Based on the eastern fantasies of Chang'an, Yunzhong and Haidu, try to build the king's glory of a world view as grand as Marvel universe. How can we meet with Chinese traditional folk music magically?

The melodious erhu rhymes slowly. In front of the book with mottled light and shadow, the performer dressed in white is simple and elegant, standing in the snow. When the bowstring duels, the melodious melody dances with the snowflakes. The lute with full grain size is added to the performance, and large pearls and small pearls fall on the jade plate between the rotating axis and plucking. The sonorous and powerful Chinese drum then took over the ears, and the stage turned from pure white to warm red. Open up and close up, and move people's hearts. Then came the bamboo flute and the zither, which made people feel like they were in the green mountains. After the gathering of five notes, a splendid national music festival was officially opened

On the evening of the last day of the National Day holiday (October 7), the King's Glory New National Music Concert was officially held, and Xinhua and other central media carried out live broadcast. The nearly 2-hour concert was brilliant, which was performed by top artists in various fields, and also presented by Agudo, Mengqi, Xishi and other king glory hero singles in the form of national music version. In particular, behind each section of the audience, a newly established national orchestra, Canyon National Orchestra, made the finishing touch. In the vast treasure house of traditional Chinese music, the five young performers of Canyon National Orchestra selected the thin waist pipa, thirteen stringed zither, curly Xiqin and other musical instruments that appeared in the Dunhuang murals, and played the Dunhuang Suite with them, which is refreshing and directly ignites the whole audience, as if to bring people back to the past.

"A performance looks like being invited to the canyon world and having a dream full of oriental colors." The audience commented.

One minute on stage, ten years off stage. In fact, the Canyon National Orchestra is a glorious team of kings who dive deep into the vast ocean of national music. On the basis of gathering five outstanding young performers in the field of domestic folk music, it was formally launched in June 2022 after a long time of polishing. Together with King Glory, who was nicknamed "the music company delayed by games", they are committed to promoting Chinese national music and inheriting excellent Chinese traditional culture.

Wild Hope of New National Music

"The earliest music form of King Glory is grand symphony, but we want to do something different, because we are a game product that focuses more on oriental culture and oriental world outlook." Looking back on why the Canyon National Orchestra was established as a national music group, Lin Jie, who has been working for the Canyon National Orchestra for more than a year, said.

Lin Jie is the project leader of King Glory Canyon National Orchestra. According to his introduction, the official multi-purpose symphony of King Glory presents a grand epic feeling. Famous Hollywood composers Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore and others were invited to practice their music and created early soundtracks such as "Glory Theme" and "Eternal Chang'an City" for the king's glory. These symphonies formed the early musical keynote of the king's glory.

However, symphony can not fully meet the needs. The glory of the king based on oriental fantasy needs more elements of Chinese nationalization and localization. Previously, the team of King Glory built a virtual world represented by Chang'an, Yunzhong and Haidu. On this vast territory, hundreds of heroic characters appeared on the stage to interpret their own heroic stories. On this basis, the king tried to create a world view as grand as Marvel universe. Therefore, absorbing and carrying forward China's excellent traditional culture has become an important inspiration for the King's glorious team.

The same is true of music. Previously, in the field of pop music, King Glory's team joined forces with Han Hong, Hua Chenyu, Li Yuchun and other young singers to create a popular hero theme song. In terms of national music, the team has conducted in-depth cooperation with Zhao Cong, the head of the Central National Orchestra, Tan Dun, a famous composer, and so on. In the King's Glory Symphony Concert launched in 2019 and 2020, the sound of many national instruments has been integrated. The "special color" brought by these national instruments has become the touching main melody in the symphony base.

"It's so happy today. For the first time, my music 'rookie' understood the symphony." Moved by the sound of familiar Chinese musical instruments, an audience who participated in the 2019 King's Glory Symphony Concert sent feedback to the team. The audience believed that the symphony was always regarded as a sunny day, but in fact, it was because they could not understand the symphony interpretation of the western cultural background story. "They thought that they needed high musical attainments, and the king's symphony performance was an oriental background, so they suddenly had a resonance."

This allows the king's team to think more. The wonderful combination of national music and symphony is deeply loved by the younger generation, and the feedback is warm on the network platform. Not only has it won the praise of the audience, but these symphony fairs with national instruments have also brought commercial success. According to Wu Wei, a team member, the symphony concert tour held in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen in 2019, and the tour held nationwide with Poly Performance in 2020 and 2021, all achieved good box office results.

This also allows the glory of the king to further deepen the confidence in national music and start to try more possibilities. Lin Jie recalled: "So can we have a national music group to do a lot of creative content?"

Restoring Lost Musical Instruments in Dunhuang Murals

Lin Jie and the colleagues of the King Glory Team quickly started their work after the ideas that they hoped to continue to explore in depth were supported.

However, the first problem before them is that among the numerous and diverse Chinese national instruments, there are a series of instruments including plucking, wind blowing, string pulling, percussion, etc. Which are more characteristic and representative, can support a national orchestra, and reflect the unique characteristics of Chinese music? This got the team thinking.

The orchestra composed of various musical instruments has a long history of development in ancient China. In the famous surviving painting Han Xizai's Night Banquet in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, in addition to Li Ji's pipa solo, in the scene of Han Xizai and his guests listening to the Qing Dynasty blowing, Li Jiaming, the deputy envoy of the church, hit the clapper and played with bamboo flute and blazing pipe; In the contemporary "Heyue Tujuan", more than ten musical instruments, including pipa, zheng, fang xiang, sheng, slim waist drum, chi ba, etc., participated in the performance, which was unprecedented; Among the painted pottery dance figurines of the Sui Dynasty unearthed in Nanyang, Henan, the lifelike musical figurines are soft. Some of them are playing the pipa, some are playing the harp, some are playing the flute and the panpipe, and some are playing the cymbals; In the dance music painting of the Tang Dynasty in Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, the accompaniment orchestra for the dancing of Hu Xuan also includes flute, pipa, zither, Jiegu and other orchestral and percussion instruments.

After consulting and studying many musical instruments, the king's glorious music team selected pipa, zither, erhu, flute and percussion instruments represented by drums. The five musical instruments include wind instruments, string plucking instruments, plucking instruments and percussion instruments. After evaluation, these five instruments can form the background of a small chamber orchestra.

Quintet is a common performance form of chamber music, and the number of players is five, which also conforms to the rules of the game of king glory, that is, five players are divided into five groups, and they need to cooperate with each other to win the game.

Although there are five kinds of musical instruments, after more than a year of preparation, the team members found that in the process of adaptation and recording of all tracks, the five musicians of Canyon National Orchestra can play more than 40 kinds of musical instruments.

In the video of the Cloud Song Festival on June 27, the program team also specially noted and gave camera close-up that the musical instruments played by five young performers were copied from the murals of Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, namely, the five stringed lute with straight neck and thin waist, which was created in Cave 420 of the Sui Dynasty, the fang xiang in Cave 220 of the early Tang Dynasty, the thirteen stringed zither in Cave 112 of Dunhuang, which was formed in the middle Tang Dynasty, and the Xiqin, which was the head of Cave 10 of Yulin Grottoes in Dunhuang in the Western Xia Dynasty.

After more than a thousand years, the world has been filled with white clouds. These later or lost musical instruments can go out of the distant Dunhuang murals and play again, so that the audience can enjoy the style of the Sui and Tang dynasties, and can not do without the hard work of the royal honor team.

King Glory has cooperated with the Dunhuang Research Institute before, and this time it is more specific to musical instruments. At first, the king's team tried to restore the musical instruments in these murals, but it was difficult to find them. Finally, they could only restore and copy them as much as possible. "The teachers of the Dunhuang Research Institute gave guidance and made many attempts, but the timbre, material and internal structure of the musical instruments are unknown. The musical instruments on the murals can only remain on the murals forever, and can only restore their appearance. There is no way to hear the lost sound any more.

It is necessary to restore to the greatest extent and satisfy the current music aesthetics. The team members did their best. Among them, there is the innovation of preserving the integrity of lost musical instruments. At the Cloud Song Festival, the five string pipa with straight neck and thin waist played by the National Orchestra was consistent with the shape in the murals. However, as there are only four pieces of music, the result of modern music is that the range is too narrow for composers to play. After discussion with experts, the range of music will be expanded to meet the performance needs of contemporary music during customization.

In order to explore the use and material of one of the strings of the Curly Xi Qin. The team members followed the folk music master to search for ancient books and found that the Japanese Zhengcang Academy still kept the pipa of the Tang Dynasty. However, they found that this string was not a metal string used in modern musical instruments. It was probably a silk string specially made for silkworm breeding at that time, so the sound must be different from modern string music. After confirming the imitation, Wang's team found the famous Chinese musical instrument manufacturer - Shanghai National Musical Instrument Factory, where several Chinese national treasure level piano making masters gathered. The team members followed the experts of the musical instrument factory to develop and customize the musical instrument, and finally the set of musical instruments at the Cloud Song Festival came into being.

Another recovered musical instrument, Fang Xiang, originated in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and was mostly used for court Yan music in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. In the dance music picture of the Drugstore's Classic Change in Cave 220, those who participated in the performance were heard. In the history since then, Fang Xiang was on the verge of being lost and could only be seen in murals and museums.

However, it is different from the data that there are 16 pieces of iron used by China Sound, and there are 24 pieces of iron used by China Sound on the day of the Cloud Song Festival. "This square ring is innovated based on the principle of the original square ring. It will have a wider range and more musical passages can be played."

"The scale of Fang Xiang is amazing. When I saw it for the first time, I went to knock it. It has two rows. It is a 12 tone instrument arranged from bottom to top and then to the right. If you only play one of the rows, it is a full tone scale, which is completely different from the piano arrangement." Before the Cloud Song Festival, Lin Zhe, a percussion performer of Canyon National Orchestra, first contacted Fang Xiang. After repeated training, she found the characteristics of Fang Xiang very interesting and experienced the musical wisdom of ancient Chinese.

Canyon National Music Group

After the five instruments are determined and can form a orchestra, the most important thing is to find the right musicians.

Compared with their counterparts playing western instruments, young national musicians may pay more hardships. Lin Jie, who is familiar with the music market, said that national musicians generally need to practice from an early age, but limited by the previous folk music market, there may not be many stages available to them. Based on the glory of the king of oriental fantasy, I hope to give these young musicians who like folk music more opportunities to show.

In September 2021, with the support of many national national orchestras, including the Central National Orchestra, as well as the Central Conservatory of Music and other relevant universities, King Glory's music team received more than 100 resumes from outstanding musicians. In the end, five young musicians finally stood out and Canyon National Orchestra successfully formed a team after layers of screening and exploration.

Li Shi, a young pipa player, is the first Chinese contestant to win the Stuttgart World Malimba Award, and Lin Zhe, an international percussion musician in Germany, Austria and Britain; Luo Meng, a young bamboo flute player, won the third season championship of the National Music Festival; Huang Xiaoqing, a young erhu player and the gold medal winner of the Erhu Competition of the Golden Bell Award for Chinese Music; and Zhang Xinfeng, the highest winner of the sixth Wenhua Award and a young zither player

Before entering the Canyon National Orchestra, Lin Zhe also became connected with King Glory. In 2019, under the leadership of conductor Li Xincao of the National Symphony Orchestra, the first phase of the King's Glory Symphony Concert was held in Beijing and other places. At that time, Lin Zhe participated in the performance as a national percussion performer. After learning that the Canyon National Orchestra was recruiting members, she took part in it at the first time.

Since then, Lin Zhe has experienced a different musical experience. At the Cloud Song Festival on June 27, "Hear the National Music · Canyon" was adapted from "Eternal Chang'an City" created by Hans Zimmer. She had previously participated in playing the symphony version of "Eternal Chang'an City" and found that her own experience in playing was completely different.

"At that time, I played" Eternal Chang'an City "in the symphony orchestra At that time, I will feel like a soldier, standing in the line of defenders, full of sense of responsibility and majesty. However, because the wind instrument is sufficient, there will be a sense of heaviness. In the national music version, I am a woman who plays the music. Although there are only five of us, we have all the necessary configuration sounds and momentum. I feel that I am living in this prosperous city of Chang'an, and the people live an elegant and comfortable life. " Lin Zhe said.

"I'm very lucky to be able to try so many new instruments in Canyon State Orchestra. It's said that they are new instruments. In fact, they try so many traditional instruments and play many new songs with everyone." Although they come from different regions and different playing fields, based on the same professional education and hobbies behind them, the five members have a good understanding of team formation.

"Although we are not in the same place at ordinary times, through online rehearsals, past cooperation experiences and ordinary exchanges, we are all in an integrated state. In the face of music, thinking is more important than technology. When we have a common will, it will certainly show the most tacit understanding and the best music." Huang Xiaoqing said. Luo Meng said: "Because professional musicians are inspired by each other's aura, once the music is played, they will be the most tacit team." Li Jie believes that the distance between professional performers will not be an obstacle to tacit understanding. Zhang Xinfeng, the youngest in the orchestra, also said: "Music is a bridge of links, so there is no need to say more."

Behind the wonderful

Behind the praise of the performance is the joint efforts of the Kings Team, members of the Canyon National Orchestra and various participants behind the scenes in the past year.

Lin Jie recalled that the group was formed in September 2021, but it was not officially launched until June 2022. During this period, it experienced many difficult explorations. "In fact, the most difficult thing is the process of music adaptation and development."

The development and innovation of music content has been one of the priorities of King Glory for many years. In addition to symphony as the keynote of early music, each hero role in the game will also have corresponding theme music, such as the song "IQ 250" written by Hua Chenyu for "Luban No.7", and the "Red Flame Lantern", which was specially created for "Cloud Lantern" and played at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games with the participation of Zhao Cong, the head of the Central National Orchestra.

In the face of these recognized "treasure houses" of music, the king's team hopes that Canyon National Orchestra can fully absorb them, and on this basis, adapt and re create them based on Chinese musical instruments, so as to finally achieve "re interpretation of national music".

"No matter symphony or pop songs, they are much bigger than the five of us. How to change them into the version of folk music? We should not lose the general appearance and momentum of the king's music, and keep these wonderful originality. In fact, we tried and wrong for a long time." Lin Jie recalled. In the early stage, Wang's team tried to put forward these needs to western composers, but the feedback was that "these composers who are not familiar with Chinese folk music have no characteristics of Chinese folk music, they are very complicated, and they still feel like western symphonies."

Since then, the glorious music team of the king began to change their thinking and set up a Chinese composition team of their own. A number of composers with different styles were invited to participate in the adaptation of the king's glorious music. Some of them knew folk music and some knew pop culture, including Chen Weilun, the famous music producer in the popular program "Brother who cut through thorns", Liu Dong, Ding Jiacheng, Zeng Yi, and others. Combining the characteristics and interests of each composer, the music adaptation work of Canyon National Orchestra is gradually on the right track.

Young people's sense of listening to national music is actually closer to that of pop music and recording methods. Therefore, in addition to highlighting the national timbre of the five musicians, the National Orchestra also adds prefabricated accompaniment music such as electronic sound, which is closer to the types of music that young people can accept daily. "The creative team asked the masters of national music to see if this would have an impact on the National Music Association. Their feedback is that national music should also be developed, and there should be more different types. They need to find outstanding points to convey the advantages of national music, so that more people can accept it.

From October 2021 to May 2022, the Canyon National Orchestra released two works to test the waters, one is the classic suite adapted from the 1986 version of Journey to the West, and the other is the folk version of the King's Glory classic song "Hundred Battles Becomes a Poem", which received good feedback.

For these classical melodies that are familiar to the people all over the country during the western tour, the arrangement in the "Cloud Palace Sound" section boldly highlights the performance effect of bamboo flute and erhu, which is ethereal and vivid, and has a unique flavor; In "Daughter's Love", the expression of the pipa is bright: it is gentle and full of deep feelings.

It is the adaptation of Hundred Battles Becomes a Poem that is more effective in arranging music. The original work presents the group images of hundreds of heroes, and the description of mountains and rivers and heroic feelings in the lyrics, which has a sense of historical seriousness on the whole. How to retain the above characteristics in the folk music version? Cao Dao adapted Ding Jiacheng, a young composer and producer with a diversified music creation style. After careful consideration, he expanded two new folk music ensembles on the basis of retaining the popular melody of the original main song and chorus, and made each instrument play its own unique aura according to the timbre and range characteristics of national instruments, pursuing more melodic dialogue, making the overall listening more compact and fresh.

Like film production, a good script is a necessary prerequisite for a good story, but it cannot guarantee success. After the script, actors need to devote themselves to the performance, and neither of them is necessary. The members of Canyon National Orchestra, who are professional performers themselves, also participated in the creation process, in which there are often moments of inspiration and unexpected joy.

Luo Meng said that with the permission of the composer, he would be happy to re create, which often brings him unexpected gains. According to him, when playing the theme song of the King's Glory Hero "Mengqi" which will be released later, because the main melody is very short, there are only one or two sentences. After many attempts and modifications by the composition teacher, he still felt a little monotonous and difficult to express the effect consistent with the hero's setting.

The hundreds of heroes honored by the king have different characteristics. Which instrument or instruments can better match their characters and settings? Composers and musicians are thinking about this problem.

In Mengqi's music, we try to add Yoyo flute with funny and humorous sound. Mengqi is a 'blue fat man' flying around. He is also very cartoon and cute. Adding yo yo flute will be a new element and a new attempt. " Finally, Luo Meng tried to use the yo yo flute, and found that the effect was particularly good, even reaching the effect of imitating Mengqi's speech.

For the unexpected joy of this change, Sun Chenhui, an associate researcher of the Chinese Academy of Arts, commented that the strange dream of ancient spirits appeared in the sound of drums and flutes. The beautiful sound of the flute, the crisp string sound, the imitative sound of blowing bubbles, and the baby sound emerging from time to time, all kinds of percussion music and bionic sound effects have been matched and matched with each other. The dialogue between the flute, pipa, and zither is vivid, carving out a auspicious illusion of "eating dreams and making dreams", which becomes the source of happiness of the game.

Many works, including the theme song of Mengqi, will be released by Canyon National Orchestra in succession. The successive addition of these new instruments is also the "5+X" concept proposed by the Canyon National Orchestra after five resident instruments, such as pipa and bamboo flute.

The team of King Glory hopes to introduce, including but not limited to, more national musical instruments, even opera and star artists for cooperation, and integrate more elements that young people like, so as to put out the stereotype of the public on national music, increase more possibilities for it, and promote the innovation and development of national music.