times, but it has a special connection with this place. A few years ago, I just returned to Yanjing from the crew of Raise the Red Lantern, and was fortunate to take on the soundtrack work for the movie Letters from Heaven, and many scenes in this movie were shot nearby.”

When Zhou Yan said this, some people in the audience had already started guessing what the next song would be.

"It's The Rain."

"It must be "Wind." (summer)

“‘Always Together’.”

Seeing the audience interacting enthusiastically with Zhou Yan, Jessica and Hardison were envious. They had no idea what Zhou Yan was saying. They only knew that the next song would probably not be Chinese folk music, but a modern one.

In fact, the two of them had also learned some Chinese during this period, but they were all words like "Have you eaten?" and "How much?", which were of no use at all at this moment.

Zhou Yan on the stage heard the audience's guesses, and he smiled and said, "I've heard someone guess correctly, but everyone only guessed one thing right, because the next one is a suite, which includes three songs: "Forever Together", "Kite" and "Wind". These three songs are from my first music album, and many people know me through these songs. I believe these songs have brought you your own memories. These memories of the past are now covered in dust, but I believe these songs will help you dust off your memories and pick them up again."

When Zhou Yan finished saying this, Yue Lin nodded to him, indicating that the shift change had been completed and they could continue with the next performance at any time.

He smiled, stood up and walked to the piano on the second floor and sat down. When he sat down on the piano bench, cheers resounded throughout the venue. Many people knew that Zhou Yan's piano level was not particularly high, but they liked to watch Zhou Yan play the piano because Zhou Yan's style of playing the piano was indeed very good.

Because these are very simple songs and do not require Zhang Zuoqun, pianist Zhou Yan took to the stage himself, mainly for the visual effect.

Not only the visual effects on the scene, but also the effect of the TV live broadcast must be taken into consideration.

Since everyone likes to watch him play the piano, he will fulfill everyone's wish.

After sitting down, Zhou Yan did not speak, but started playing a group of notes on the piano keys.

When this group of notes was finished, Yue Lin started to play the beat as if he had received a signal, and then the performance officially began.

As the music slowly flowed out, everyone could tell that the first song was "Together Forever".

As Zhou Yan said, many people know him through these songs, especially "Forever Together", because this song was adapted into a song and given to Anita Mui to sing.

At that time, this song was very popular both in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Later, when Kudo Shizuka covered the song, both the tune and the song were already very popular.

Many music fans first heard Anita Mui's songs before they knew about Zhou Yan.

Of course, there are still many people who have watched "Letter from Heaven" and listened to Anita Mui's songs, but still don't know Zhou Yan. After all, most people don't pay attention to who the music director is when watching a movie, and they don't pay attention to who wrote the song when listening to the song.

It was not until later, when Zhou Yan became more and more famous, that they realized that they had actually been exposed to Zhou Yan's works a long time ago.

The overall feeling of the song "Together Forever" is melodious and relaxing, like a handful of clear water sprinkled into the heart, giving a refreshing feeling.

However, as a widely sung song, it also has its downsides, which is that many audiences have the urge to sing along when they listen to this song.

If this was Anita Mui's concert, this impulse would certainly be a good thing, and they could sing along with Anita Mui to their heart's content.

But now it's a concert, not a live show, so they can only suppress the impulse and not let it affect the performance on stage.

After "Forever Together", the second piece of the suite is "Wind".

This piece of music is light and cheerful, and every note conveys a sense of vitality, which makes people feel happy when listening to it.

In May, the temperature in Yanjing at night is neither too cold nor too hot, just right.

This is the time when spring and summer meet and life is full of vitality, which fits the mood of this song.

There are indeed some cheerful works in Zhou Yan's music, and "Wind" is a typical representative work. Basically, when talking about Zhou Yan's cheerful works, the first thing that people think of is this one, and the second is "Secret Joy" (single thread) in the movie "Sanmao Joins the Army".

Moreover, Zhou Yan played the instrument happily and was very active, and his every move stimulated the emotions of the audience.

"Wind" is very short, just over a minute, and it stops abruptly when the time is up, followed by "Kite".

The connection here is very abrupt, giving people a very uncomfortable feeling, just like a little bird originally flying freely in the sky, flying well, but suddenly hits an invisible high wall and falls directly to the ground.

With this mood, the audience heard "Kite".

The beginning of this piece of music is very sad. The piano introduction in the first part ends quickly, and after the sound of the violin comes out, the sad emotion is very full.

When viewers who have watched "Letter from Heaven" hear this song, the kite fluttering in the rain will basically appear in their minds.

One end of the string is tied to a kite, while the other end touches the hearts of the listeners. Every note is like a raindrop falling on the kite, hitting the kite and making it drift, as if it will fall at any time.

The hearts of the audience are constantly moved with every note.

Wang Junzheng, the director of "Letter from Heaven", was sitting in the first row of the audience with the factory director Han Sanping.

As a director, she poured a lot of emotion into this film, and when writing this story, she used many stories between her and her grandfather.

Therefore, when she heard "Kite" that year, her tears broke down several times.

And now, when she heard the song again, she still couldn't hold back her tears. At this moment, it was as if a floodgate had been opened in her eyes, and her tears could not stop flowing.

She cried and lamented, "When will I stop crying when I hear this song?"

Han Sanping glanced at Wang Junzheng who was crying beside him, and he was not surprised at all. He had heard before that Wang Junzheng would cry whenever he heard "Kite".

The movie "Letter From Heaven" is indeed very well made. Although it was not costly, the plot and soundtrack make people ignore the rough aspects of the movie itself.

With the increasing number of migrant workers going abroad to work in recent years, the problem of left-behind children has become more and more serious. "Letter from Heaven" is often broadcast by TV stations, and the videotape of this movie also sells well.

in the country, it is very difficult for subsequent video products of a movie to sell well, especially it is difficult to sell them sustainably.

However, "Letter from Heaven" is one of the few that performed well, and up to now, it can still bring some profits to their factory, and its sustainability is very good.

However, compared to the popularity of the soundtrack, the movie itself is far inferior.

Even without mentioning that "Together Forever" was made into a song and became widely circulated, the sales of the album "Piano Boy" alone have reached a terrifying level.

It is said that in Japan, "The Piano Boy" can still sell five-digit numbers per month, and in a year it sells better than many records of that year.

This is just the physical sales volume, there are also many copyright fees.

Although people in the mainland don't have to pay for using these songs, the songs of "Piano Boy" have to pay a lot of copyright fees every year in Japan and Europe and the United States. (End of this chapter)