Wen | Xuyan
Edited | Mulberry
Open that world in your heart
Mr. Hisaishi let Mr. Ordinary day begin.
He always got up around 11 a.m., had a cup of coffee, went for a walk in the mountains and forests near his home, and then came back for lunch, dangling around, and two or three hours passed. Just in time, he felt, entering the most sober moment of the brain, "from the root is still a composer, the best situation of the day is naturally used to compose music." 」
He stayed in the studio, doing nothing but write music until the middle of the night, getting up, wandering home, and letting the music continue to accompany him. The septuagenarian is still learning classical music until daylight comes on. At 5 a.m., that's when he should go to bed, and then it's 11 a.m. to get up and go on with his normal day.
Annoyances are also common. "Deadline is the first productive force," a phrase that has been widely circulated among creators, has been experienced more deeply than anyone else. There were too many invitations for him to compose music, and there was no end, and he described "deadline" as "life." It was only when the movie release date was decided, and the concert date was decided, that the pieces gradually flowed out of his body, "There is no deadline, but it can't be completed."
Born out of this seemingly loose and casual space is the soundtrack of Hisaishi's film that has influenced Asia and the world. "Totoro", "Spirited Away", "Castle in the Sky", "The Goldfish Princess on the Cliff" constitute Ghibli's childhood portraits, "The Mortician", "Kikujiro's Summer", "That Summer, The Quiet Sea" flutters with the warmth of Japanese movies, "Let the Bullets Fly", "Ocean Paradise", "When is the Moon", "The Sun Also Rises" and other Chinese films, allowing his music to cross borders and reach farther corners. Almost anywhere in the world, there is always someone who can empathize with Hisaishi's music.
Why do these empathies arise? In his book "Moved, So Created", Hisaishi wrote that creators have two attitudes, one is personal, they follow their own will and values, pursue works that satisfy themselves, do not care about cost and production, and only pursue art; the other is social, connecting themselves with society and seeing the needs of the public. He believes that he is undoubtedly the latter.
"The so-called composer naturally creates a song in his own mind, but only when the song is heard and shared by a third party will it become a complete world... Often oscillating between the music and social needs that you want to do is a social act in itself. Who hasn't spent 85% of their lives worrying about relationships and their role in society. Accept yourself like this, as a member of society, this will not harm yourself."
It turns out that Hisaishi's troubles are the same as ours. He said that the people who make music and create industrial products are no different, they are ordinary people in society. Accepting this identity, while accepting the simplest troubles, can create a voice that is closer to the masses and society.
From the age of four, his father often took Hisaishi to the cinema to watch movies. 6 films a week, 300 a year, so soaked in the film lasted for more than 4 years. Love movies, action movies, even original English movies, everything is informal, he watches. In the years that followed, Hisaishi always remembered the impact of his childhood movies, saying that the cinema was the place where he could hear the most beautiful and expansive music of that era.
In the small corner of the dark cinema, he liked that place, sat there, and felt the most direct and powerful stimulation given by the film music. If he comes across a movie he likes or music he likes, he will not leave, and he will have to watch it twice.
For Hisaishi, the cinema was a place of enlightenment, and film music opened up the world in his heart. He has not yet entered the adult world, and he has already felt the power and mystery of music in the cinema. The audience Hisaishi Jean, the listener Hisaishi Jean, in the small movie theater, saw the core of music, is to let ordinary people have happiness and happiness.
Discover people, express people, listen to people
Hisaishi Was never an ordinary person.
The famous Japanese composer Nario Mie said that the boys who play the piano at the National University of Music in Japan are stupid, the singing is even more stupid, and the only people who are smart and respected are the people in the composition department. However, Hisaishi Jean, a graduate of the Composition Department of the University of Music, "screwed up" his graduation performance.
On that day, all the composition students submitted a very traditional, Bartok-like repertoire. He was the only one who, using the flute, piano and violin, made a modern musical genre with a dissonant interval. On the eve of the show, he drank too much, fainted to play, and only remembered that he played the piano, what did he play? I don't know. The teacher who has a good relationship said, you are really messy. He didn't panic either, laughing and saying, "No matter what, it's a discordant music, and how you play it won't change."
Hisaishi jean has realized his difference. While his friends were listening to the Beatles, he became obsessed with modern music. In college, he heard Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air, a 1960s song that was colorful and diverse, like a giant, colorful industrial machine, and swept him in. The electronic instruments combined with classical music, filled with dissonant intervals, shocked him.
He also wants to make music like this. After graduating from college, Hisaishi spent three years writing a minimalist piece of music that could not even be called a piece, and he discovered that time or enthusiasm alone was not enough. He felt depressed, and that frustration ran through the days leading up to his 30s. "It's all frustration." Hisaishi said that he didn't even have a concert that could publish a repertoire. He found a few friends, all of whom were undesirable composers, and everyone got together and did a concert like a solo exhibition. Looking down from the stage, there were five piles of people sitting clearly, and they counted carefully, this pile is your relative, and that pile is my relative.
Not knowing how to make music, Hisaishi found that even though he had so many theoretical weapons, he still couldn't make really good music, or that his music could not be seen and understood by the listener.
He began to wonder what kind of music the world needed. At that time, he heard the songs of the British Roxy Music band, with a charming, romantic, rock temperament, beautiful and popular, and it is a beauty that ordinary people can feel. This gave Hisaishi the inspiration: How to truly reach and connect people's hearts? Perhaps, it is still necessary to go back to the beginning, to the film music that influenced him.
In 1984, at the age of 34, Jean Hisaishi composed music for the animated film "Valley of the Wind" and officially entered the field of film music. It was also Miyazaki's first animated film to direct. As a result, they began decades of cooperation and friendship.
Hisaishi's song makes the movie look different. He hated the routine of the film soundtrack: the actor had to play sad songs as soon as he cried, and the romantic love scenes had to use sweet music. This is not Hisaishi Jean. "This practice means that music is only a product of dependence and attachment to the image. I don't want the music to just imitate the picture as it is, and it must not be reduced to an accessory to the image."
When working with the grumpy Jiang Wen, Hisaishi Jean did not compromise. Jiang Wen stuffed the blank and needed to be scored in the movie "The Sun Also Rises" with the classical music of Chopin and Mozart, and said to Hisaishi Jean, Write it. Hisaishi was angry, "I'm not Mozart, and I can't create the same music." He smashed his cigarette butt on the piano and went upstairs.
Of course, in the end, Jiang Wen was satisfied, and said that Hisaishi's music was "a little better than Mozart's."
To impress people, we must first understand people. Hisaishi has had many conversations with the famous Japanese anatomist and writer Monji. He told the elderLy Mens that music and anatomy are very similar, both dissecting an object. The music is dissecting people, observing people in three dimensions. He talked about a time when he was conducting the Fifth Symphony by the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, but months passed, and even if he analyzed it often all night, he could not really fit in. It wasn't until he read a book by the elderLy mons, which talked about Jewish culture and voter consciousness, that he realized what the song was trying to express, and that moment was like "being hit by an electric current."
This experience made Hisaishi more aware that whether it is composing or conducting, music is all about discovering people, expressing people, and listening to people. That's why his music is always soothing— behind those notes is a powerful empathy, and as an artist, the most essential understanding of human emotions, the most authentic experience of the world.
Music, proof of being alive
What does music really mean to ordinary people?
In 2008, at the beginning of the new year, Japan's NHK television station issued a call for "What does singing mean to you?" They received 13,144 letters telling subtle and moving stories scattered across Japan.
Yu Sauce, a 29-year-old housewife, said that music was a miracle of meeting and supported her through the three-day long delivery process, "the miracle of the birth of a daughter will never be forgotten in her lifetime." A 43-year-old mother from Tokyo said that the song was "proof of life", her 16-year-old son died of an accident, there was still his record in the bedroom, and sometimes, she would pull out a sheet and listen to it, "Because of this music, my mother knows that you have come." 」
Hisaishi composed a song for these stories, "The Power of Singing.". He said that he wanted those 13,144 stories to enter the melody and survive. He captured the most essential memories and emotions of ordinary people for music, turned them into notes, and conducted the performance on the spot. On the stage stood more than a dozen of Japan's most influential idol groups and singers, including SMAP, ARASHI, AKI, and the head of the biology unit. The music sounded, some people's bodies trembled, some people's eyes were moist.
Music soothes people's hearts and proves the traces of life. The power of this proof touched Hisaishi even more after the 2011 March 11 earthquake. What can music do in the face of the catastrophe of life being taken away in an instant?
In April 2011, before the panic of the disaster had dissipated, Hisaishi went to schools in Miyagi, Sendai, Iwate, and other disaster-stricken areas. The musical instruments in the school were swept away by the tsunami, and there was a sense of misery in the air. He thought that something had to be done, "What I have to do is just a grain in the dune." But you can't stop."
This became the opportunity for him to go abroad and tour various places. At a painful time, Hisaishi hopes that music can cross generations, cross borders, and reach more people. "The most important thing about music is to reach the human heart, and if it doesn't, then it doesn't make any sense."
Before leaving, Hisaishi wrote a long letter in which he said he saw help and encouragement from all over the world, as well as people struggling behind them. He was also shocked by the uniform walkers at the Nishi-Azabu Intersection in Tokyo on the night of the earthquake. He wondered, when had the people of this country become like this, like sheep, domesticated quietly?
For the soothing of pain, musicians can only use music to convey. He wanted to make some changes with music, for the country, and for those young people. At that time, most of the charity concerts were praises and appeasement, and Hisaishi was reluctant to do so, and felt that it was not the right time. He set up four concerts in Tokyo, Osaka, Paris and Beijing to convey the true power of music, a testament to the existence of the living and the dead.
"Since ancient times, the Japanese in this beautiful country have always been able to survive tenaciously and coexist with nature while suffering natural disasters, and they believe in this power. At the end of the movie Princess Mononoke, there's a line like, "Let's live together." Hisaishi jean said.
Go to the world you create
In August, Hisaishi asked his Chinese music fans on Weibo, "What is your dream?" One of the most highly praised comments was, "The dream is to go to the world you create."
What kind of world is the world of Hisaishi? Some netizens described it as, "A candy-colored midsummer night dream." It is a sonata of crickets, a ball of bees and butterflies under the stars, and a tiny world suspended in a magical light. And I am a bystander of this little world, as if I were never going to wake up from a dream."
Always healed, always soothed, Hisaishi makes the creation of a wider world through music, across borders and languages. In this world, children are willing to come, adults are not willing to go, there is no dispute, and there is no limitation.
On September 25 this year, Takeshi Kitano's film "Kikujiro's Summer" will also be released for the first time in China, and Hisaishi's "Summer" for this film is many people's deepest memories of summer. Japanese actor Jun Tamura once told Hisaishi that he likes "Kikujiro's Summer" the most, and anyone has memories of summer vacation, and whenever "Summer" sounds, unique emotions will surge in their hearts. He asked Hisaishi how he could create such a music that is rich in common human emotions and can shake the hearts of others.
"Music must first move itself." Hisaishi rang in reply. Moving yourself can move others, "The audience is not so simple, you have to face the real people." 」 Even if there is a concert with 10,000 listeners gathered, you will be moved by one person. Because I just want to make one-on-one music."
This kind of communication between "people" and "people" has suffered an unprecedented impact in the past decade. The world is changing, music is also changing, the Internet and big data have made music more industrialized, smooth and smooth, but less "human" flavor. Hisaishi jean said that over the years, songs have always liked to be narrated in the second person, and "I like you" said too much, but did not care about the other party's response.
But what he wants to do is to be able to take care of the music of others, so that everyone's emotions can be responded to and placed.
Every ordinary day, Hisaishi is enriching and expanding the world he has created. Although he is 70 years old, like ordinary people, he has the habit of exercising and fitness, keeping his body fat rate at a certain level. In the face of aging, he is naturally a little worried, but not so worried, he feels that Miyazaki is 79 years old, can still work, he can also.
It is also in these ordinary days that we glimpse the secret of Hisaishi's soothing music: he never stands on top, but immerses himself in real life itself, he opens his whole to accept the imperfections of life, accepts aging and reality, and composes music with age and life. It is the most authentic power of life that is the most impressive.
This summer, Hisaishi made him a little busy. In addition to facing the enthusiasm and blessings of Chinese audiences for the release of "Kikujiro's Summer", he also created a song called "Will be the wind" tailored for Lexus Full Hybrid Technology. As the owner of the Lexus Hybrid RX 450h, he can feel the same feeling as the wind, and only by driving can he understand the freedom and power that this car brings. Like all Hisaishi's music, this piece is derived from life.
"Lexus gives me the feeling of being brisk and smooth, with momentum and movement... I also hope to make a happy song for this mass-produced happy brand." Hisaishi Jean said.
Hisaishi's collaboration with Lexus has a long history. In 2016, Hisaishi came to China to hold a symphony concert in Shanghai titled Lexus, and he even played previously undisclosed pieces for Chinese audiences, out of trust in the Lexus brand.
Music understands people's hearts, and cars understand them. Hisaishi and Lexus both humbly placed themselves on the horizon, not looking down, but looking from afar. A master composer, listening carefully to the voices of others, it is possible to create truly soothing music; a brand that listens attentively to the needs of users can create a warm, safe, and pleasant moving space for users, and Lexus' subtle, almost harsh pursuits are all aimed at bringing the most beautiful experience to users.
When asked why he named the song "Will be the wind," Mr. Hisaishi smiled and said that what he wanted to express was literal. Will be the wind, perhaps, is in the special year of 2020, looking forward to everyone with courage and facing the wind; perhaps, it is hoped that every listener can feel from the song that when the wind is coming, their different moods.
Although the summer has passed, the ripples of the re-screening of "Kikujiro's Summer" are still rippling layer by layer, and more children, as well as the "children" of the year, will take their children into the movie theater, sit in that small corner, like 4-year-old Hisaishi, looking up at the colors on the screen, listening to the music in the darkness, and slowly opening the hidden, warm, and free world in their hearts.
Video loading...