"In an instant, there are a million possibilities, it is time to go forward, or to continue to wait, and there are a million uncertainties on this winter night, gradually into the middle of the night, or looking forward to the dawn ..."
You may not be unfamiliar with this song "A Million Possibilities" that became popular on Douyin. However, you may not know that the lyrics and original song of this song are actually an American girl, Chris Ding.
She has loved music since she was a child, and once released her debut music album "A Million Possibilities", all of which filled in the lyrics for herself.
She is also a lover of Chinese, especially classical poetry. He is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Classical Chinese Literature in the United States, where he studied Chinese 13 years. For all kinds of poetry, she is familiar with it, and believes that Chinese is a romantic language.
Thanks to the promotion of Douyin, her attention to various online platforms in China is increasing day by day. Recently, she signed a contract with a well-known domestic guild and MCN organization Sky Culture Media, opening a new creative journey.
"A Million Possibilities" became popular
In 2018, a Russian song MV became popular on Douyin. In the video, the male protagonist's chest is pierced by a spear, but he still runs fearlessly to the love of his heart, and the person he loves also throws himself into his arms without hesitation, even if he is injured.
The unswerving love theme expressed in this video has resonated with the majority of netizens and has been spread by crazy forwarding.
Followed by the background music of the MV "A Million Possibilities", the gentle and ethereal voice, the lyrics of mourning but not hurt are straight to the bottom of the heart, many netizens use this song as background music to make short videos, this song quickly became popular.
According to network data, "One Million Possibilities" has been played more than 300 million times on Douyin, and the version recorded by netizens for the second time has exceeded 4 million people, which is a well-deserved "Douyin Divine Comedy".
But Chris Ding, the original singer of "A Million Possibilities", did not know that her music was loved by so many netizens at that time. At that time, she was still studying in the United States, and a netizen told her on YouTube: "You know what? You're especially hot on TikTok. ”
Although the United States also has Tiktok (Douyin overseas version), Chrissy Ding does not know much about this platform. With curiosity, she decided to go to the vibrato that netizens said, but she did not expect that just downloading this app, she spent 2 months.
When she finally downloaded Douyin and registered her account, she found that although there were still many people using "A Million Possibilities", the popularity had dropped, and she couldn't help but sigh: "These changes are so fast." ”
Talking about the impact of the popularity of "A Million Possibilities" on her, Chrissy Told Today's Internet Celebrities: "I actually wanted to find out what video made my music popular, and then I saw this Russian MV with my music." After watching this MV, she praised it, "The MV is well shot, not the same as my style."
According to her, "A Million Possibilities" is based on her self-titled album released in 2013, with her own lyrics. In fact, this is not the first time she has written Chinese song.
In 2010, when she was studying in Taiwan, she began to post videos on YouTube, covering songs such as "Things You Don't Know" and "I Won't Like You", which gradually attracted attention on the Internet and attracted the attention of Tao Shan, a well-known producer in Taiwan.
In 2011, Chrissy Ding and Tao Shan finally collaborated on the single "Seeking to Find", which was also the first Chinese song she composed.
"At that time, when I was composing this song, I felt that the mood was very similar to Li Qingzhao's 'Slow Sound', so I added a sentence in it: 'Seeking to Find'." Talking about the song's creative process, she said it took only 1 hour to write the lyrics.
Because she was taking a course called "Poetics" at the time, and the teacher asked them to compose an ancient poem every week, she began to be exposed to the basic techniques of poetry creation.
"After I met Tao Shan, we made a few songs together, which gave me the inspiration to write my own songs, so I wrote a song in the dormitory, with the words I filled in, and then played it to Tao Shan, and he thought it was quite good." So, Tao Shan slightly modified the song, and the two filmed a MV together, and posted the song to YouTube.
Later, the song was transferred to social media such as Youku and Tudou, and it received thousands of Weibo retweets in just a few days.
She didn't know the song was on fire. "Later, someone told me on YouTube that I realized that the song was so popular." As a result, she received attention and invitations from many TV programs, and it was also at this time that she appeared on "I Want to Go to the Spring Festival Gala".
In 2013, she signed a contract with Taiwanese agency Fengyun Entertainment, published her own poetry collection "Chrissy's Search and Search", and began to prepare her debut album, "A Million Possibilities" was put on the production schedule at this time.
The album took almost 2 years to produce, and finally included 8 songs, all of which were written by Chrissy herself.
Talking about this time, Chrissy Ding said: "The whole creative process is slowly groping, so you may feel that there is no concept when you listen to this album, because we are just happy to play music and record a lot of songs. ”
Later, she went to the United States to pursue a doctorate in classical literature, so she did not have much time to continue playing music. It wasn't until "A Million Possibilities" became popular that her love for music and poetry was rekindled.
He has been studying Chinese for 13 years and is obsessed with ancient poetry
At the beginning of this year, Chris Ding sang a new version of "One Million Possibilities" in a CCTV variety show "Classic Yong Chuan", which integrated more classical Chinese culture, including Zhuangzi's butterflies, dreams, Penglai wonderland, etc., plus the original version of the wording, but also showed the beauty of Classical Chinese.
Zhuangzi was called the most romantic man in the world by her, and learning Chinese was the most romantic thing she had ever done.
Chrissy's relationship with Chinese stemmed from college. American college classes use ancient poetry to teach Chinese, but she first came into contact with English translations of classical Chinese literature such as Chu Ci and Zhuangzi.
From first contact, she became very interested in them, so in order to read the original version of the Chinese, she chose to study in Chinese direction. Also in 2010, With her enthusiasm for Chinese and yearning for classical Chinese culture, Chrissy came to Beijing International Chinese University for 4 months to study.
Later, after determining that she was indeed interested in Chinese, she went to Taiwan to continue to study Chinese and Chinese culture.
So far, she has been studying Chinese for 13 years, but she still loves ancient poetry. So in order to better understand the beauty of classical Chinese poetry, she embarked on the road of study. She is currently studying for a Ph.D. in Classical Chinese Literature at the University of Wisconsin.
Chrissy excelled in both studies and scholarships from childhood to adulthood, and mastered multiple languages. She learned Spanish and French in high school, and she is currently learning Japanese, laughing that "learning language is addictive."
She said that language is her key to opening the world, and she can see the beauty of the world through the window of language and communicate with more people.
Because of her excellent grades, Chrissy's father originally hoped that she would become a scientist like him and go to Harvard University. But she prefers music and poetry to scientists, enjoys the creative process and fun, and even says that her life will feel empty without creation.
"I think it's the most fun to be able to bring out my creativity, and it's not boring." Later, I was admitted to Northwestern University, majoring in economics, but I didn't like to sit in the office and work, so after choosing Chinese direction, I planned to teach Chinese. ”
A few years later, Chrissy Ding did not become a Chinese teacher as she had imagined, but opened up a world of music.
Talking about her encounters with music, Chrissy Ding said that she has had a musical atmosphere at home since she was a child.
"My dad was very good at playing the guitar, and a lot of people in the family liked to sing, like my aunt was a vocal singer, and I used to sing in church when I was a kid."
When she was a child, her family also hired a special tutor for her to sing, and she also learned a little piano and began to learn guitar in college. "The instrument can not be said to be very professional, the most professional should be singing." Chrissy said modestly.
The encounter with Chinese song originated from the movie "The Secret That Cannot Be Said", and at that time, I was attracted to the songs in the movie and thought it was very good.
Later, she began to like the popular singers in the Chinese music scene at that time, Such as Jay Chou and Wang Lihong, and would cover their songs in her spare time, and since then she has formed an indissoluble relationship with Chinese songs.
Signed a contract with Skye and made a live broadcast of short videos
Today, Chrissy lives in the United States and runs a restaurant in the city where the school is located. She confessed that she very much wanted to come to China to perform, but at this stage she could not leave.
On July 10, she was invited by Blue Shield Guitar Company in Xiamen to come to China to participate in the event.
At the same time, on the afternoon of July 13, she also officially signed a contract with Sky Culture Media, and the signing ceremony was held in Xiamen Jimei Film and Television Cultural and Creative Park, and Wu Yongrong, CEO of Sky Culture Media, and dozens of artists attended the signing ceremony and delivered a speech.
Her acquaintance with Skye was a coincidence.
Previously, she was invited by Blue Shield Guitar Company to visit the company in Xiamen. Blue Shield was preparing a custom guitar for her at the time, and in the contact at that time, she met the relevant person in charge of Skye through Blue Shield.
"Skye has a big advantage, and their online media do a good job, like live broadcasts, short videos, etc. I'm a more like a hermit and don't go to any media platforms, so I think that with their help and some ideas, I can send more content, which will be of great help to me. So Chrissy and Skye hit it off.
The popularity of "A Million Possibilities" made her realize the ability of China's live broadcast and short video platforms to win popular songs.
Now, she began to publish short video works on her Douyin account "Christine Welch", from song singing to daily life sharing, and she began to actively embrace the live short video platform.
"I think TikTok is cool, there are a lot of features for making videos." At present, she has released 6 videos and continues to explore the features of Douyin.
As the original singer of the douyin divine song "A Million Possibilities", Chrissy Ding felt that Douyin provided a new path for music dissemination in a sense, and the cost was lower.
The emergence of the live short video platform can quickly win popular songs in a short period of time and discover more high-quality music creators, and Chrissy Ding enjoyed the gifts given to her by the times.
"The platform can make some songs that are very good but have no financial support popular, I think it is a good thing, you can let the good music be heard, it used to cost a lot of money to promote a song, now the rights are returned to young people." This, she argues, is where TikTok differs from YouTube, which can be difficult to have such a "sudden outburst."
Today, she is still preparing new songs, saying that she will always insist on music creation, and hope to further combine music and poetry." In the future, in addition to music creation, she said that Skye may also help her to recite poetry, which is her interest and specialty.
She also hopes that through her, she can bring Chinese culture, literature and local beauty to the United States, and hopes to spread Chinese culture through her influence.
"Many foreigners do not have the opportunity to contact Chinese culture, especially Chinese classical literature, and there should be few people who are so interested in classical literature as I am." According to her, she was previously invited by the China-U.S. Tourism Office to be a Sino-U.S. tourism ambassador, and this experience made her feel very happy to combine music, culture and tourism.
After holding hands with Skye, Chrissy Hopes to share and communicate with mainland fans more through live broadcast and short video platforms, and she hopes that everyone's impression of herself is not only "Americans who can sing Chinese songs", but also recognizes that she is an independent individual, and truly understands her love and harvest for Chinese culture from music.
For the future, she said that there is no specific plan, but the original intention of insisting on music and poetry creation will not change.
After all, she is not only the original creator of the TikTok divine song "A Million Possibilities", but also a creator who loves Chinese culture and is obsessed with music and poetry.
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