Every year from departments of Central Government to provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions, there are several large-scaled solicitation of songs, through which good works and talented people can be discovered and musical creation can be improved. Some composers and song writers regard this activity as an area where they can display their talents; some consider it as steps which they can climb to become outstanding among their fellows;some people really want to seek for opportunities to change their works into songs; some just want to participate in it driven by curiosity. As a result, a large number of manuscripts flood into the Organizing Committee. Some composers and song writers deliver their contributions by themselves in case of any loss by the post. Some of the manuscripts are accompanied by recording samples, but most of them have no samples. These recording samples are divided into formal recording and informal recording, and self-playing and self-singing, etc. In the week before the deadline, many people came to the Organizing Committee to present their works. Afterwards, these contributor waited eagerly for the results. Then in what way are the prize works outstanding? How can these works be changed into songs carried by the radio to thousands and thousands of families in all directions? for many contributors and audience, it is somewhat mysterious. Now, what I want to do is to direct your eyes to the background of the campaign for the campaign for solicitation songs and to let you get a general idea of the work done by refers. Besides composers and song writers, many unknown heroes such as editors, mixers, orchestrators, designers and organizers also work very hard in producing a good song.
As for as solicitation of new radio songs is concerned, every year there are various activities of such kind in the whole country. But only through radio and television can the prize songs be changed into sound carried by air to the widespread audience and attract audience's attention. In this respect, the yearly national solicitation if radio songs is the best and the most persistent. In this activity, strict standards are set for songwriting, composing, singing, orchestrating, and recording, etc.. Works are chosen and sent from provinces. Once chosen, the songs will be widely broadcasted immediately by the Central People's Broadcasting Station and respective local stations. So the responses are a;ways great. Some songs such as on the Promising;and, Young Friends Meet Together, China, October is Your Birthday, etc.. all show their promises in the activities of choosing new radio songs.
One primary step in soliciting songs is selection and reselection, and one more round is needed if there are too many contribututions. The purpose of these strict rounds and rounds of selection is to pick out those unique works. In some places some people just attach considerable importance to reselection and finals but neglect the primary selection. They invite prestigious and experienced referees only from the second rounds of selection. In the primary selection, the rate of elimination is high, which is liable for making mistakes because once a piece of good work is eliminated in the first round, it can't be saved in the second round even id the experts and referees have the keenest insight.
It is referees are very important. Their level, experience and esthetic standards determine the success or failure of the song solicitation. Perhaps what the ancient Chinese said is right. "here is always a winged stead, but there isn't always a Bole(a famous average horse trainer in ancient China, who could tell excellent horses from average ones)". I think the Committee of Referees should be mainly composed of middle-aged musicians about 40-60 years old. This composition is reasonable because songwriters and composers of this age are at the peak of their career. They are experienced and matured and insightful in their knowledge. They both understand the older generation and are familiar with social, musical and life trends and aesthetic standards of the current society. Relatively speaking, songwriters and composers under 40 years old are the youths in the music creating circle. They are energetic and keen, but some people tend to go to extremes. It is necessary that they should be some old prestigious experts who must head the team, but the number of these experts can't be too large.
The activities of solicitation of new radio songs always take advocating the melody of the time as their aim, enhancing the national musical style as their responsibility and eulogizing the new appearance and new life in the construction of four modernizations as their theme. Therefore, those songs which express personal unhealthy emotions and are gloomy in artistic style and which merely imitate foreign songs but inappropriately should be eliminated and those slogan-like songs or old-fashioned in music language can't be selected. By saying so, I just want to remind those songwriters and composers to pay attention to material selecting and songwriting in future.
Solicitation of song can't be separated form creation. Song creation in Tianjin is very famous in the whole country. Such songs as NO Communist Party of CHina, NO New CHina,Eulogizing our Motherland which will shine through the ares were created by Cao Huoxing, Wangshen, composers of older generation in Tianjin. Shi Guangnan also graduated from Tianjin Conservatory of Music and began his music-creating career in Tianjian. The general level of creation in Tianjian is very high. HOwever, due to various reasons in recent years and the amount of contributions also decrease year after year. Unlike in Beijing and Guangzhou, in tianjian there are no music creating groups which gather around Audio Publishing Company. SO the music creating team in Tianjin don't from groups. Some excellent songwriters and composers always find themselves lonely as an one-person group. No one cares for and directs them. The authorities concerned should pay substantial attention to this situation.
After works have been selected, the next step is recording, which is the most time,energy- and money-consuming process and the most elaborate one in terms of technology. First, responsible editors (in a publishing house for the finalization of a song ) choose the singer of a new song who can bring out the best song and display the style of the song. Then still responsible editors decide on accompaniment and recording. This requires that responsible editors have an accurate knowledge of the level of the band and a thorough understanding of a song. IN a world, this directly reflects the level of the responsible editors. At present, song are accompanied by three kind of bands --- national music ensemble, orchestra and electronic bands. As for recording, there are mainly synchronization and multi-step recording. Because the national music ensemble and orchestra are very large, recording is generally synchronization. The advantages of synchronization is that ensemble or orchestra can speed up, slow down, become loud or become weak according to the needs of the singing, thus achieving the effect.
Electric band is composed mainly of electronic compound musical instruments, accompanied by drums, stringed instruments and some symbolic instruments. The recording is multi-step recording. Electric compound instruments on which there are tens even a hundred of simulated timbre, can act as substitute for the original instruments. Thus the scale of the bands can be reduced. Any mistakes made by singers or bands can be corrected at any time as you like and the noise in the process of recording is small.
In the process of recording, Music Radio of Radio Tianjin combine Synchronization with multi-step recording. for example, in recording the chorus of Morning Bells accompanied by orchestra, it is very difficult to achieve satisfactory effects by synchronization rehearsal. So we recorded the accompaniment of orchestra by synchronization and then transfer the accompaniment by multi-step recording to the multi-track tape and selected the outstanding singers for the song recording. Good recording is achieved in the end.
Occasionally we use MiDi in recording. The orchestrators edit the accompaniment by electric band and record it on the tape at home, then in sound recording studio, the accompaniment will be transferred to the multi-track tape and singing will also be recorded. This method can save recording time. On special occasions it is advisable to use rapid method to finish the task. But there are also disadvantages such as indistinct gradation and articulation, which are to be improved in the practice.
The artistic effects of a new song also depend on the orchestration. It is a term used in composing techniques. To orchestrate for a song is to compose accompanying music for the bands, which is a kind of skillful and artistic work and reproduction. In recent years, orchestration has been paid more and more attention. In the solicitation of new radio songs, a prize is established for orchestration. Solicitation of songs is an elegant artistic in superstructure, whose development needs solid economic base. To invite singers and bands needs a large sum of money. money is very important for solicitation of songs. Leaders of the Organizing Committee rack their mind for solving the money problem. Some comrades go to many places to collect funds. In recent years, Music Radio of Radio Tianjin has put large amount of money into the solicitation of songs. Now many enterprises are fond of singing competition and don't hesitate to donate much money in it, but they are somewhat indifferent to the elegant solicitation of songs due to lack of thorough understanding. In fact, if the name of an enterprise can be connected with several excellent songs, not only will the enterprise be publicized by various mass media, but also the level of the enterprise will be enhanced. May people from all walks of society concern themselves with the solicitation of songs. May more excellent songs and talented people appear in every song soliciting campaign. May our musical world be full of songs and flowers.