Reading Chuang / Shenzhen Business Daily reporter Yang Qing
Shenzhen is not only the birthplace of pop music, but also the output of pop singers: from Zhou Bichang, who was born as a supergirl and is still active on the stage, to Chen Chusheng, a singer who is popular throughout the country from Shenzhen, to Cai Xukun, a new generation of post-98s who can sing and dance.
Unexpectedly, at the beginning of 2022, Shenzhen unexpectedly broke through the field of professional singing: on January 16, the 17th "Annual Top Ten Fever Albums" sponsored by the Guangdong Musicians Association and other units was announced, and the purpose of the album list was: the musical artistic performance of the works, innovative musical elements and recording production levels and many other aspects. Shenzhen soprano Xu Xia not only topped the "Top Ten AudioPhile Albums of the Year" with her personal album "That's Me", but also won the "Best Soprano Singing Album of the Year" and "Best LP Vinyl Record of the Year", becoming the first Shenzhen person to win three of the heaviest awards.
When the news came, the whole city was sensational. Xu Xia, who just celebrated her birthday on January 15, received this unexpected birthday gift and was both excited and excited. After resigning, she devoted herself to the field of singing, and originally made a record for the sake of fulfilling her young singing dream, but actually topped the list of fever records, Xu Xia said that she never dreamed of it.
In the past two days, Xu Xia's phone calls have been continuous, interviews from the central to local governments have been continuous, and various invitations have been one after another. On the morning of January 20, Xu Xia was interviewed by this reporter in her studio, telling about the miracle of the record's award and the hardships behind the miracle.
Singers that critics can't define: treble vs bass? Bel Canto VS Popular?
People in the industry who are not familiar with Xu Xia, after listening to Xu Xia's album, used the stone to break the sky and turn out to be a world. I don't know where Xu Xia is sacred, how can such a good noise be hidden for so long? More people are strange: Shenzhen can actually produce such a level of professional singers?
Professional music critics listened to Xu Xia's "That's Me" and didn't know how to classify it: say she is a soprano, right? Absolutely. However, she also sang softly in the mezzo-soprano. Say she's a bel canto singer, right? But her "City Lights" with pop singer Li Jian sang very popularly. I know that she is from the academy and is the tall foot of Mr. Zhou Xiaoyan, but she sings the Beijing dialect, has a board and an eye, and the words are round, more like a boy's gong body. What is new is that her singing "See You Extra Dear" actually blends Hebei Zizi and Henan Yu opera, plus bel canto and popular. If you use technical flow analysis, it is simply impossible to mouth, which faction does not belong, and which singing method cannot be covered. Just like a martial arts master who has opened up seven muscles and eight veins, she has integrated her various singing skills from childhood to university meetings into one furnace, breaking all kinds of rules and regulations, only following the strings and content of the song, seeing the song under the dish, all kinds of singing methods come naturally, and use them freely.
Finally, some experts suddenly realized: Xu Xia is in line with Shenzhen production and Shenzhen characteristics, although it can not belong to which door and which faction, but it always sings well, both technically high and touching, very rare in domestic professional female singers.
"That's Me": Old songs sing a new soul
Xu Xia said that "That Is Me" is an album that inherits classics and pays tribute to Chinese classic art songs, the album includes "That Is Me", "China in the Lights", "Forever Bonfire", "Don't Forget the Initial Heart" and other works that are loved and widely circulated by people, and the lyrics are from a group of literary and artistic masters with great influence in the country, such as famous songwriters Xiaoguang, Tian Di, Qu Yuan, Zhu Hai, etc., famous composers Gu Jianfen, Shu Nan, Jin Fenghao, Yin Qing, Zhao Jiping, Ulantoga and so on. Many songs are hidden in her memory, following her for twenty or thirty years, and can be sung with her mouth open. However, this time the album was almost entirely remade and polished.
Generally, a record is planned for a month, and a week of recording can be released. Xu Xia's "That's Me" was planned for two months, recorded for more than a year, and post-production was even slower. All the effort and intention is to produce a musical work that can be left behind, and I never thought that I could participate in the award.
Xu Xia revealed that the production cost of "That's Me" records is one to two times that of ordinary records, and the energy invested is even more immeasurable. Many songs were recorded, and after two months, Xu Xia had a new understanding and asked to re-record them. You must know that the recording cost of a song is tens of thousands, Xu Xia does not care, regardless of the cost, only for the best.
The second song on the album is "City Lights" sung by Xu Xia and Li Jian, which was originally the theme song written by Li Jian for the film of the same name. In order to meet Xu Xia's style and characteristics, at the suggestion of Li Jian, the famous musician Liu Zhuo was invited to serve as an arranger, taking into account their respective singing skills and integrating each other's achievements. When the song was recorded, it started recording at 7 p.m. and ended before 12 a.m. Li Jian's wife said that Li Jian had recorded it twice before, and this time it was really an unprecedented record.
(Xu Xia and Li Jian recording)
In the process of recording "City Lights", Xu Xia had a new inspiration for cross-border singing, and decided to re-record "Past Times" from another album "Spring Story" that had been recorded earlier. The next day, I urgently contacted the producer in Beijing, knowing that the recording studio in Beijing was very nervous and urgent. She lived in the east of Beijing, but found a recording studio in the far west. Xu Xia also did not feel hard, thousands of miles, through the entire city of Beijing, with only one purpose, want to present the best singing skills to the audience.
The famous songwriter Tian Di sighed after learning about it: "Two albums in one breath, and they are concocted by high-ranking people and built at their own expense, which seems a bit out of place." This can only be said that Xu Xia is a pure singer, a person engaged in art, and has her own things that she values! ”
Xu Xia has worked hard in Shenzhen for many years and has already developed an inclusive, open and enterprising Shenzhen temperament. Liao Changyong, a disciple who is five years younger than her, is her role model, where he sings where she hears, not only learning his singing method, observing his breathing words, but also carefully appreciating the charm of his singing and performance on the stage. The advantages and strengths of Li Jian, a popular singer who is younger than her, can be observed as soon as she cooperates, and coupled with serious discussions with Li Jian, she immediately has a new understanding. The key is that Xu Xia will use it immediately after learning, which is really a proper Shenzhen style.
"Serious" is a word that Xu Xia frequently mentions in interviews.
After singing old songs for twenty or thirty years, she also had to re-prepare before recording, practicing her voice word by word. If the recording is an original new song, Xu Xia only needs at least a month to prepare for two hours of practice every day. The rest of the time was all about the strings and lyrics of the song. Xu Xia swallowed almost word by word, chewing slowly. The usual accumulation allows Xu Xia to perform on the stage, neither a song score nor a teleprompter, words and songs have become muscle memories, even in the case of a blank mind, you can also open your mouth.
Producer Zou Tiefu: I gave "That's Me" a 98
Xu Xia said that connoisseurs look at the doorway, record production and live performances are different, and the artistic standard of an album not only requires the standard of singers, but also represents the aesthetic and artistic height of producers. "That's Me" invited Zou Tiefu, the leading record producer in China, to personally catch the knife.
Zou Tiefu said that there was never a perfect record, and I gave "That's Me" a 98.
(Xu Xia and Zou Tiefu)
Xu Xia said that the first time zou Tiefu was asked to be a post-production producer for his solo concert three years ago, it did not go well. Zou Tiefu, who has been engaged in record production for more than 40 years, produced more than a thousand songs, and published more than hundreds of albums, met Xu Xia, she was also the leader of the concert hall, and occasionally made guest concert hosts and guests. In Teacher Zou's view, Xu Xia is just playing with the nature of tickets. It wasn't until I heard her singing skills and was impressed by her professionalism that I promised to do so.
After making a record of Xu Xia's solo concert, Zou Tiefu took over the production of "That's Me". But what kind of songs to choose, Zou Tiefu is really "a husband and wife", and ordinary works cannot easily enter his eyes. Teacher Zou has a famous saying: Good sound is the last word. He chose songs to strike a balance between artistic standards and good sounds. If a song is not good, even if the artistic standard is high, he will not choose it.
"See you extra dear" is the seventh song in the country of "That's Me". It is an old song that was well known in the 1960s and 1970s, and it is interesting that Xu Xia was less than three years old when she first appeared on stage and sang this song.
Unexpectedly, when Xu Xia first proposed to Teacher Zou that she wanted to include this song, she was rejected by Teacher Zou. Teacher Zou's standards and principles for selecting songs Xu Xia had already been taught, and seeing that direct discussion had no results, she detoured to copy them.
Once, after recording other songs, Xu Xia asked Teacher Zou to listen to her sing it in its entirety and then decided, and Teacher Zou reluctantly sat down.
When Xu Xia sang the first paragraph, Teacher Zou was half lying on the sofa and smoking with Erlang's legs crossed, and when singing the second paragraph, Teacher Zou began to slowly straighten up and sit up straight, hearing that Teacher Zou was already moved in the third paragraph, and Teacher Zou was in tears in the fourth paragraph.
Xu Xia walked out of the recording studio, and Teacher Zou praised her one after another, feeling that Xu Xia had given this old song a new life. He will take extra care to make this classic and let the new version pass on.
From "Lead Play Tickets" to The Fever Record Gold Award
Xu Xia is a familiar face in Shenzhen, the founder and artistic director of Shenzhen Concert Hall, the artistic director of Shenzhen Grand Theatre, and has been deeply involved in the field of music. But more often than not, she is behind the scenes, the host, and the guest speaker of Beautiful Sunday. Many people know that she can speak and write, and only a small number of people know that she can sing. Among the few people who knew she could sing, many thought she was just "playing tickets" until she held a solo concert at the Shenzhen Grand Theatre on September 29, 2017. More talents exclaimed: Xu Xia, who originally played tickets, was so professional.
Looking at Xu Xia's resume, she sparkled from small to large: two-year-old learned to sing with her father, three-year-old staged to sing "See You Dear", 8-year-old recorded the song "Planting Pumpkins Under Jinggang Mountain" on the radio station, and 9-year-old starred in the modern Peking Opera "Red Lantern". At the age of 15, he was admitted to the art department of Jiangxi Normal University and won the grand prize of the provincial national singing competition for many times. At the age of 20, he was admitted to the Vocal Music Department of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where he studied under the famous soprano singer and educator Mr. Zhou Xiaoyan, joined the army at the age of 23 and became a soloist in the Song and Dance Troupe of the Political Department of the Beijing Second Artillery.
(Xu Xia and mentor Zhou Xiaoyan)
At the celebration party at the end of Xu Xia's concert on September 29, 2017, the famous composer Yin Qing sincerely advised Xu Xia that you should give up all administrative work and concentrate on singing in order to live up to god's reward for your good noise. You should still have ten good years, it's a shame it was wasted.
Xu Xia was the artistic director of the Shenzhen Grand Theatre at the time, and the next day she handed in her resignation letter. Rather than saying that Teacher Yin Qing's words touched her, it is better to say that the love flowing in her heart was awakened, and finally found that the love of this life was still singing.
Since then, Xu Xia has plunged into the field of singing and teaching, and she has set herself a small goal of holding one concert a year and producing one record a year. "That's Me" is one of Xu Xia's records plan. In the process of realizing her dreams, Xu Xia also helped many students like her who had musical dreams. Use the talent she is best at to do what she loves the most, light herself up, illuminate others, and live her true appearance freely, Xu Xia said that now is the happiest stage of her life.
At the end of the interview, Xu Xia received a comment from Liu Cong, a famous composer in China: "A few days ago, singer Mr. Luan Feng recommended to me the album of soprano Xu Xia's "That's Me" that won the annual fever album chart. I began to appreciate it, because its singing was like the magic of the story told by the princess of "One Thousand and One Nights", I listened to all the songs of the album, and I had the following feelings, and I was happy to spit it out:
The concept and technology of singing method appear in a simple and natural posture, highlighting the elegance and freedom; the diversity and spanning of the style, presented in a pure and authentic Chinese, highlights the colorful; the aesthetic style and taste, with the ethereal and noble temperament, highlights the outstanding; the self-confidence and diversity of culture, with the compatibility of the heart and mind of the sea and the river, highlights the harmony and difference. In the marriage of art and the market, the muddy waters and copper smell of art and entertainment, there is undoubtedly a clear spring and a breeze. ”
Xu Xia's "That's Me" art song album was successfully awarded, which not only showed the height of Shenzhen culture, but also injected a fresh Shenzhen wind into the beautiful singing world.
(Images in this article are provided by the interviewee) Review: Tan Lugang