If the wall could sing.

This is a really amazing project of transferring the changes of Wikipedia on to musical notes on different instruments. Especially, when a new user register the system, an epic string swell will appear and it surprises you every now and then. Through this website it is also obvious that the Wikipedia platform is extremely active. However, another very important aspect for me is that it tend to define the music in a unique and innovative way, which also can be explained as the beauty of the big data and crowd. Through this blog I think I not only achieve what I was thinking originally - to introduce some of my favorite Chinese popular songs to the audiences, but also explore a lot of interesting possibilities of the popular music in the future with the flourishing development of technology and widespread spirit of Internet. Listen to Wikipedia could be a perfect combination of those kind of elements.

Last term I wrote an essay about how London shape the genre of Britpop especially two important bands: Blur and Oasis. I can still remember that Noel Gallagher from Oasis said one of the most important reasons why other bands could hardly be that big after that time is the coming of the Internet era. With the decline of gramophone records, cassette tapes and CDs, will people consume music anymore? Absolutely they will, but in some new way like MP3 and iTunes. Technology or the Internet is not the enemy of any industry because they are just tools, and it's people who get engaged in the industry to make an effort to use new tools in some proper ways. But people from different culture might also use them in different way. For example, the copyright issue of music on the Internet became a huge problem in mainland of China, which nearly destroyed the whole industry.

machine knows what kind of music you love

How do people explore the music in the old days before the popularity of Internet? To me, it's the several magnetic tapes and CDs bought by my mother from music shops. After we had a computer in our room, searching music via engines like Baidu MP3 (I didn't know Google at that time), but now, some music recommendation system and tools like Spotify and Music-Map helps people to get access to more music they like by accident. 

Spotify is the best place to discover music. Your Discover page will constantly suggest new music for you, based on what you’re listening to. Your next favourite songs are waiting.

It's very surprising if you find the music it recommend really lovely and interesting, and the more songs you starred, the better the system will work for you next time based on the data the machine has collected. The data could base on what other people who like this song like, and maybe the website also introduce you to that user because the social function is another critical way to keep users active on the website.

However, how would the company make money when they are providing so amazing service to the users? As we can see it is the commercial advertising or upgraded software fees. In the area of advertising, I found an article about how another Internet radio service website Pandora which is not available in the UK.

“It’s becoming quite apparent to us that the world of playing the perfect music to people and the world of playing perfect advertising to them are strikingly similar,” says Eric Bieschke, Pandora’s chief scientist.

That do remind us a lot about people's taste on music, books, films and other cultural products will not only stay at the fields where they are, but also tell the organizations who own the data what every specific user is like, including their using habits of various devices, their values according to the lyrics of their favorite songs might have expressed, even their stances on almost all of the issues related to their daily and political lives.

find good music in the crowd

This singer Shang Wenjie is the winner of the third session of the Chinese popular TV singing competition show Super Girl in 2006, and she got 5196975 voting via short massage on mobil phone. Although it was not exactly the crowd-funding nowadays we are discussing, the TV station Hunan Satellite Television had benefited a lot from this show. However, most singers who won in this competition cannot go on their careers in music industry, because most of them cannot write and produce music by themselves, so they just wait for good music, according to the interview to Shang. 

However, in the another TV show called I am a Singer by the same TV station, after 7 years, she came back with songs written by herself. I was thinking how can these singers find good songs to sing more easily? So I am trying to search some similar examples of crowd-sourcing in music industry, and then I found a website called Audiodraft, which could help musicians begin a contest to look for good soundtrack for films, videos or games and so on. It also provides the customers with an online shop called music library which is full of featured tracks. The only question I have about this website is that where can I go if I am a musician who want to contribute to one of the companies who are hosting a contest? 

We might find some information in the list of Why it works:

Simple music licenses

Choose from multiple compositions

Engagement marketing

New branding potential

And in the second item, it says that: 

You will receive multiple high-quality compositions to choose from. Our talented sound designer community will produce tens or even hundreds of compositions depending on the amount of work, the appeal of the prize, and the amount of feedback they get.

But there is not a page for musicians and their information which makes me quite confused. Differently, on another website called RecordTogether, you can get to a page to introduce the musicians (so they are also the users of the website which makes it more like a functional social network) and also anybody can take part in the contest by downloading the original work by people who creates the contest and uploading their final work to win. 

I also found a Chinese website called Zhu Bajie (also in English version) with similar functions. But there are two types of task models: contest and contract. Users can choose their roles when they register. It seems to be a successful business now.

9,370,736 Freelancers Worldwide

1,909,064 Jobs Posted

$404,806,866.92 Work Completed

crowd-funding for producing music

Nowadays, there are some new ways for fans to help produce an album and to fund the musicians they love. For example, this music video by Japanese band Sour is an interesting one because of its successful crowd-founding campaigning on Kickstarter and Greenfounding. The construction of the video is in a conceptual and artistic way with 189 spinning CDs which makes a phenakistoscopes to represent the idea 'Life is Music'. 

From the simple crowd-sourcing as Mayday did for their music video of Washing Machine, the new example not only asks for a photo of the fans or some easy digital thing, but the money. As return, the people who pledged more than $70 will get one of the 189 original CDs which played an important role in the producing process of the music video.

Obviously, the flourishing fans culture can be one of the most important factors of the success in both crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding in this case. But these two are a little bit different. The emphasis of the former one is on the families' photos appearing in the music video from the famous band which might be wide spread, and for the later one, obversely, fans can even feel that they are really engaged in the whole process of producing the music and afterwards they got an object which is part of the music video itself - the best souvenir.

The bright green hair of the songwriter and main singer of the indie band 苏打绿 Sodagreen in this music video is very in his style - an enchanting, energetic and free singer. As one of the most popular indie bands in Chinese-language popular music world, they benefit from their poetic lyrics, unique performing style and wide vocal range of the vocalist Qing-feng Wu also as Greeny. 

The first widespread song from them is called 小情歌 Little Love Song which is included in their second album Little Universe which was released in October 2006 but really became famous in mainland China after their concert in Beijing in 2008.

This song called Fever is from their 6th album of the same title. The song was also written by Qing-feng and was recorded in London, and its music video was produced by Heroes for Zeroes, in a rock style. 

This sad song called Dropped was written by Tsing-fong Wu who is now the songwriter and main singer of Sodagreen - one of the most popular Taiwanese bands in the Chinese-speaking music world. He said this song which also was qualified for the best song writer and lyricist of the year of Golden melody awards in 2009 was inspired from the scene of this singer talked about the death of her father on television, so A-mei always cries when she is singing this song in her concerts.

A-mei was born in the rugged mountains in eastern Taiwan who has her birth name of Gulilai Amit which is quite different from traditional Chinese name. She became popular since 1996 when her first album Sisters, and still attends some singing talent show such as the Voice of China as special guest in final competition and holds concerts all around the world.

I would say the lyrics is really touching especially accompanied with the high-pitch melody.

心疼的玫瑰 半夜还开着

the rose is feeling sorry, it blossoms during night

找不到匆匆掉落的花蕊

it could not find the hurriedly dropped stamen

回答现场却已来不及

it is too late when you came back to the scene

等待任何回音都不可得

waiting but no response at all

微弱的风筝 冬天里飘着

weak kite has gone with the wind in winter

回不去手中缠线的那个

cannot come back to the one with string in hand

没有蓝天 又何必去飞 怎么适合

why do you fly if there is no sky? how will it be suitable

黑色笑靥掉了 雪白眼泪掉了

black smiling face dropped. snowy white tears dropped.

该出现的所有表情瞬间掉了

all of expressions which should appear, dropped.

瞳孔没有颜色 结了冰的长河

color of the eye fades, the long river freezes

回忆是最可怕的敌人

memory is the most terrifying enemy

故事情节掉了 主角对白掉了

plot of the story dropped. dialogue between main parts dropped.

该属于剧中的对角戏也掉了

interaction which should belong to the play, dropped

胸口没有快乐 断了翅的白鸽

there is no happiness in chest, like a pigeon with a broken wing

不枯萎的借口全掉了

all the excuse of not being withering, dropped

曾经唱过的歌 分享过的笑声

the song we have sung, the laugh we have shared

在心中不断拉扯

struggling in my heart every now and then

想念不能承认 偷偷擦去泪痕

I cannot admit my longing, swipe my tear stain secretly

冬天过了还是会很冷

Jay Chou is one of the most unique and innovative Taiwanese musicians in the Chinese music area since he has built his own style as early as his first album Jay in 2000 with songs like Dou Niu (3-3 Basketball Match) , Niang Zi (Wife in an ancient Chinese style) and Adorable Woman. The first one is in a HipHop style with his particular ambiguous pronunciation in rap, which is similar to some songs in his following albums about KungFu or some other competitions such as  Nunchucks (2001) in his second album Fantasy and  Dragon Fist (2002) in the next album. The second one, as the way of the name of the song, has an traditional Chinese lyrics combined with his music, and some other Chinese style songs like Blue and White Porcelain (2007) and Fade Away (2010) gradually become stylistically mature in his other albums. The last one is no doubt pure love song with relaxing and simple melody, refreshing and creative lyrics which will easily recall the audiences' wonderful childhood or first love, just like what is sung in the song called Paddy's Aroma.

'还记得你说家是唯一的城堡

I can still remember you said that home is the only castle

随着稻香河流继续奔跑

Running along the river and smelling the paddy's aroma

微微笑，小时候的梦我知道

Smile and realize the dream when I was young

不要哭让萤火虫带着你逃跑

Don't cry because the firefly will take you away

乡间的歌谣永远的依靠

The song in country is what you can rely on forever

回家吧，回到最初的美好

Return home, to the original brightness'

However, he also wrote a lot of songs in different appeal and the video I put here is the one against the war with excellent lyrics and perfect rhymes in Chinese. The author of the lyrics is Wenshan Fang who contributed a lot of brilliant lyrics for his songs. The name of this song means Wounds of War, but it used a ancient character 殇 which is rarely used to express the 'wound'. To be honest, that is my first time to know how exactly the character means. 

光，轻如纸张

Light, as light as the paper

光，散落地方

Light, spreading everywhere

光，在掌声渐息中 它慌忙

Light, in the weakening applause it's hurried

她在传唱 不堪的伤 脚本在台上演出最后一场

She is singing the severe wounds of last show on the stage

而全村的人们坐在座位上 静静地看时间如何遗弃这剧场

But people of the whole village sit quietly to see how the theatre is abandoned by the time

战火弄脏她的泪光 谁在风中吵着吃糖

The fire of war dirty her tears when who is crying for candy in the wind

这故事一开始的镜头 灰尘就已经遮蔽了阳光

In the beginning image of the story, dust has obstructed the sunshine

恐惧刻在孩子们脸上 麦田已倒向战车经过的方向

Fear is sculpted on children's faces, wheatland has fallen towards the direction of the war chariot

蒲公英的形状在飘散 它绝望地飞翔

The shape of the dandelion separated, and it flied desperately

她只唱只想 这首止战之殇

All she is singing and thinking is this song - Wounds of War

恶夜燃烛光 天破息战乱

Terrible night burns the candle, broken sky stops the war

殇歌传千里 家乡平饥荒

The song of wounds spread thousand miles away, famine settled in hometown

天真在这条路上 跌跌撞撞 它被芒草割伤

Pureness walked and fell in this way and was cut by the sharp grass

孩子们眼中的希望是什么形状？

What is the shape of the hope in children's eyes?

是否醒来有面包当早餐 再喝碗热汤?

Is it having bread and hot soap as breakfast?

农夫们烧毁土地跟村庄 终于拿起枪

Farmers burned the land and village, finally armed with guns

她却慢慢习惯放弃了抵抗

But she gradually gave up resisting

孩子们眼中的希望是什么形状？

What is the shape of the hope in children's eyes?

是否院子有秋千可以荡 口袋里有糖?

Is it having swing in the yard and candy in the pocket?

剃刀的光被仇恨擦亮 在远方野蛮

The razor was polished by the hatred and became brutal afar

而她却微笑着不知道慌张

crowd-sourcing to collect photos for music video

The music video of this song Washing Machine expresses how children or youth are grateful to their mother who take care of them and wash clothes for them. The special thing here is the collection of hundreds of photos from a lot of ordinary families and mothers in the video. This is a very successful way to make fans really get engaged in the music and the campaigning is also touching people as well as promoting the band at the same time. In my opinion, it could be considered as a traditional way of crowd-sourcing because there will always be more stories in crowd (fans) rather than just some people who are producing the music. Here is the announcement on their official website about the campaigning. The title just means Mayday need your washing machine!

Interestingly, another American songwriter named Monty Haper also started a collecting of the photos about a song called Citizen Sciencist in 2013. 

"Citizen Scientist" was written by Monty Harper for his Born to Do Science café, a program that has scientists explaining their research to kids in 3rd - 8th grade. The song was inspired by Dr. Janette Steets at Oklahoma State University and her research on mixed gardens (ornamental flowers with vegetables) and pollinators. Monty is currently raising the funds to record a whole CD of songs inspired by scientific research. Find out more here.

 When we talk about the fan culture, it is always defined as a response to the star system (Storey, 1996). Nowadays does everybody have opportunity to be a celebrity for several minutes? Maybe, online. Different from the era of CDs, the Internet especially social media makes the stars possibly more accessible to fans, which also encourages people to explore more 'stars' which might be potential but not very famous in main stream media yet in some other fields. It seems that the Internet is narrowing the gap between the famous and mediocre, because it is pushing fans and stars system into the same position on media platform.

Mayday are going to celebrate their fifteenth year in 2014 through their first tour concerts around the Europe and North America, including the one on 21st February in London. As the first alternative rock band from Taiwan who held the concert in one of the biggest stadiums in China - Bird's Nest which was also where the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 was held, their influence in mainland of China has been reinforced and gradually developed around the overseas Chinese groups. They promote the concerts online, sell tickets online, interact with fans online, but all for selling the authenticity of concert and the ownership of real CDs.

Finally, I want to introduce the main singer-writer of the band called Ashin who is good at transferring inspiration from Western and ancient China literature, films and other features to their work. They sang a song called John Lennon about their love to the Beatles and the dream of becoming them in Chinese music field, one of the lyrics is 'can you share me your dream, when my courage disappears'. They also created a song called Armstrong connecting his landing to the moon to the landing to the heart of the girl he likes, another good example can be the Perfume whose lyrics is obviously an extend of the story of the murderer, but they also added more romantic atmosphere into it and express the love in good rhyme. The similar usage of the foreign stories exists in the song Interview with the Vampire.

Except for the foreign stories, some ancient Chinese stories like Sun Wukong （Monkey King） are also written in their song in a particular way to express his loneliness without the master monk Xuan Zang, the pig Zhu Bajie and the water buffalo Sha Wujing after the story Journey to the West through the lyrics 'if let me live, let me live with hope, I am never afraid of loving the wrong person, but afraid of never loving'.

Reference

When foreign people talk about the Spring Festival, there are two normal questions about it. Firstly, why is its date different per year? The reason is that the agricultural calendar also as lunar calendar invented by ancient Chinese is different from the solar calendar now widely used around the world. Within different days per month, agricultural calendar marks the day when the moon is full as middle days like 15th and 16th. So, Chinese people tend to have two birthdays per year. Additionally, there are a lot of important traditional festivals such as Middle Autumn Festival with moon cake and Lantern Festival with rice ball in Chinese culture according to the agricultural calendar.

The red number on the calendar means the dates on agricultural calendar. Interestingly, the January in 2014 the numbers of two calendars are the same.

concerts VS campaigning

Tonight is the eve of Spring Festival which is a very important festival in Chinese culture. This song's lyrics was originally written by a very famous poet in Song dynasty called 苏轼 (Su Shi). The popular poem format at that is 词 are usually sung along with music in a particular way according to the epigraph name, and that is why most poems of Song are not like the ones in previous poems of Tang with the same number of characters in every sentences.

Thanks to the English subtitle in the video, the meaning of the lyrics can be clear through it. The singer, Faye Wang, has high reputation in Chinese popular music scene because of her beautiful and unique voice. This concert was held in Hongkong so that she spoke Cantonese in the video. However, Teresa Teng as the original presenter of this song, also grew up and became famous in Taiwan. 

The moon is always mentioned when Chinese poets are expressing their homesick. This poet can be one of the most fabulous poems talking about moon and connecting it with some feelings about life.

-------------------updated on 30th March----------------------

This video is very interesting to me now because the singer spoke Cantonese on the stage, but the song itself is written in Mandarin. However, when I went to the EASON'S LIFE concert in the O2 Arena the day before yesterday, the singer who also speaks a lot of Cantonese mixed with Mandarin and English made me extremely confused and uncomfortable. At that time I suddenly understood what my supervisor said to me: language is power. 

The same problem might exist in some other social campaigning or movement. When people say that there is no limit or transnational boundary in music world and regard the taste as a common or natural response to a particular kind of art, I would argue that the popular music industry is not that pure and simple. Which social media platform those popular singers and their public relationship teams need to pay more attention to depends on where the market is, which could be Facebook, Twitter but also Weibo. On the other hand, people may not be satisfied by just listening to the concerts especially when they cannot understand the language just like me. 

I heard this song when I was in primary school. It was inspired by a Taiwanese children's song with the same name which means the sky is dark and it's going to rain. It was sung by my favorite singer Yanzi Sun and released in 2000.

On my last day in Beijing in July 2013 after studying physics for four years in Beijing Jiaotong University, I went to a studio and recorded this soundtrack. Then I came back to my hometown and shot the video before coming to the UK. But it turned out to be forbidden to upload it to YouTube.

The lyrics is a little bit sad. But it encourages the audiences at the end. 

我的小时候吵闹任性的时候，我的外婆总会唱歌给我

(When I was young,noisy and wilful, my grandmother would sing a song for me)

夏天的午后，姥姥的歌安慰我

(In the afternoon of summer, her song will always comfort me)

那首歌好像这样唱的

(That song seems to sound like this)

天黑黑，欲落雨

(The sky is dark, and it's going to rain)

离开小时候有了自己的生活

(I've left my childhood and owned my own life)

新鲜的歌新鲜的念头

(with new songs and new ideas)

任性和冲动无法控制的时候

(When I cannot control my wilfulness and urge)

我忘记还有这样的歌

(I forgot there used to be the song like this)

---------------

我爱上让我奋不顾身的一个人

(I fell in love with a person who makes me regardless of myself)

我以为这就是我所追求的世界

( and I thought that was the world I want)

然而横冲直撞被误解被骗

( But after ripping and tearing, being misunderstood and cheated)

是否成人的世界背后总有残缺

(I wonder if the adults' world is always imperfect)

天黑的时候我又想起那首歌

(When the sky is dark, I remembered that song again)

突然期待下起安静的雨

(Suddenly, I look forward to quiet rain)

原来外婆的道理早就唱给我听

(I realize grandma had sung the words to me)

下起雨也要勇敢前进

(Be brave and carry on although it rains)

This is also a song which always encourages me. The transforming from a child to an adult is a process of achieving and losing.

Also, I found another very good version sung by a famous singer from HongKong called Jacky Hok Yau Cheung.

Today my flatmate Thomas gave me an inspiration about what to write for my blog. In the new year eve of 2014, several friends and me stayed energetic during all night because we watched and sang with lots of music videos of songs which used to be very popular in mainland of China in the last 10 years and to some extend those songs gave us the same memories and collective identities. I call them hooks. Maybe I can write something about those songs and introduce some Chinese music to friends who are interested in it. By the way, actually we found most of them originated from Taiwan or created by Taiwanese. 

However, after several weeks, when I was trying to connect my own topic to the content of the course social media campaigning (because the blog itself is part of the homework of this course), I realized that those popular singers and their managers might be the first group of people who are really good at social media campaigning. In 2010 I started using Chinese most popular social media Weibo,  at that time the first people I wanted to fellow would be the singers and other celebrities I liked or was curious about. So, I will try my best to make some proper connections between Chinese-language popular music industry and social media campaigning methods.

Let's go for it!