Last month, the famous Chinese soprano Ke Luwa's new interpretation of the song "Moon River", the classic old song "Fly me to the moon" covered by young singer Jin Shengquan and the new original single "Ave Maria" by young singer Jin Tianze have landed on major music broadcasting platforms around the world. Behind the birth of these three new golden songs, it is inseparable from the escort of senior music producer Zhang Zixuan and his international team.
After studying classical music for more than a decade, and then studying with Singapore's top pop musician Lee Wai-sung for many years, This experience has made Zhang Zixuan deeply aware of the essence of classical and pop music. In his subsequent musical production experience, from film scores to operas, operas to pop music, he innovatively proposed the concept of "POP Classical Classical Fusion" music. The so-called "classical fusion" is a musical ideology, a cultural phenomenon, and a musical style. This unique style of music has since been integrated into every piece of music produced by him and has been widely acclaimed.
For him, such musical expression has no restrictions on style and regionality, but uses all musical styles to make reasonable innovations in the trend music of the current era - starting from the music itself, using all musical styles to make reasonable innovations in the trend music of the current era, using technical content and advanced musical language to express in the musical core, through retro combined with modern musical expressions, breaking the restrictions of musical style and regionality. "So, this form of music will not become obsolete, and in another ten, twenty years and the future, it will be possible to integrate with the most popular musical styles of the time."
Over the years, Zhang Zixuan has tried a variety of musical work, from singer to composer, lyricist, to arrangement, mixing, and mastering, each of which is not only a new challenge, but also a learning and accumulated experience. In the process of continuous experimentation, Zhang Zixuan also found the greatest charm as a producer. The daily life of the music producer is responsible for all aspects of the song production, not only the song, musician, singer, need to pay attention to the details of each song in real time, the music producer needs to supervise the production of the song and the entire production process.
"Music is a whole, how to quickly knead everything together and make it into something with temperature, this is the essence of music." He believes, "In my concept, I can't take the character apart, the biggest challenge is that every song is different, and the producer needs to schedule and control the whole situation." In previous years, sometimes listening to my music from the perspective of a listener, which was the most difficult thing for me, to overcome my own psychology, just like to open up the second vein of Ren Dou. ”
In 2017, Zhang Zixuan established Hong Kong Tailwind Time International Media Co. (LTD) as the founder. In 2020, he established Shanghai Wuyi Music Entertainment Co., Ltd. as the founder, the company has now become the world's leading independent music solution expert, for professional performers, singers, singers, music lovers to create their own ultimate music, measuring and customizing their own planning, production, publicity and distribution of all solutions. The business covers the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, Chinese mainland, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with more than 1,000 global musician resources, more than 100 head practitioners, including many head musicians who have won not limited to the Gramophone Award and the Grammy Award. It is the strength of Zhang Zixuan and his team to quickly help users match any music production and distribution resources they want at home and abroad, and let consumers establish close cooperation with many musicians around the world at the same time. At the same time, it is directly connected to 200+ music platforms around the world, covering 230+ countries and regions around the world, and also provides different levels of music advertising services.
"We want to show a new corporate culture in the form of music." He said.
Nowadays, Zhang Zixuan has set his sights on the current popular NFT field, and in the future, he bluntly said that the team will also focus partly on the cross-border integration of music and finance, and plans to try to launch a model that combines streaming music and emerging financial payments. "The emerging financial payment model is to use blockchain technology to empower NFTs in music, so that each NFT music contains unique identifying information, permanent and unchangeable." He said.
The following Forbes China Dialogue Zhang Zixuan:
Forbes China: Can you give us a brief overview of the three new singles you released last month?
Zhang Zixuan: The production cycle of the three songs is one month. The first song is a reinterpretation of the well-known classic old song "Moon River". I was also the producer of this song, and Sister Xiaofen (Ma Yufen) and I co-served as the backing producer. In the mastering session, we invited Bernie Grundman, a well-known mastering engineer who won 14 Grammy Tropics, arranged by Singaporean arranger Terence Teo, and the mix was Chen Bohao from Taiwan, and the orchestra invited the Hungarian symphony orchestra to make a new arrangement.
The second song, "Fly me to the moon", is also produced by me, as well as a supporting producer. Terence Teo is the arranger and brass writer, while another Singaporean musician, Fung Kin Ping, heads the mixing, mastering and digital engineers. The entire song was recorded in Shanghai and New York, with Singaporean remixes, mastering, and a global team working together. The recording time of this song was three days, during which the singer changed 4 different microphones in order to pursue the most perfect singing and sound state, and only began recording until the microphone that matched the most suitable singer's voice began.
The third song is actually very meaningful in terms of the title. "Ave Maria" means "Ave Maria", which is the catholic expression of respect and praise to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, and is also the subject of one of the most classic praises of the Catholic Church. The song "Ave Maria," written, composed and arranged by the singer himself, is one of his most important creations of 2020. The creation period coincided with the severe epidemic period, and the song contained the thoughts of hometown and the gifts to the heroes of the fight against the epidemic.
The song is mastered by British engineer Andy Walter, who has won four phonograph awards and two Grammy Award nominations, including "Harry Potter", "The Lord of the Rings", "Everest", "Cinderella", "Atonement" and other well-known Hollywood blockbuster classic soundtracks are produced by him, and we jointly added the golden song to the birth.
Forbes China: What are some of the innovations in these three songs compared to other music you've made before? Were there any interesting stories that happened during the production of the new single?
Zhang Zixuan: Each song can communicate with different members and collide with different sparks, but I think the "most interesting" episode is that when I recorded "Fly me to the moon", in order to pursue the most suitable emotional narrative state, I came up with a "trick" to let the singer completely relax and find the most lazy feeling by drinking. Therefore, in the final product, there are many sounds that are actually expressions in a slightly drunk state, just right. In order to let the singer record with a different texture every time, I also tried to sing lying down, in addition to laziness, pursuing a completely relaxed sound texture, which is completely a super relaxed mood.
Forbes China: Can you tell us about the daily work of music producers? In your opinion, what role does the profession of music producer play in the birth of a good piece of music?
Zhang Zixuan: When making decisions about sound and artistic direction, it is very important to understand the audience and the target group. When musicians interpret songs they create, it is difficult to think about their own music from their own perspective, and even the slightest difference can have a very big impact. So having a producer who understands music and understands the commercial market in which your musical style is currently located will be very critical, bringing you new ideas that you can't think of. There are many sources of inspiration that burst out of the music recording process, but the most unique ones often come from the depths of your soul. A producer will guide you when you're faced with tough choices and help you discover yourself in terms of musical innovation and expansion. Make your songs more in tune with the soul and heart of the musician.
In addition, positioning is actually very difficult. Deciding which part of the song needs to be more artistic, which part needs to be more stylized, and so on, requires the musician to fully understand himself, the audience, and the areas you want to touch. For a production team with many people, the communication of producers is also very important. Because such musicians often have a lot of different opinions and suggestions around them, at this time, someone needs to make trade-offs between these opinions and suggestions from the perspective of overall needs. Let everyone execute according to the planned plan, and manage all the ancillary links from the arranger to the author to the engineer.
Forbes China: What professional qualities do you think you need to be a good music producer? What are your differentiating features and advantages over other young producers in the industry?
Zhang Zixuan: I think a lot of times it feels like a director is to a movie, and a good professional producer can tell which is good and what needs to be improved. Not only must you have the skills of music engineering, harmony, playing, composition, arrangement, singing, etc., but also learn to listen to the performance and singing of electroacoustic bands, symphony orchestras and singers from the perspective of the audience. You need to listen to music like a multi-track machine, and always pay attention to every element in the music, fully communicate your vision of the song to all relevant people such as engineers, musicians, singers, etc., make timely decisions, and make every part of the song as perfectly as possible.
Throughout the recording process of music, I usually take a combination of rationality and sensibility, adjust my feelings and expressions to the same frequency as the music, and personally feel the emotional changes between singers and instruments. To put it simply: to judge with rational thinking and to feel with emotional thinking. Rationality is to confirm the accurate timbre of instruments and singers when recording through experience, such as microphone selection, compression, frequency control, space requirements, including customizing exclusive recording rulers for singers, etc., with different words, compression, microphones to match the temperament of this song. Sensibility is to determine the singer's mood through the eyes, sometimes through chatting to relax and adjust the singer's tense emotions, feel the temperature between each word, and the temperature of each air outlet. This is also a small trick for me during the recording process. Let the singer express the most sincere emotions, let go of all the vocal skills, and let the emotion of every word of the TA be real. Emotional outlet is very important, I will try my best to help singers understand their strengths and weaknesses, so that each singer not only pays attention to the music itself, but also pays attention to the real meaning behind the music.
Forbes China: Your growth trajectory is mostly influenced by singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan music, how do you see the current situation and future prospects of the mainland music market?
Zhang Zixuan: Judging from the singers nominated for the major weight lists, we can find that compared with the glory of the Hong Kong and Taiwan music markets ten years ago, the Chinese music center began to shift to the mainland, and the gradual improvement of the music industry chain has formed the current prosperous development of mainland music. Mainland music has also begun to move from being led to hand in hand with Hong Kong and Taiwan music and beginning to occupy the mainstream market.
I am also very optimistic about China's music market, our country has been developing, the copyright system is also constantly improving, new musicians are constantly emerging, the model is constantly changing, and the development of a country and culture is inseparable, and music I think occupies a large territory, for the future actually need a certain good model, such as the development of short videos and copyright market, I hope that in the future everyone can enjoy music, play music, it is not untouchable, I have been working hard.
Forbes China: In the future, what are your hopes and expectations for your career development? Are there any new plans for the future?
Zhang Zixuan: Blockchain music has actually entered people's field of vision in 2016, and music is also one of the most anticipated application areas. Five years later, the global digital music market is once again out of the loop and has become the focus of media attention. Today's digital music market blockchain application has more scenario applications than five years ago, but it is still in the early stages of development. So we want to use this technology to surprise every musician we represent. We will use blockchain technology to carry out in-depth demand mining and exploration of different differentiated customer groups such as music producers and music consumer groups, so as to carry out corresponding product positioning.
For example, musicians can choose a variety of service content according to their own preferences. You can sing your own songs, or you can produce and sing songs in collaboration with your favorite artists and songwriters. Each song will use NFT technology to "encrypt and code" various information such as singers, lyricists, and arrangers, and finally the finished songs will be released in a limited edition worldwide in the form of a collector's edition, or only for online auditions, and can even be auctioned and collected. Information hidden in music through blockchain technology will make music unique. This "smart contract" type of encryption technology makes the music market simpler, more transparent and more regulated. Standardized copyright payments also allow music to derive value from the market in the same way. Music consumer groups can directly purchase the finished products of musicians on relevant industry platforms to support their favorite musicians.
After the successful purchase, we can also carry out personalized secondary adaptations for customers, generate new music NFT finished products, and these secondary adaptations and transfer information will not cover the previous works, but accumulate on the previous works, and each transfer and modification of the copyright of the work will be recorded in the music information through the NFT, so that we can not only better solve the problem of music copyright and the income of all participating musicians, but also protect the interests of original musicians. The works of musicians can be pushed to an unprecedented height, not just the increase in revenue and traffic, and the model of blockchain technology and music integration under the attention of the media in the new era is still very market potential.
As a world-leading independent music solution solution company, using NFT music to connect with international standards, is also one of my personal important plans for the company's future, we also look forward to becoming a member of the forerunners of domestic NFT music, we believe that with the continuous maturity of blockchain technology and the continuous improvement of the market supervision system, we will also try to become a reality, through this emerging payment model for everyone who loves music to bring the dividends of the times. Of course, this plan is still in preparation, and it still needs to wait for the maturity of various conditions such as the regulatory layer.
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