Free instructional videos
The heart is the universe, and I call it freedom
Author:Snow Ridge Cave Voice Snowii (Zhihu)
This "Free Instructional Video" is the most musical song in Jay Chou's "Cross-Era" album, and Jay Chou tried Blues-Rock for the first time. This kind of musical work is easy to be unpopular, but it is enough to open up the gap between Jay Chou and other musicians.
The song is a song written by Jay Chou in the United States. At that time, Jaylen was filming "The Green Hornet" in the United States, and because he was too bored, he was resting on the trailer, and then he heard someone playing the guitar. Jay Chou felt that the guitar melody was quite special, so he asked the man to teach him to play. Then, Jay Chou thought of writing a song about "free teaching" and created the song.
Blues, a music created by black Americans, pursues an unconstrained state and pays attention to improvisation; the derived Blues-Rock naturally absorbs the characteristics of Rock, which sounds more dynamic and noisy. In such a style, Jay Chou + Huang Junlang + Cai Kejun (+ Giant Cannon) naturally played very high and very enjoyable and very unrestrained, so the Golden Melody Award judge waved a big hand -
Now let's break down the details of the song.
Composer: Jay Chou
Lyricist: Huang Junlang
Arrangement: Cai Kejun
Singer: Jay Chou
Producer: Jay Chou
The song's passages, harmonies, and scales all follow the characteristics of Blues music. Most of the passages follow the tradition of one paragraph in twelve bars of Blues, and the chord progression is also carried out in the traditional Blues -
1-1-1-1-
4-4-1-1-
5-4-1-5-
All are genus seven chords, which are the foundation of the blues. B3 and b7, which are heavily added to the scale, create a strong blues flavor. This style is very demanding on the arrangement, and the arrangement even highlights the style of the song more than the composition. And Teacher Cai Kejun also lived up to expectations, using a variety of rhythmic patterns in the typical blues chord progression, so that the whole song sounded repetitive and varied, rich and not boring.
The OS that began with the casual electric guitar and drum appeared, hahahahaha has enough to laugh, come on, drag the giant cannon out and chop it.
The guitar after OS transforms into a dynamic rhythm with a triplet, which continues through the 24 bars of the main song after the prelude.
There are a lot of details worth digging into in this main song, I will say two: "You are deliberate" after the guitar played a string of notes - 1 b3 4 b5 5 4 b3 1, used for paragraph transitions, after "I play called freedom" and then appeared again, but this time changed to bass playing (this string of notes in the following paragraphs was even directly sung by Jay Chou); and "rock rhythm in the right hand, soul in the left hand" In the sentence "the right hand" harmony of "in the right hand" is in the right channel of the headphones, and "in the left hand" is in the left channel of the headphones.
The lyrics use a technique called "word painting", which Chinese translated as "word painting", and the lyrics correspond to the development of music, for example, when the chords of the twelve bars are repeated in the second half of the main song, the lyrics are sung: "Are you, feel... Blues is repeating these chords", which is word painting (this kind of lyrics was written to the extreme in "Turkish Ice Cream" a few years later).
Wikipedia Word painting
A clear highlight from the second half of the main song to the chorus is that the main vocal part and a track chorus constitute Call & Response, which literally means call and response, which is manifested in the chorus of the song:
……
Call: Listen to my Blues
（Response：Blues）
Call: Learn to scream
(Response: Scream)
Call: Than a Peace
（Response：Peace）
Call: It's for a photo
(Response: Taking pictures)
Such choruses are like the Street Blues artists playing and interacting with the audience while singing, although this treatment is obviously designed, but this is a very live treatment, which makes the improvisation of the blues music to the fullest. The chorus guitar has changed compared to before, pay attention to listen to it can be heard, to.
("Blues" in the lyrics has been explained before; "than a peace" should mean a more than a peace gesture, the back of the hand extending outwards with the index finger and middle finger than a V; the source of "ice" I haven't found yet...) ）
The interlude guitar federstyle is played by guitar master Lu Jiahong, which is really wonderful (reminiscent of the guitar solo interspersed in the middle of "The Little Blacksmith of Milan")... Later, Jaylen practiced this section for this song, and then took out his hand at the concert... As for whether he learned it when shooting the MV, it is difficult to say... Of course, Jay Chou's MV is purely for handsome.
When it is "broken", there is really a sound of guitar strings breaking, which is really wonderful. (Jay Chou will think about buying another guitar, isn't it time to change a string...) The melody of the second main song is completely different from the first main song, and a pre-chorus is added afterwards.
Notice that "You must have thought I was going to do it next" is the same melody as the string of notes that the guitar and bass played during the passage transition mentioned earlier. The pre-chorus here breaks away from the original chord direction, playing the 1-b6-5-b5-4-b6-5-b6-5-b6-5-b6-5-, which sounds tense, and finally stays two bars on the highly inclined fifth-level seventh chord, leaving some anticipation before entering the chorus. After repeating the clamor of the chorus, "Do you want to understand what "do you want to do again"? ——
It is the note "1 b3 4 b5 5 4 b3 1" that appears when the paragraph transitions. A new paragraph has been opened —
"If you add a few tones, it will change the country flavor"...
At this time, the blues chords were still played, but the guitar playing style really moved closer to the country (country), the drum kit also slowed down, and the lyrics were also a common theme in the country music - country life, very casually sang to "cowboy is busy and no time to help you milk cows", mentioning the song "Cowboy is busy".
(Last time, "Mr. Magic" also sang the "no trouble, no trouble, no trouble" of "Cowboy is Busy", I think it is to reflect the lyrics that appeared in the lyrics of "you can never guess ~", guessed it ~?) And this time "Free Teaching Video" is to directly show the characteristics of the country. ）
During the transition, he sang "la la The last chorus was sung with a lot of inflection, or emphasized that point - improvisation. "Of course, the charm is too strong to be loved by others" was sung again, expanding the 12 bars to 16 bars, and the drum kit also strengthened the frequency of use of the hi-hat, and the whole song reached its climax.
The interaction at the end is very live and fun.
Ha? Can't you hear any interaction? I'll tell you --
Jay Chou: I can't --
Guitar: 1 b3 4 b5 5 4 b3 1
Jay Chou: Do it again—"
Jay Chou: The last time -
Jay Chou: Make up again --
Guitar: 1 b3 4 b5 5 4 b3 5——
Jay Chou: wow~
guitar:...... （fxxk！ ）
Do you hear it now? Isn't it fun?
Composer: Jay Chou asked the street artist who played the guitar when he was in the United States, so he got the inspiration for this song, and then wrote the composition of this song according to the characteristics of blues music, I guess the main theme and chorus of this song should be composed together. In addition to the melody being written flat and almost meaningless, the multiple paragraphs and multiple transpositions of the whole song sound like countless inspirations falling from the sky.
Lyrics: Ah Lang's words or propositional composition, most of the words should be jay Chou asked to join, but Ah Lang still grasped the most attractive feature of this music - improvisation. "The rhythm of rock and roll is in the right hand, the soul is in the left hand, the heart is the universe, and I play the name freedom" This sentence is simply a stroke of genius, perfectly expressing "improvisation". Clever word painting is also a manifestation of improvisation. This kind of word will not be tall, but its charm will be understood by people who understand it.
(I like to comment on songs by reading and understanding the lyrics, and I want my soul to be vicissitudes and deep feelings, this song is not for you.) ）
Arrangement: The best arrangement is not covered, the blues element is vividly reflected in the arrangement. As the guitarist of Jay Chou's "royal use", Cai Kejun's understanding and control of guitar and bass are very mature, and he creates a rich sense of hearing in the repetitive chord progression. The timbre of the arrangement is also very clear, giving people a feeling of international standards and high grade. He was not involved in much arrangement, but each capital had a bright spot in terms of choice of timbre. The interlude Lu Jiahong's acoustic guitar finger play is so handsome that countless guitar lovers come to say: "Coach, I want to learn finger play." ”
(Just as "Sunny Day" made countless people want to learn guitar playing and singing.) ）
Singing: Jaylen sang at the age of 30 is not a young man that many old fans like, but it is very compatible with the dashing style of this song blues.
After Jay Chou opened JVR, without the shackles of the boss, he began to break the "talent exhaustion" according to his own ideas... Each album experiments with different niche music genres:
"I'm Busy" has "Cowboys Are Busy" – Country
Magic has "Mr. Magic" - New-Orleans Jazz
"Cross-Era" has "Free Instructional Video" - Blues-Rock
"Exclamation Point" has "Sailors Afraid of Water" - Ragtime
…………
But it seems that they didn't stick to it like R&B, lyrical rock, metal rap... Maybe it's just because he feels that the response hasn't met his expectations. The mix of various musical elements of the last "Turkish Ice Cream", the rap + classical round dance music of "Past Life Lover", I don't know if it can meet his psychological expectations, I hope to go further.
A fan of mine told me that "The Little Blacksmith of Milan" bought a guitar, he grew up to become a guitar artist, so he came out with a "Free Instructional Video" to teach you to play the guitar.
So, who can tell me:
What did the little blacksmith go through to travel thousands of miles from Italy to the United States?
How did he go from a white boy playing Eastern European folk songs on an acoustic guitar to a rough guy playing black music on an electric guitar? Why go from a poor man who tries to save money to buy a guitar to a guy who buys a guitar when the string breaks and dares to borrow money with a thick face?
Is this a moral degeneration?
Or is it a distortion of human nature?
Please watch Jay Chou's next album.
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