[Yu Huang] The Pontoon Bridge of Dreams

At the end of this semester, the last exam for juniors in the string department is music history. The situation of this course is bleak when it is in class. Although it is a big class taught by the whole department, it cannot change every class. Those who came to class were not satisfied with the miserable situation of sitting in two rows.

But after all, you will have to pay it back sooner or later. The old professor who teaches the class usually does not take roll call or accept homework. In the last class before the final exam, facing a group of people in a packed classroom, he smiled and raised his hand. That music history textbook that can be used as a brick, said quietly, the content of the exam is all in the book, go back and read it by yourself.

Now more than an hour has passed for the exam, and there is less than half of the time left. This is Ye Xiu's invigilator. He is a bit bored sitting on the podium, looking at a group of students with different abilities below, turning a blind eye. Eyes, it's all here, and he doesn't overly embarrass others.Besides, this course is not something that can be passed with a cheat sheet before the exam. With such a thick book, maybe you took Bach’s historical status and significance and ended up with Handel. Something that can be opportunistic.

Because the fans were not turned on in the classroom during the exam, the weather in mid-July was really too hot. Ye Xiu took the extra paper and folded the fan to fan the wind. He looked at his watch, and there was about half an hour left.He looked up again, and he knew many students below, and he had also taken his piano elective, but there were only a few of them who were more familiar.

Sitting in the first row facing him is Zheng Xuan, who majored in cello. During the exam, he looked like he was not motivated, with one hand propping his face and the other handwriting the paper. The speed was not too fast. Even Ye Xiu worried about whether he could finish writing.

Sitting behind Zheng Xuan was Song Xiao, who was majoring in Zhongti. Now he was flipping through the paper calmly, adding a sentence or two from time to time. It seemed that most of it was finished.

Afterwards, the man was crooked and didn't sit upright, but looked very serious with his head down and writing rapidly. Ye Xiu looked at him with joy. This guy definitely hasn't been to a class in a semester. I spent the whole night memorizing the book, and now I have to write down what I still remember before I forget it.

While he was enjoying himself, the man looked up at the time and saw that he was smiling, so he smiled back frankly, then bowed his head and started to write again.

At first glance, this classmate who is magnanimous and polite is named Huang Shaotian. He is from Violin Class 1 of the String Music Department. He took the first place in the violin professional course for two years, but he also took Ye Xiu's piano elective for two years. Just passing grades.The missing year was his sophomore year. He was selected to go to Europe as an exchange student for a year. He won an award when he came back, and his photos were still on the grade bulletin board all summer.Later, when school just started, it rained heavily, and the bulletin board was washed away, and even the photo of Huang Shaotian winning the award at that time was also washed away.So not many people have seen this announcement, even Huang Shaotian himself doesn't know what he looks like in it.

Finally, when the time came, Ye Xiu called them to hand in all the papers, and most of the people in the classroom left in a noisy manner. Huang Shaotian packed his things, threw his schoolbag over his shoulder, and ran up to the podium in two or three steps: "What are you looking for? Boss Wei told me before you came this morning that you wanted to tell me something and let me ask you after the exam. What are you going to do? Don't make trouble with my final grades again! Let me tell you, even though I Czerny is still half-baked, but at least I played your exam repertoire proficiently, okay! I spent three days dealing with your exam before the final exam. You can see that my sincerity is enough to pass! Wait, if you give me another 61 points, I'll go to your office and smash glass, believe it or not!"

"Come on." Ye Xiu straightened the test paper, "Oh, I just moved into the same office with Lao Han yesterday, his desk is by the window, and mine is inside, you can smash it right, don't smash it crookedly. "

Han Wenqing is a lecturer in the piano department. He is at the same level as Ye Xiu. They are both graduates of this school. After graduating with a Ph. Everyone said that it is definitely a super realistic "God's Wrath", a vivid interpretation, which really beats the countless streets of those tender and sweet Beethoven.

The playing style can indeed reflect the personality of the performer. Teacher Han has always been strict. Before they chose the teacher for the piano elective, Zhang Jiale, the senior of the piano department who knew him well, told him with great sincerity: "You're such a little star player, don't take Lao Han's class, or at the end of the semester, you will wait to compete with the piano department for the piano room every day, and practice the piano while crying."

Sure enough, Zhang Jiale didn't have him. Huang Shaotian followed Ye Xiu's electives like a guide, but Xu Jingxi, who was in the same class, chose Han Wenqing's. So at the end of the freshman year, Huang Shaotian and the others worked hard every day to take Paganini's exam at the end of the semester. Etudes, and the courageous Xu Jingxi not only practiced the regular violin repertoire every day, but also ran to grab a piano room with a piano to play Czerny arranged by Han Wenqing.

Of course, this is all off-topic. Of course, Huang Shaotian didn't dare to smash Han Wenqing's glass, so he heheed resentfully, and continued: "Then why are you looking for me? It's not the end of the semester. In order to celebrate that I didn't fail, please invite me to dinner." Bar."

"What are you thinking? You are the one who invites me. Don't forget that you still haven't released your grades." Ye Xiu packed up his things and went out with him. "The composition competition at the end of the year, the one that happens every three years, remember ?"

"I know. It's the one jointly organized by the school and foreign countries. Who doesn't know that if you win the first prize, you can go overseas to study as a graduate student." Huang Shaotian replied, and when he went out, he looked around. Sure enough, he went to the cafeteria without waiting for him first, "And then? What does that have to do with me? Although I am not reconciled to admitting this, I really don't have any talent for composition. What are you doing? You want to be my instructor and then Let's share the bonus together? Don't think about it, even if I win the bonus, I won't share it with you."

"I said, can you bring a rest when you speak?" Ye Xiu suspected more than once that his ability to say that the breath is so steady after a long series comes from the true biography of the wind music department, but Huang Shaotian really didn't take the wind music elective. "Teacher Lin from the composition department a few days ago, Lin Jingyan, you know. He told me to help him recommend two students to cooperate with them. They have to submit works, you know. Then I plan to find Zhang Jiale for the piano, and you for the violin."

Huang Shaotian also knew about the competition process. Composers could not just hand in the scores, they had to record and hand in the works together before they could be regarded as formal entries. He had also cooperated with the composition department before, it was nothing new, but he changed his mind again. Thinking, said: "Wait, that's the summer vacation period? I have to find time to practice, right? But I originally asked Zheng Xuan and the others to go out of town... Finally, this summer the school band does not arrange rehearsals so we can have a vacation ..."

"Going to other places?" Ye Xiu asked back, "You will be a graduate next year, and you don't want to plan for the future and run around."

"I don't call it running around, we call it travel, travel, okay? Musicians need a period of rest before they can have a new understanding of their music. Didn't you teach this! I'm here to make up for the credits of my sophomore year. I have been staying at the school for almost a year. The farthest place I have been to is Boss Xiao’s piano shop at the south gate of the school. You must let me find some inspiration."

Huang Shaotian is telling the truth. Some of his grades from his sophomore year of exchange in Europe are not the same as here, so he needs to make up some courses that he didn’t take. He has been very busy this year, three days a week. Violin professional course, the rest of the time is full of various compulsory electives. He gets up at 6 o'clock every day and returns to the dormitory at 11 o'clock. Their dormitory also said that he will be awarded the most diligent award.

"Come on, how long are you going? One month? Did you bring your piano? Are you afraid that if you bump it, you'll have to take it back for repairs? If you don't, you can bear not practicing for a month?" Ye Xiu said every word It's Huang Shaotian's Achilles' heel. The daily practice time of their professional students may be different, but few of them can stand a long time without practice. If they don't practice for a day, they will feel that their hands are raw, let alone for a month.Not to mention the piano, the one that Huang Shaotian often uses now is a handmade piano from the last century. It’s not worth cherishing. I usually use it for maintenance and maintenance on a regular basis, and I care more about him than myself.

Huang Shaotian fell silent, he quickly went through what he was planning to do in his mind, and thought that apart from going out with Zheng Xuan and the others, the rest of the time would be to go back to school and practice as usual, so why not stay in school during the summer vacation?It doesn't feel like anything, just stay and stay.He can also find a child near the school to take with him to earn some pocket money, and he will have enough money to teach the strings he uses for performances in the summer vacation and the next semester.

And if you are working with Zhang Jiale, there is no problem. They are both promoted from the same attached high school. Zhang Jiale is two grades older than him, but the relationship has always been good. What's more, the graduate students have a canteen subsidy every month, so he can still go along with them. Occasionally rub a meal or two, and there is no loss.

After such a total, he felt that he still made more money than he lost. If he didn’t go to Zheng Xuan and Xu Jingxi, they would be fine together, and staying in school by himself would also benefit a lot, so he responded: “Okay, then who should I contact when the time comes? Teacher? Or Zhang Jiale? Do you know what the musical form is?"

"I'll go back and tell Zhang Jiale again. I didn't bring that student's information, so you can ask him then." Ye Xiu said as he prepared to go to the Academic Affairs Office to deliver the papers, and he was about to say goodbye to Huang Shaotian. He touched his pocket, ran up again, and said sincerely, "Ms. Ye, let me accompany you to send the papers. You see, the sun is so big and the Academic Affairs Office is so far away. What if you get heatstroke—"

"What do you want to do again, kid?" Ye Xiu glanced at him and lit a cigarette while freeing his hand, his tone sounded bad.

"I... have no money in my meal card." Huang Shaotian replied.

After Ye Xiu had a meal, Huang Shaotian went back to the dormitory to pick up the piano and prepare to go to the piano room. Although the final exam has passed, the routine practice every afternoon is still unavoidable. Zheng Xuan and Xu Jingxi have already started to pack their things and prepare for their trip , Song Xiao spread the whole person on the chair and said to them: "What's the rush? It won't be the same after a few days."

"Oh, by the way, I can't go. Lao Ye wants me to cooperate with a composition department for the competition at the end of the year. I have to stay in school to rehearse during the summer vacation. You guys go and don't miss me too much, but don't get lost. Be careful and don't hurt me. other people--"

"Aren't you going?" Zheng Xuan stared at him suspiciously, "Didn't you do this in the first place when you said you wanted to break through your bottleneck period?"

"No...Hey, Zheng Xuan, take out that pile of earplugs, Mr. Huang, why don't we bring earplugs?" Xu Jingxi pointed, and then asked Huang Shaotian, "Which composition department student is so unlucky that he wants to cooperate with you?" Huh? Zhang Xinjie? I ran into him yesterday, and they haven't finished their exams yet, but if he is also fine, the cooperation between you two wasn't very good last time."

Song Xiao also continued: "That's right, I ran into him once after the college evaluation last time, and asked him how it feels to cooperate with you." Song Xiao sat up straight and put on a straight face. imitating Zhang Xinjie's tone, he said calmly and seriously: "Huang Shaotian's skills are excellent, and all the details can completely achieve the effect I want to express. It's a great honor to cooperate with him."

"But..." Zheng Xuan and Xu Jingxi cooperated to help him turn around.

"When he's not playing the piano, he talks a lot." Song Xiao still remembers Zhang Xinjie's expression at that time. This classmate is famous for being rigorous and serious. It's easy to judge others randomly, but seeing Zhang Xinjie's expression at that time, Song Xiao knew that he said "a little too much", definitely not just the literal meaning.

"Damn it, it's an artistic exchange and discussion, okay? Without communication or discussion, how can we express the composer's creative intention and the theme of the work!"

"But isn't the repertoire you collaborated with last time a set of etudes?"

"..." Huang Shaotian was silent for a moment, coughed twice, and then said, "Goodbye, goodbye! You guys clean up slowly. I'm going to the piano room. If you want me to bring something to eat when I come back, just send a text message, bye!" Went out with the violin case.

The instrumental and vocal music assessments of the entire school have basically ended last week, and because it is noon, there are no people in the piano room building, which is far from the scene of long queues waiting for the piano room at any time of the day a few weeks ago. Last week, Huang Shaotian only woke up late for less than 5 minutes. When he rushed downstairs with his breakfast, he found that the queue was almost at the opposite dormitory building.

But now it seems that the whole building is empty, without any sound of practice.He asked the administrator on the first floor to swipe his card to get the key, and went upstairs familiarly.

This time the room was facing the stairs, and he opened the door to enter. There was a piano in the innermost part, and several music stands in the corner.He chose one at random, adjusted the height and put the score on it, then opened the piano case, tightened the bow and filled it with rosin, put the towel on it, and first played the empty string to test the sound.He changed to nylon practice strings after he went to college. He used to practice with steel strings, which are durable, cheap and not easy to lose tune.Later, because he changed to a better violin, and because of the gradually increasing number of performances and the need for his personal style, he changed to nylon strings.

Although no one was there at the moment, he still took out the mute habitually. Their old piano room building existed when the school was founded. Because the early campus planning was not complete, the earliest batch of piano rooms and dormitories The canteens are all close together. Looking out from his window, there is a dormitory building No. [-] across a small road. Every year, freshmen will be arranged in this building. Good habits - the contribution of the vocal music department, especially the bel canto group, and the piano department is indispensable.

In comparison, the lethality of the violin is too weak, but Huang Shaotian still put the mute on habitually. His daily practice has been a routine for so long, one hour of scale and arpeggio practice, and then Etude, the last one is the concerto or other repertoire to be practiced recently, but he just finished the exam and there is no new piece that needs special practice. He finally felt a little sleepy in the piano room alone in the summer afternoon, Ye Xiu He guessed right, he stayed up all night yesterday and finished reading the thick pillow-like music history book, and his short-term memory is not bad thanks to the long-term notation practice. Good answer, at least I wrote down everything I remembered.

He didn't sleep well and took another exam. Now he has been standing for more than an hour and has been practicing the scales with strong regularity. He feels that he can repeat it mechanically with his eyes closed for another hour. With half the effort, he decided to go back and sleep first after finishing this page.

The long-term habit made him insist on finishing the arpeggio he was practicing, and then he started to pack his things and prepare to go back. The rule of the piano room is that it should not be used for more than 3 hours at a time. In the past, he was stuck on time. Let's go, this time it's a lot earlier, but the summer vacation is coming soon, there won't be so many people staying in school, and the piano room won't be as tense as usual, so he doesn't have to worry about not having enough time.

After packing up the piano case, putting the music stand back to its original position, and habitually checking whether the doors and windows were closed, he was ready to go back.When he was going down the stairs, he heard the sound of the piano from upstairs, which was played intermittently. At first glance, he couldn't even call it a melody, and he couldn't recognize what it was for a while.

He took two steps down, the sound of the piano was still going on, but this time it was played more coherently, the single note was still the same melody just now, but it was connected this time, and some places seemed to have been adjusted. It sounds more coherent, and after adjustments, Huang Shaotian thinks this short phrase is quite pleasant.

No wonder I couldn't hear what it was, probably the students of the composition department were doing composing exercises by themselves?Huang Shaotian thought about it, and stood there listening for a while longer.The performer seemed to be revising while playing, and stopped from time to time, but because the sentence he heard just now was quite ear-catching, Huang Shaotian stood there patiently and waited. The sound insulation of the piano room is usually very good, and the upstairs The sound will not come down, or it may be because the weather is too hot, and no one is practicing at the moment, so the person opened the door and window so that the sound can come down.

In the end, it seemed that the revision was almost the same, and the performer played it from beginning to end.Those of them who have undergone professional training for a long time are fully equipped with the ability to distinguish between the small note mode and the large musical form for an unfamiliar piece of music. Although there is a specialization in the art, what Huang Shaotian usually listens to and practice most is related to string music. But this piece sounds like a ballad?The passage that he thought was very beautiful just now appeared in the presentation department, and the whole song is coherent, and that sentence is still very brilliant.

But this is obviously a practice work for the first game. Listening carefully, it seems that the whole structure is quite satisfactory. If it is written seriously, it will not follow the format so strictly.But didn't Song Xiao say before that the Composition Department hadn't finished the exam, this person is really idle.Huang Shaotian was thinking, and suddenly had the urge to go up and see who he knew or not.

Because he has been very active in school for a long time, and because he has always been in the school orchestra, he knows a lot from every department.However, the composition department is the one he is least familiar with. Firstly, there is no intersection between professional courses, and the composition department does not have much participation in the daily rehearsal of the orchestra. So in fact, the only composition department he is familiar with is As a student, Zhang Xinjie seemed to be the only one.

He was still quite sleepy, but now his curiosity prevailed, the sound of the piano continued, and he just followed the sound up a floor, stood at the stairs and looked towards the side where the sound came from Look, the door of a classroom near the end of the corridor was open, and the sound of the piano became clearer as he approached. He didn't know what kind of emotion or story the author of this ballad wanted to express. , but he could hear that the performer played very peacefully and gently, and the pauses between each phrase were just right, and the string was like a nameless sigh.There was a window at the end of the long corridor. The afternoon sunlight from inside divided the corridor into light and dark.

Huang Shaotian was in a trance for a while. I don't know if it was because of this unknown ballad played by an unknown person, or because he didn't have a good rest yesterday, or maybe it was because that half of the bright and dark corridor symbolized some kind of He was stunned for the vague metaphor, and when the sound of the piano stopped, he looked at his watch, and it was less than 3 minutes away from his 5-hour practice limit.

He also didn't bother to see who the mysterious composer looked like. If the practice time exceeded, the system would directly deduct the time. In the Conservatory of Music, a person with sufficient piano room time can He is well-deservedly called a local tyrant. Of course, those who have a separate piano room are always exceptions.

He carried the piano on his back and hurried to return the key before the end of the timer. Before he swiped the card and left, he saw that the timer interface of another student was displayed on the administrator's computer, probably that ballade student?But it was a little far away, and he couldn't see the photo and name clearly, and he could only vaguely see that the person in the photo had short hair, and he seemed to have pretty features.

If there is a chance to ask Zhang Xinjie, he thought so, and went back to the dormitory.