New Music Industry Watch original article, unauthorized refusal to reprint
Author | Tomorrow
After the explosion of "The Hidden Corner" in June this year, a large number of new memes were contributed. "Take you to climb the mountain", "write you in the diary", "step on your dirty little white shoes" and "sing "Little White Boat" to you" have become the four life nightmares of contemporary netizens.
Not only that, the soundtrack in the play has also been mentioned by countless netizens, causing heated discussions, and Ding Ke, the composer who scored the score for this work, has also been named "Yin Musician".
Ding Ke recently took a picture
Although netizens have said that they are "too frightened", people who know him well are not surprised, because this is indeed "too dingke". From "Treading Blood and Plums" at the Golden Horse Awards and Golden Film Awards to "Under the Sun" at the Beijing Film Festival, Ding's recognizable film scores have won the hearts of audiences and judges.
Even as early as 2011, his work "If" was sought after by everyone because of its unique voice and minimalist musical style. To this day, some people go online to ask questions after listening: "Is Ding a boy or a girl?" ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > to take the music away from the movie</h1>
Since arriving in France four years ago, Dinco has had a habit of walking alone on the Seine at the end of the day. Even in the six months of scoring The Hidden Corner, this habit is still maintained.
This year's Dragon Boat Festival, during the "Hidden Corner" fire, Ding Ke went to the river he often went to on Weibo to take a photo, with the text "Put your hand in". Among the 70 comments, the hot comment with the highest number of likes was "Teacher Ding has scared me, the ultimate horror film lover", and sent a "hug" expression.
The reason why netizens have such a big reaction is because "Put Your Hand In" is a work in the soundtrack of "The Hidden Corner". In two minutes and thirty-two seconds of music, electronic voices are accompanied by the murmur of a human voice, repeating a certain motive. In the TV series, zhang Dongsheng and Zhu Chaoyang passed by, and Zhang Dongsheng whispered to Zhu Chaoyang, "You shouldn't come to me."
The Hidden Corner album cover
The two seemingly unrelated scenes were titled "Put Your Hand In" by Ding Ke, who said that it was a little fun in the soundtrack. He was keen to title his scores, such as "Put in and Marinate for a Few Days", "The Technical Details of Life", "The Branches of the Rickets", and lay out these seemingly unrelated images as long poems.
"Maybe I think it's related to the plot or the film itself, but it can have a certain sense of distance, and I also hope that this music can exist separately from the film." So I will feel the music itself, and then make a more poetic interpretation in combination with the plot," Ding Ke told Xinguan, and through the short title, it seems that further dialogue between the composer and the audience can be realized.
This fun began with 2017's "Blizzard Is Coming.". Similar to the score of The Hidden Corner, Ding used many experimental elements when composing the work. In contrast, in order to create a gloomy atmosphere, Ding Ke deliberately chose industrial electronic elements, especially adding low and quiet strings to create a sense of ethereal and detached. In this work, the use of "dark shafts" and "scum in dreams" also makes music more musical itself.
Album cover of "The Rainstorm Is Coming"
The addition of these titles is not out of thin air, in fact, in order to make the soundtrack more independent, Dink is also a very picky person in this regard. "I'm quite picky about the script," Ding Ke said, "I hope that the music can have a lot of possibilities and imagination space, can give the film a special sense of beauty or participate in the characters." Ding Ke said bluntly, if the soundtrack he received was only functional and became a vassal of the film, "I have no interest in doing that kind of music." ”
In Ding Ke's view, although working on the soundtrack and producing an album by yourself are two concepts, "the soundtrack music will always give you a time node, usually within two and a half months, and your own album is more casual." And as the film continues to edit, the music also needs to be adjusted over and over again, with stronger work attributes and more intense writing.
But he still wants the soundtrack to be not just a job, but also a piece of work that he has worked hard to polish. If you want to make your music better, you need to be responsible for each of your works.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > to pull the ego away from Vanity Fair</h1>
After the explosion of "The Hidden Corner", Ding Ke's invitations also increased, but he did not like to participate in various activities, and his low profile was obvious to all. Ding Ke said that his life had not changed after he "went out of the circle", and he would still go to drink with friends one night, go for a walk by the Seine in the early morning, get up at noon, paint, play the piano, and sing.
In the era of desire for success, Ding Ke is a low-materialistic person, he does not seem to have too much demand for everything: the soundtrack and interlude of "Blood and Plum" were nominated for the Golden Horse Award and the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Film Music and Best Film Song respectively, he said that "winning the award is a good thing, it will be very happy, it does not matter"; when asked how to look at the balance between business and art, he replied bluntly, "Don't balance, you like to do whatever you like, anyway, I am okay." ”
Dink
Ding Ke likes to live in the state of the moment, he has his own concerns.
He likes to cook, and he likes to watch movies while drinking, or chatting with girls while drinking, and he also makes a lot of new friends. A Parisian friend who became a chef at the age of thirty had a deep influence on Ding Ke, who liked to cook the same things. The friend's favorite place was the wet market in every country, in every new city, and he would stay at every spice stall for a long time, holding it in his hand to let the smell of each spice pour into his nose, which he thought was a particularly happy thing. This friend invented a lot of dishes, like a work of art, and he was the most real person in the world that Ding Ke had ever seen.
"Real life" also makes Ding Ke pay more attention to the things around him. In 2012, Ding Ke went to Suzhou to participate in an event, sharing the stage with Kunqu opera artist Lv Chengfang, and after learning that Lu Chengfang's son liked his music, Ding Ke took the initiative to write "Sunshine Forever Companion" on his album "Island" and gave it to him. Lu Chengfang said, "Ding Ke did not know in advance that 'Yang' was my son's name, and his son fell asleep with his voice that night", Ding Ke recorded the story on Weibo, and wrote: "In this world, people always have to leave a dream for themselves, or how can they have the courage to live viciously." ”
Although he said that he was "viciously alive", unlike the lonely and gloomy voice in the music, his friend always described him as "gentle". A radio anchor friend commented that Ding Ke was "a particularly simple person, low-key, humble, sincere, which is the biggest charm I feel in him." That feeling is sometimes like a child, clear, transparent, gentle with a little shyness."
After withdrawing from Vanity Fair, Ding Ke is still a real person. Compared with the prize and success, the Parisian chef friend who smells spices in the market and the little boy who falls asleep listening to his songs are more impressive to him.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > to withdraw the body from the known field</h1>
Ding Ke grew up in Liuzhou, Guangxi, a small city that often appears in Liu Zongyuan's poems: "Eunuchs are sad and miserable, and spring and half are like autumn." The mountain city has run out of rain and flowers, and the banyan leaves are full of warblers crying. Ding Ke also has a kind of literati feeling in ancient Chinese poetry, and most of his music is rainy and rainy.
Ding Ke junior high school era (image source see watermark)
Ding Ke said that he was a "pessimist, but the general direction remained optimistic", he told Xinguan, "I accepted that life is always a chicken feather, there will always be problems that cannot be swept away, trouble and pain will follow, and I am often tired." But I feel that being intimate with people, and maintaining a state of creation, new experiences, will give me a lot of hope. ”
His literati feelings are also expressed in constant wandering.
Since junior high school, Ding Ke has loved rock and roll and started to form bands with his friends, and when he came to Beijing from Liuzhou in college, he finally had more time to play music with like-minded people. In the cloud scenery of Tongzhou in Beijing, a group of young people from Liuzhou live in the clouds every day, Ding Ke and friends formed an ion pet band, and Kong Yicia, the lead singer of the tour group, said, "At that time, we thought that it was not us, and today after fifteen years,...... I think that's who we are."
Coming to Beijing, Ding Ke began to participate in music festivals and various performances, and gradually turned to music creation. His music is particularly moving, and the 2012 album "Island" is a Dinko style molding, and the "If" included in it is even more memorable to many people. After this, he also began to write film and television drama soundtracks, "Treading Blood and Finding Plums" is Ding Ke's early soundtrack work. Also from that year on, Ding Ke did many stage scores, he scored for avant-garde plays and experimental dance plays, collaborated with academic composers, but surprisingly never learned about scoring.
Ding Ke said: "I have been making music based on my feelings, finding my favorite sounds and notes. But he also feels fortunate to have this mode of learning, "I am very fortunate that I am a non-academic, I started to create with interest." For me, there is music before there are rules, and the rules are sorted out by people later. ”
Dinko began a systematic study of music theory, starting with a trip to France four years ago. Ding Ke wanted to feel a different cultural atmosphere, but in fact this idea began when Ding Ke first saw the French movie "The Wild Rose of Paris". As early as middle school, Ding Ke watched the first French film "Paris Wild Rose", and was strongly touched by French films for the first time, "The aesthetic atmosphere and music in it made me obsessed with it uncontrollably." Therefore, although there are familiar circles and lives in Beijing, the fate of the drifters seems to be urging Ding Ke to change his living environment.
Dinkl has collaborated with foreign musicians on recordings
After coming to France, Ding Ke said bluntly: "The respect and tolerance of human nature here is something I could not imagine, people are growing according to their inner spiritual embryos, different forms, but very charming." It is also the experience and experience here that has greatly changed Ding Ke's thinking and understanding of "creation", and these understandings are also concentrated in Ding Ke's music.
The experience of learning to paint also allowed Ding Ke to divide his music into several different colors. He divided his work from 2007 to 2011 into white, and around 2013 he began to focus on ugliness, and the work became cruel. After coming to France, 2016's "Dark Sea" began, Ding Ke gradually returned to emotion and softness, "but the fundamental things have changed, become a little blacker", Ding Ke said, "The Hidden Corner" color is different from 2016, "in my case, like that cover, it is a state that is almost black but can see blurry shadows." ”
Ding Ke and his paintings (source see watermark)
This year, Ding Ke's other soundtrack, "Under the Sun", stripped away the shackles of traditional instruments and used the human voice as the main instrument, Ding Ke tried to construct a sense of judgment through chanting, observing all the stories that are happening from the perspective of God. Ding can have a kind of "back to the original" perceptual understanding, to feel the picture and sound, a bit like Sakamoto Ryuichi in the forest with branches to knock stones, fishing in the polar glacier, French life gives Ding Ke more unlimited possibilities.
From Liuzhou to Beijing to France, Dinker's wandering journey is like Wagner's "Wandering Dutchman". Ding Ke told Xinguan that he had experienced many so-called "foreign lands" experiences from childhood to adulthood, and these foreign experiences also brought him strong adaptability and new experiences, and the constant change of locations would give him the opportunity to pack his bags and start again, and have a new examination of the old things in his body.
Whether it is musically different or physically drifting, Ding Ke always examines himself as a kind of foreigner, and constantly develops a new relationship between the other and the self. He kept pulling away from what he had gained, about fame and fortune, about the field. This requires great self-discipline, a process of constantly overthrowing the self and constantly constructing.
By the Seine, where Dinkke often goes (see watermark for source)
Ding Ke is a very boundary-bounded person, like to keep a distance from the public; but at the same time he is also very grounded, likes to have a few drinks with friends; he is a pessimist, which can be spied on from music; but at the same time he is also full of hope for life, but also a person who says that he has a sense of mission, this sense of mission is more responsible for himself, "I hope that when I am alive, I can always create various forms of things"; Ding Ke is lonely, and at the same time enthusiastic... Two opposing qualities always coexist in him at the same time, and in him we can glimpse the complex and fascinating human nature of an artist.
A few years ago, CCTV did a root-seeking program called "Where Do Guests Come From", and the examination and observation of the self has been continuously reflected in each individual, who am I? Where am I from? Where will I go? From essentialism to linguistics, there are countless explanations and thoughts, but these ultimate tortures always seem to haunt us.
As for the question of "where did it come from", Ding Ke was not worried. Coming from both the mountains and lakes and the streets of the city, he was a stranger, but he knew better than anyone where he came from and where he was going.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > dialogue Dink</h1>
Xinguan: Do you agree with someone who commented on your musical style as "a unique musical style that combines dream pop, minimalist classicism and post-shake elements, as well as the atmosphere of the film soundtrack that exudes from the song, which can be said to make his music unique in China at present"?
Ding Ke: It is difficult to say whether it is unique or not, and this thing cannot be quantified, if you think it is. In the past, when I first started making music, I liked to label myself and feel what style and doctrine I was, and now I don't know what style I am, I think what style of music may be interested in doing, my orientation and taste have been changing with time, and each stage is different.
Xinguan: But everyone will say that you are influenced by minimalism, so you pay more attention to this tag (label) and cause you to write more and more similar music?
Ding Ke: Not at all, I don't know what my current music belongs to, anyway, it doesn't have much to do with this word. I will also do a lot of different types of music in the future.
Cover of the soundtrack of the movie "Blood in Search of Plums"
New View: How did you conceive of the soundtrack to The Hidden Corners?
Dinko: I got the script first, but I only knew the story roughly. Later, after getting the cut video file, I really started to get into the creation. But the editing will be adjusted from time to time, and every time they make adjustments they will send me a new version, and the music will be adjusted accordingly if needed. Movie music will always give you a time node, usually within two and a half months. "The Hidden Corner" is a 12-episode series, and the volume is far more than the movie, which took about half a year before and after.
New View: After "The Hidden Corner", netizens called the soundtrack inside "Yin Le", and also gave you a name called "Yin Le Ren", what is your own attitude towards this title?
Dinko: I'm not particularly so-called, but it's also very funny.
New View: In fact, in addition to "The Hidden Corner" this year, you also have a soundtrack of "Under the Sun", leaving aside the differences in the instrumentation, the styles of the two parts actually have some commonalities, where do you think the similarities between the two are expressed?
Ding Ke: With the changes in my life, from "Under the Sun" I began to have a more different feeling and understanding of film music than before, plus I began to be obsessed with some more prominent sounds, and I also used more sensibility to feel the picture, and my "fun" was also broader than before, so from that time on, the concert was very different from before, and it was also the "common ground" you said.
Poster for the movie Under the Sun
New View: What exactly does this "different understanding and feeling" mean?
Dinko: Starting with Under the Sun, I felt that for me, music can be very three-dimensional in a movie. It can go into a role, or it can play a role. Music can use its sound to become a character in the play with different timbres, melodies, and which form it constructs.
This character, you can define it in many ways. For example, in "Under the Sun", I used a lot of vocals, and when the music appeared, it seemed to have a "third eye", or an "eye of God". It's a perspective that differentiates it from all the characters in it, the feeling of being snooping at it all, under the sun, for me, it should be.
In fact, for "The Hidden Corner", there is also a little (this feeling), that is, when this thing happens, or when this theme is expressed, the role of "music" also appears, it may be like a ghost, or like a soul, behind this thing, I don't know how to use words to describe it.
※Except for the pictures in this article, except for the special notes and the movie music poster and cover, the rest are from the author's pictures
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