1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Before the five minutes were up, Zhou Yan put down his water cup, walked up to Nomura Hide with his translator, and said to him, "Please get me a violin, cello, and bass."

"Is that enough?"

"Enough." Zhou Yan nodded.

Originally Zhou Yan wanted drums, but it was troublesome to move the drums around, and there was no problem using a keyboard to produce the drum sounds, so he just asked for these.

In fact, the electronic keyboard can also produce the timbre of these instruments, but the timbre of instruments such as the violin produced on the electronic keyboard is very different from the actual recording, and some technical details cannot be achieved.

Zhou Yan also knows how to play these instruments anyway, and it’s not difficult to get them, so there’s no need to use an electronic keyboard to imitate the sounds. He can just record the performances live.

Nomura Hide nodded and asked someone to make arrangements.

When setting up this segment, Zhou Yan said that multiple musical instruments might be needed, so the program team had already prepared the instruments.

There are a lot of musical instruments in their TV station, and basically all the common instruments can be found.

Originally, the program team had considered bringing a Steinway piano to the studio to give Zhou Yan enough class, but Zhou Yan said it was unnecessary.

People who don’t understand may not even know Steinway, and people who understand will not look up to the performer because of Steinway.

After a while, the musical instrument Zhou Yan wanted arrived.

This time, Zhou Yan did not play the music directly. Instead, he sat in front of the keyboard and said to the audience with a smile, "Before I start working, I want to ask everyone a question. What do you think is the theme of the video just now?"

When the audience heard Zhou Yan's question, they talked a lot, but no one answered Zhou Yan's question.

"Well, let me call the name of the gentleman in the red shirt in the second row."

Ikeda Mihui passed the microphone to the audience member Zhou Yan named. The audience member was very happy to be called. He took the microphone and said with a smile, "Obviously, it's love."

"Well, love, does everyone think this way?"

Many viewers nodded seriously, indicating their agreement with this statement.

Indeed, the video just now was very short and could express very little. The most direct feeling everyone had was love.

Zhou Yan asked again, "If the theme is love, do you think the tone is sad or happy?"

The audience started talking again.

This time, the decibel of the discussion was significantly higher.

Compared with the previous non-controversial question, people have different opinions on this question.

The reason why everyone has different opinions is that we can't see what the tone is from the video just now. It's not right to say it's sad, and it's not right to say it's happy.

This time Zhou Yan did not name anyone to answer. He continued, "The video is very short, and we can't see a lot of things, but it doesn't matter. We can just follow our own understanding. Although we can't tell whether the love between the hero and heroine ends happily or tragically, we can see one thing, that is, the overall rhythm of the video is relatively slow, so the music we want to use for it should also be relatively slow in terms of rhythm."

"In pop music, 4/4 time is relatively stable and regular. It can provide a stable foundation for the emotional expression of the song, so we might as well try to write a song in 4/4 time."

What Zhou Yan said up to this point is still relatively simple content, and even if you have not studied music, you can basically understand it.

Although they don't know why 4/4 beat is stable, they just need to remember this.

Zhou Yan raised his hand and played a melody, "Eb major, it gives people a broad and bright feeling."

After saying that, he played another long piece.

After he finished playing, he explained the motivation for this section, "Since we want to seek stability, the interval span in the melody should mainly be a smooth progression. However, in order to make the song more emotional and impactful, we need to add some larger span jumps in the smooth progression..."

The audiences were very quiet. They felt as if they were back in their student days. The studio had turned into a classroom, Zhou Yan had become a teacher, and they were listening to the teacher attentively.

Zhou Yan tried to be as concise as possible so that the audience would not feel too dizzy.

It is impossible to make everyone understand. Although these are the simplest music theories, different fields are like different mountains. For those who have not studied music theory, this is no different from a mystery.

Zhou Yan didn't want everyone to understand the heavenly book, he just wanted them not to be bored when listening to it. They should have a feeling that although they didn't understand it, they still felt it was very useful.

His goal was indeed achieved.

Although no one fully understood what he said, as the beautiful notes flowed from his fingertips, the audience suddenly felt as if they understood something.

Wow, it turns out composing music is so simple. Some people even have this idea.

Isn't it just like this, like this, and then like that, and that's all?

In fact, they only understood selectively. For example, Zhou Yan said that Eb major is bright and broad. Although they don’t understand what Eb major is, they can understand what bright and broad mean.

As Zhou Yan explained, they were immersed in the music and seemed to have unprecedented insights into the music.

After recording the piano, Zhou Yan started recording the violin, followed by the cello, bass and drums.

After recording all these sounds, Zhou Yan put them together and made some simple adjustments.

The whole process took about twenty minutes.

And in the audience's opinion, the reason why Zhou Yan took so long was mainly because it took a lot of time to change musical instruments and equipment.

After the music was adjusted, Zhou Yan smiled and said to Nomura Hide, "You can start playing the video just now, but we have to align the music with the video."

The conditions on site did not allow it, otherwise Zhou Yan could have cut the soundtrack tape and the video tape together and played them together.

In fact, the TV station also has an editing workshop, but it would be a waste of time to go to the editing workshop to do this now. It would be better to manually align the picture and sound on site, and the effect is actually similar.

Manual alignment is also very simple, because the controllers of the large screen and the sound system are in the same place, so all the backstage staff need to do is move their hands.

Not long after, the CG of "Final Fantasy 8" appeared on the big screen again, and at the same time, the soundtrack "Because of You" that Zhou Yan had just composed on the spot sounded in the studio.

When the audience watched this CG before, they felt it was very ordinary, but this time when watching it together with "Because of You", it suddenly felt different.

The originally ordinary picture seemed to suddenly come to life, and the thin characters became fuller.

What’s even more magical is that some viewers even felt that the heroine’s face became clearer, sometimes smiling, sometimes looking determined, and her expression was made up of each note of "Because of You".

It turns out that this is the charm of the soundtrack.

Nomura watched the video and listened to the music, and he was more surprised than the audience.

The audience just thought that Zhou Yan was amazing, but because he had more knowledge about music, he knew even more clearly how outrageous this matter was.

If it's just to compose music for this video, it's actually not particularly magical. After all, many people can do it, but no one can do it as quickly as Zhou Yan.

But what Zhou Yan does is not just about speed, the key is quality.

Apart from Zhou Yan, Nomura Shu has never seen anyone else who can create such high-quality music in such a short time.

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Of course, the most outrageous thing is that the rhythm of this music is very consistent with the rhythm of the video.

The time when the picture changes coincides with the intersection of the AB section of the song.

This is definitely not a coincidence, but Zhou Yan remembered the time point of the intersection of these pictures, and then adjusted it deliberately when making music. Just now they saw Zhou Yan adjusting the time of the song.

In other words, Zhou Yan remembered the information in the video after just watching it once.

Is Zhou Yan still a human? Is his brain still a human brain?

If Nomura Hide had not known clearly that he had not discussed the matter with Zhou Yan beforehand, he would have suspected that Zhou Yan had seen the video in advance.

Of course, it was impossible for Zhou Yan to see this video from other channels, because this video was rushed out last night, so the production of the second half was so rough.

Nomura Hide looked again at a man sitting in the first row of the audience. It was that man who brought him the video.

The man's name is Takuma Yukinao, and he is the production director of SQUARE's development headquarters. He came to the scene today just to listen to Zhou Yan's soundtrack for "Final Fantasy 8".

Takuma Yukinao mainly looks at three points. The first point is naturally the quality of the song. Whether it sounds good or not is definitely important. The second point is whether the song is suitable for the game "Final Fantasy 8". The third point is whether the song can be made into a song. After all, their main goal this time is to make a theme song for the game.

In fact, their company had already decided to look for Zhou Yan, but this time they just happened to know that Zhou Yan came to Tokyo and would participate in a program on Asahi TV, so they thought of this trick.

In Takuma Yukinao's opinion, when the composer is unaware, his creations are more artistic.

If Zhou Yan already knew that he was going to make a theme song for a game, then what he produced would most likely be too commercial and lack inspiration.

Of course, there is a little risk in doing this, that is, Zhou Yan may not take it too seriously in this situation and just do ordinary things to get by.

However, this risk is nothing, because if they are not satisfied with the song Zhou Yan composes on the spot, they can still find Zhou Yan and explain the specific situation to him and ask Zhou Yan to compose the theme song for them.

Today's show was a "genius" attempt, at least that's what Takuma Yukinao thought.

And now, Takuma Yukinao feels that his decision was right.

Sure enough, without anyone knowing, what Zhou Yan made was so good.

In fact, when Zhou Yan was recording just now, Takuma Yukinao already thought that this song was very good, and now when the video and music were played together, he was completely conquered by this song.

Not only is this tune beautiful, it fits the bill for Final Fantasy VIII, and most importantly, it could clearly be made into a song.

Takuma Yukino now has only one thought in his mind - to win this song!

No, not only did he want to get this song, he also wanted Zhou Yan to take charge of all the music for Final Fantasy 8.

Most of the music in the previous "Final Fantasy" series was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, and he has always done a good job.

But now SQUARE’s idea is that Final Fantasy 8 can be more international.

Taking internationalization into consideration, Zhou Yan is obviously a more suitable candidate. Moreover, Zhou Yan is not only international, he also has unparalleled popularity in Japan.

Asking Zhou Yan to produce game music will not only help stabilize the domestic market in Japan, but also have the potential to expand into the Chinese, European and American markets.

In addition to the person who produced the music, they also plan to find a European, American or Chinese singer to sing the theme song.

Now after hearing Zhou Yan's song, Takuma Yukino believes that asking Zhou Yan to compose game music is not only more suitable in terms of fame, but the quality of the music is obviously better as well.

Perhaps Zhou Yan’s only shortcoming is that it is expensive.

Takuma Yukina knew that if they let Zhou Yan compose the game music, the cost would be much higher than if they did it themselves.

But no matter how expensive Zhou Yan is, it is worth the money.

Takuma Yukinao has already started calculating in his mind how much he should offer when negotiating with Zhou Yan later.

The budget for Final Fantasy VIII is over 80 million US dollars, and the budget for music is about 8 million US dollars. The reason why it is so high is because they wanted to make a theme song.

The cost of making a theme song is completely different from the cost of making music for the game. Not to mention anything else, the cost of just finding a singer to sing is extremely high.

However, with a budget of more than 8 million US dollars, Takuma Yukino is not sure. Can he really hire Zhou Yan at this price?

Zhou Yan is different from ordinary composers because he is really good at making money.

Let’s not talk about anything else, just say that if Zhou Yan writes a song for someone else, he may get millions just from the profit sharing.

Although Takuma Yukino has not studied it in detail, he believes that songs like "young and beautiful" and "someone like you" will definitely bring Zhou Yan a high share of the profits. After all, he wrote the lyrics and composed the music for these songs, so the share ratio must be very high.

If Zhou Yan can earn millions just from profit sharing for a single song, then why would they dream of spending millions to hire Zhou Yan to compose all the game music?

If they had to spend millions of dollars just for a theme song, they certainly couldn't afford it.

If you want to cooperate with Zhou Yan, you either have to increase the budget or make concessions on copyright and profit sharing.

If you have to make concessions, how much should you make? (End of this chapter)