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Which sound of nature makes you remember the most? The sea, the mountains, the birds, the insects... For Li Xingyu, who likes to include the sounds of nature, it is a wonderful song of life, "On this planet, the most beautiful thing is every brilliant life." ”
Recently, the "Chao Hua Xi Shi" program of the Voice of China of the Central Broadcasting Department of the Central Broadcasting Department interviewed Li Xingyu, a sound designer and independent music producer, known as the "Nature Recording Engineer", to listen to his story of the magical and diverse biological world and colorful and wonderful sounds.
Sound designer and independent music producer Lee Sung-woo
Live-streamed calls
Helping Skywalker Gibbon "get rid of the order"
In 2020, the wildlife documentary "Heavenly Song" was released, with an online rating of 9.8 points. The documentary mainly shows the survival of the endangered species of Tianxing gibbon living in Gaoligong Mountain, Yunnan Province. Li Xingyu is deeply involved in the work of the project as a sound artist, helping Tianxing Gibbon to "get off the list".
Skywalker Gibbon (Image source: Colourful Nature)
The Tianxing gibbon is a new species of ape discovered and named by the team of Chinese scientist Professor Fan Pengfei, and only about 150 remain in China. As the documentary filming continued to deepen, it also triggered the creative team to think: Why is the Skywalker Gibbon on the verge of extinction? It turns out that due to the severe fragmentation of their habitat, it is difficult for populations to communicate genes between them, thus facing the risk of species extinction.
How do you get the Celestial Gibbons to communicate and get close to each other? "I proposed to use live broadcasting to transmit calls", Li Xingyu believes that Tianxing gibbons need to socialize like humans, and live broadcasting has become a part of our current Internet life, "We can use the 'live blind date' method to let the Tianxing gibbons that are tens of kilometers away communicate with each other, and they will have the motivation to find the other half." ”
△ Collect the voice of the Skywalking gibbon
△ Skywalker gibbon chirps
The scholars listened to his advice to conduct experiments, and then set up live broadcast equipment in different habitats in Gaoligong Mountain, Yunnan Province, and through strong microphones, let the heterosexual Celestial Gibbons in the two places "ape sing" to each other and establish social connections.
Skywalker Gibbon (Image source: Colourful Nature)
"It's a long-term process, but what we can be clear about is that the Skywalker gibbons, hearing the cries of their companions, already knew that the distant had their own race, helping them to find their other half." This is also the greatest significance of this move, which brings hope to their protection and reproduction. Li Xingyu said happily.
Launch of the Amazon Voice Search Program
Record sloth calls
You must be familiar with the slow-moving sloth that has seen Zootopia, but have you ever heard the sloth's cry? I really didn't expect this slow guy's voice to be very high-pitched and penetrating. Li Xingyu was the one who recorded its sound.
△ Sloth shouting
In 2016, Li Xingyu embarked on a journey through the Amazon rainforest out of anxiety about urban noise and wanted to regain calm. He launched the Amazon Sound Search Program, which aims to record the world that is disappearing with sound. "Due to the shortage of funds at that time, I launched a crowdfunding campaign, and I did not expect to get the enthusiastic support of many people I did not know." Therefore, he took everyone's curiosity about nature to start a journey to find the sound of the Amazon rainforest.
After fifteen days of isolation, Li Xingyu and his team recorded various sounds in this primeval jungle. For the first time, he heard the sloth's cry, like a whistle. Due to the many and complicated sounds in the rainforest, when li xingyu and the team first began to collect sounds, they were blind and recorded whatever they wanted. "But then we wondered if we could record some different sounds, so we threw the tape recorder in various corners of the rainforest, let it work 24 hours a day, and then took it back the next day to listen to the sound."
In this way, you can feel the change of sound in the rainforest one day. In the morning, the insects that like to be active during the day begin to chirp, and when the sun rises, various birds begin to "sing", and at this time the mammals also begin to wake up and make their own sounds. At noon, the temperature rises and everything is basically calm. In the evening, it is lively again, the animals are hunting or going home, the nocturnal animals are moving, and there are very different sounds. "It's a cycle every day, and nature has a very regular routine, which is different from life in our city."
According to Li Xingyu, life in the rainforest is full of "danger". The creatures in the rainforest are relatively savage and have a strong self-protective aggression. Crocodiles may be lurking not far away by the river where they sleep and bathe; seemingly cute animals are also terrifyingly aggressive; even storms come... Li Xingyu said that these experiences made him deeply feel that the power of nature is so powerful, and he is even more in awe of nature.
Li Xingyu collected sounds in the Amazon River, and after being reminded by locals, he learned that there were several crocodiles gathered not far away.
Convert collected sounds into musical compositions
The most important thing is the process of exploration
After the Amazon tour, Li Xingyu and his team added the sounds collected along the way to their own thinking, and through the artistic expression of music, transformed them into a complete and ultimate compilation of works , the "Amazon Trilogy".
"There was a song on the third album, 'The Fantastic Journey of a Teenager', and that 'teenager' was me. I hope that through this album, I can convey to people that although today's technology is very developed, there are still many unknown ideas waiting for us to explore, and arouse everyone's yearning for nature and romantic imagination. ”
Through the search for the sounds of nature, Li Xingyu found that there were so many different biological populations in nature, which made him more determined to protect them in his own way.
"I hope that through my own efforts, I can bring everyone a kind of yearning power." Li Xingyu admits that his musical works cannot tell people what nature is like, but if it can make everyone yearn for nature, trigger curiosity about nature, and embark on their own journey, it is its significance.
Modern foley technology is very advanced, but Li Xingyu still insists on recording sounds from nature. On this point, he explained, the most important thing is the action, the process of exploration. Only by putting yourself in that environment and exposing yourself to nature can you have an emotional connection with nature. "I've been to so many places, and they're all precious memories for me, and they all have very deep emotional connections, and I want to arouse people's attention to the conservation of biodiversity in these places."
The next sound-seeking plan is about to start again, Li Xingyu said, this time to go to the ocean. "What I want you to hear is a heartfelt language that is common to every life."
▌Source of this article: Voice of China (ID: zgzs001)
Producer 丨Bai Zhonghua
Reporter 丨 Cheng Sui'er
Edited by Cheng Sui'er Zhang Yi
New Media Editor 丨 Chen Yu