1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Although Faye Wong knows how to read musical notation, her ability to sing along with the music is not particularly good.

Among all the singers Zhou Yan has met, there is no doubt that Celine Dion has the best singing ability.

If you want to be good at singing, you definitely need to practice a lot. But Faye Wong probably practices less and is a little unskilled.

It doesn’t matter if she is not proficient. Zhou Yan is not in a hurry. He gives Faye Wong some time. She will naturally become proficient after singing it a few more times.

At the beginning, Faye Wong focused on how to sing the score accurately, and did not think about feeling the music. After all, if she couldn't sing it correctly, she wouldn't feel anything.

After a while, when she had mastered the previous part of the song, she gradually felt the charm of this song.

Faye Wong’s theoretical knowledge is average, but her perception of a song is impeccable. After sorting it out, she immediately determines that it is a good song, and not just an ordinary good song.

The further she sang, the more excited Faye Wong became. The more she listened, the more she felt that this was not an ordinary love-themed song. There seemed to be only a few notes, but the emotions were very strong.

While Faye Wong was singing the score, Zhou Yan was also observing Faye Wong's condition.

He wanted Faye Wong to sing this song, but he was not sure if she could sing it well.

Faye Wong is a singer with a small voice. Her voice is ethereal and soft, which makes her more suitable for performing songs with soothing and beautiful melodies. Songs like "Legend" are typical of Faye Wong's comfort zone.

"Because of You" is not a typical loud voice song, but the chorus still requires a certain amount of vocal strength and intensity to support it.

However, after singing the score, Zhou Yan felt that Faye Wong did a very good job, and during the singing stage, Faye Wong must have been restrained.

After Faye Wong had memorized the music score, Zhou Yan asked her to sing along with the lyrics.

Faye Wong nodded and began to sing the song seriously with the lyrics.

After singing the lyrics, Faye Wong stumbled a bit when singing, and her pronunciation had some problems.

When Zhou Yan heard Faye Wong's pronunciation, he was a little confused, because in his impression, Faye Wong had a good talent for languages, and her pronunciation was very good whether it was Cantonese or English.

But now it sounds like Faye Wong's English is a bit poor.

Zhou Yan frowned, but did not say anything. Language was just a small problem. If it really didn't work, the worst that could happen was that he would spend some time to sort it out word by word. It would just take a little more time.

However, what Zhou Yan did not expect was that Faye Wong only had problems with pronunciation at the beginning. After singing a few times, her pronunciation actually got better and better.

After a few minutes, her pronunciation was completely different from the beginning.

At this time, Faye Wong also laughed and said, "I haven't spoken English for a long time, so it's a bit rusty. I feel better after singing a few sentences."

"Oh, I see." Zhou Yan nodded and asked, "You usually develop in Hong Kong, so you don't use English very often?"

"They use it a lot, I just listen, I don't like to talk about it normally."

The frequency of using English in Hong Kong is very high. Generally speaking, if you want to develop in Hong Kong, you either need to know Cantonese or English. If you only know Mandarin, it is actually very difficult to get by.

If you are just a small-time person, people are usually not willing to accommodate you and speak Mandarin. Many people are unwilling to speak it, and some people want to speak it but cannot speak it well.

Ma Jingwu encountered this situation when he was on the set of "Green Snake". There were two minor supporting actors who could clearly speak Mandarin but they just refused to speak to Ma Jingwu.

Zhou Yan said, "In that case, then you think about it for a while, and we'll see in an hour."

"No problem." Faye Wong nodded. She also wanted to spend some time thinking about this song and see how she could perform it better.

After Zhou Yan left, Faye Wong was alone in the practice room, seriously thinking about the song.

She first memorized the whole song roughly, and then pondered over it sentence by sentence, thinking about what technique to use in each part, where to put the emphasis, where to breathe, whether real voice, falsetto or mixed voice would sound better, these were all things she had to consider.

The score Zhou Yan gave this time was very simple, with only the notes and lyrics, and Faye Wong had to figure out the rest on her own.

Unlike the previous song Zhou Yan wrote for Mariah Carey, he wrote down all the processing methods on the score.

The main reason was that Zhou Yan was not sure whether Kelly Clarkson's original treatment of the song was suitable for Faye Wong.

After all, the two have different voices and are good at different techniques. If you simply apply Kelly Clarkson's processing to Faye Wong, the effect may not be good.

So Zhou Yan handed the song to Faye Wong herself and asked her to process it according to her own characteristics. If there were any problems later, he would intervene and make adjustments.

Faye Wong was in the practice room, constantly exploring "Because of You", and she became more and more proficient in it the more she sang. Initially, her handling of the chorus was a little weak, but later she gradually found the feeling and the power of the chorus came up.

It's true that she is a singer with a soft voice, but that doesn't mean she has no power. She has sung many English songs with a loud voice before, such as "I Will Always Love You" and "Without You".

Compared to those two songs, "Because of You" requires less explosion and is lighter in power.

An hour later, Zhou Yan came back.

When he came, he asked, "Is your throat okay?"

Faye Wong laughed and said, "We are just getting started now."

When it comes to some performances, she can sing for several hours without any problem, so what’s the point of practicing singing for an hour?

Zhou Yan was just asking out of politeness, and he knew that this amount was nothing to Faye Wong.

"In that case, let's continue. Sing it for me first."

Faye Wong prepared for a while and then started singing.

“I will not make

The same mistakes…”

After listening to Faye Wong singing the first sentence, Zhou Yan couldn't help but nod his head. It has to be said that Faye Wong is indeed a natural singer.

Some people think that Faye Wong’s success is mainly due to her voice, but Zhou Yan believes that her greatest advantage is her sense of language.

Although timbre is important, sense of language is the key to her ability to create so many classic works. The singer's sense of language can accurately convey the emotions and artistic conception of the song, and it is also easier for the audience to resonate.

Akina Nakamori also has a strong sense of language, but Zhou Yan thinks that in terms of sense of language alone, Akina may be weaker than Faye Wong.

Of course, at this level, it doesn’t matter who is weaker or stronger, because ordinary listeners can’t hear the difference at all. It mainly depends on how the song is.

If the song is of high quality and suitable for the singer, then the singer's sense of language can be brought into play.

If the song is not good and does not suit the singer's voice, then it will be of no use no matter how strong the sense of language is.

A song that scores 50 points can be saved to 60 or 70 points.

In addition to her sense of language, Faye Wong's English pronunciation also exceeded Zhou Yan's expectations. Needless to say, it was a good decision to find Faye Wong. There are probably not many female singers in mainland China whose English pronunciation is better than Faye Wong's.

As for the details, most of them are very good.

Faye Wong understands her own characteristics and is clear about her abilities, so in terms of technical arrangements, she tries her best to balance her own characteristics with the characteristics of the song.

But the time was short after all, and some parts were not done very well. Zhou Yan told Wang Fei one by one, "For the first sentence, your feeling is right, and it has the meaning of telling a story. But you should pay attention to the treatment of the ending sounds of the words mistakes and did. Your treatment is a little dragged. I hope it can be cleaner and neater."

"You can try to pause slightly between "let" and "myself" to enhance the expressiveness. Lengthen the vowel of "misery" a little bit. Can it bring out some more painful emotions? Your voice in this section is very unified and your breath is very steady, which is quite good. You should emphasize "break" and "feel" to show a kind of determination..."

Faye Wong was listening seriously at first, but then she suddenly realized something was wrong.

She originally thought that Zhou Yan would talk to her sentence by sentence, similar to her singing a sentence and Zhou Yan saying a sentence.

But what she didn't expect was that after she finished singing it once, Zhou Yan started correcting the homework, and it seemed that he wanted to correct it from the beginning to the end.

There are many areas that need improvement, but Faye Wong is not afraid and does not feel embarrassed. However, she cannot remember so many problems at once.

"Stop, stop, stop, Mr. Zhou, can you please say them one by one, or should I use a notebook and take notes?"

She had previously agreed with Zhou Yan to call him A Yan, but seeing Zhou Yan's attitude, she couldn't help but call him Teacher Zhou.

Zhou Yan threw her a pencil and said, "Just write it down on the score."

Wang Fei took the pencil and pouted, "Then speak slower."

"Okay, I'll try my best." Zhou Yan nodded and turned on the tape recorder in the practice room.

After turning on the recorder, he continued speaking from where he had not finished speaking, without slowing down his speaking speed at all.

Wang Fei couldn't remember at all, and muttered, "Teacher Zhou..."

Zhou Yan pointed to the whirring recorder next to him and said, "It's recording."

"All right."

Zhou Yan spent six or seven minutes telling Wang Fei the questions, and finally said, "If you don't remember anything, it doesn't matter. The recorder has recorded it. You can listen to it a few more times later. You can study it yourself. I have something else to do. If you have any questions, you can come to my office directly to find me."

The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!

After saying that, Zhou Yan turned and left.

Wang Fei held the music sheet, looked at Zhou Yan's back, then glanced at the tape recorder next to her, and couldn't help rolling her eyes, "This guy is such a big shot."

In fact, Faye Wong was just complaining casually, she didn’t really think Zhou Yan was a big shot.

She had seen people who really acted like big shots, but they were not like Zhou Yan. Zhou Yan was just a little bit - cold.

But it doesn’t matter. Faye Wong is in a good mood because she got a good song.

It's really great to have a job like this where she can make a lot of money and sing good songs at the same time. It would be best if she could sing ten or eight songs like this every year, so she can lie at home and count her money.

Of course, if the songs are of high quality like "Because of You", it would be fine to pay less.

Or, if there is so much money, it doesn’t matter if the song is a little worse. Even if you can’t get both like this time, you should at least get one.

…

Faye Wong stayed in Zhou Yan's studio for three days. Every day she came in the morning and went back in the evening, just like she was going to work.

The three days were not wasted, as she finally recorded the demo of "because of you".

This demo is very mature and there is no problem releasing it as a formal song.

During the recording process, Faye Wong was a little confused. She wondered why the demo had to be recorded so well. It was such a waste of time and energy.

But considering the quality of the song and the high remuneration, she has no complaints.

After all, for a genius like Zhou Yan, it is understandable to have higher requirements.

On the evening of April 21st, Wang Fei finally finished all her work. As she stretched her arms and walked out, she asked Zhou Yan, "So after I go back today, I don't have to come again, right?"

"You don't need to come again for now. Go back and wait for news. We'll need you to come again when we record the official version later." Zhou Yan said.

"Yes, no problem. Tell me in advance and I'll arrange the time. It took me three days to record the demo, and I don't know how long the official version will take."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "As long as you stay in good shape, the official recording won't take too much time, because most of the work has been done in these three days."

"Oh, that's true."

When the two went downstairs, they happened to meet Liu Hang's assistant Xiao Feng.

Xiao Feng handed over a document and said, "Boss, Mr. Liu asked you to confirm the list of people for the celebration banquet."

Zhou Yan nodded, took the document, looked at it, and then signed it.

After Xiao Feng left, Faye Wong asked curiously, "What kind of celebration banquet is this?"

"The movie 'Time Traveler' performed well in Japan, so we held a celebration party."

"Oh, this movie is being released in Japan." Faye Wong hasn't been watching the news recently and didn't know about this.

However, she went to the cinema to watch the movie when it was released in mainland China.

"Yeah, it's released on the 12th."

"The box office is good? How much?"

"The news we got today said that 1 billion has been allocated for income."

"One billion?!" Faye Wong's eyes widened in disbelief: "That's so much."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "Do you know anything about Neon's box office?"

"I don't understand." Wang Fei shook her head: "I just think the number of 10 billion is exaggerated."

"One billion is not RMB, it is Japanese currency."

"How much is a billion neon coins worth?"

"According to the current exchange rate, it's less than 10 million US dollars."

"That's pretty impressive, it's only been a few days."

"Yes, it's not bad. This is the data for seven days." Zhou Yan nodded and smiled.

"We should celebrate this achievement. When?"

"Mid-next month."

"If I'm in Yanjing by then, can I come and have a meal?"

"Of course no problem, you're always welcome."

"But tonight, I'm going to go to your cafeteria for a meal first."

Zhou Yan was actually quite curious. Doesn't Faye Wong usually take care of the children? She isn't in a hurry to go home at night and seems to have a lot of free time every day.

But this was someone else's family matter, so Zhou Yan didn't ask.

…

The box office performance of "Time Traveler" in Japan can actually be seen by Faye Wong if she pays a little attention to the news these days, because there are related reports everywhere these days.

This time, "Time Traveler" is really powerful, especially the latest news today, the film's distribution revenue in Neon has exceeded 1 billion Neon coins in seven days of release.

The key is that the film opened at 7 o'clock and the single-day box office was still strong. The box office for the second weekend has not been counted yet, but it will definitely not be bad.

When the box office statistics for the second weekend are released in two days, the data will increase again. Now many people are watching when "Time Traveler" can surpass "The Chorus".

After surpassing "The Chorus", let's see when it can surpass "The Piano Boy Who Wants to Fly" and "The Sixth Sense". (End of this chapter)