-george winston, a great musician of the new era, a thinker and his musical sketches.

I first came into contact with new age music in the winter vacation of my freshman year. After the exam, I tried to find a disc in the book building and accidentally saw a very inconspicuous album. On the black back cover, there is a light blue landscape in the center of the cover: the winter is covered with snow, and several trees stand directly on the snow, with an invisible forest behind them, which is quiet and serene. I have never heard that the cover says "New Age Music", let alone the name "george winston". However, I read the unique beauty revealed in the cover and simple composition, and I like it. When I got home, I put on my headphones and pressed the play button. The crisp sound of the piano flows into my heart gently and gracefully, and the world stands still for it at this moment. This album was released on 1982, and its name is December.

The summer before I came to Zhejiang University, I packed my bags. Fingertips slide across a whole CD, and finally I bring this album, an album that will make me feel1cold and sunny in mid-February whenever and wherever. It can caress my restless heart, stretch my nervous body and completely immerse me in this detached world. Even at this moment, I am still listening, listening to george winston's masterpiece "December".

When I met that winter vacation in December, I searched the life of this master on the Internet. A jazz pianist in Montana, USA, has created more than ten new age music albums to express his nostalgia for his hometown. After playing the piano, he learned the classic Hawaiian Slack Key guitar, which revived this almost forgotten traditional instrument. He also composed music for four children's musicals, including the famous Peanut, a talented and childlike artist.

After that, for a long time, I went to various record stores to look for george winston's other works as soon as I had time. Things are often like this: I rushed into the record store with great interest and came out in frustration. Bosses will shake their heads and say, "george winston? It is the one who plays the piano. It was there a long time ago, and it is rarely sold now. " After more than ten record stores, a clerk said, "I remember there seems to be one, the one who plays the piano!" " "Then she rummaged through the back room for decades, and finally took out a picture album with a lot of dust. I carefully dusted off the dust, and my eyes were almost blurred with excitement: the four seasons in george winston. I guess I'm really hungry because I never buy selected works. In my opinion, the abbreviated version of music deceives artists and listeners. I instinctively resist fast food music. In a sense, the selected work is to satisfy the fast food of the general public. However, I still happily took it home until I was so sleepy that I forgot to turn off the CD player.

Not long after I bought this album, I met a thinker. It's an album "Palace Sketch", and the cover is a bit tacky. The stunt on the cover is scary, "the only Japanese New Age group that enjoys a worldwide reputation after Kitaro". Out of my crazy love for the music of the new era, I bought it without hesitation. Objectively speaking, this album is not excellent compared with many other intoxicating soundtracks of The Thinker. But soon I found two other albums of the Forbidden City series, Ode to the Memory of the Palace and Goodbye to the Seeds of the Palace, in the same store, and then I regretted my preconceived views on thinkers. The music of The Thinker, or more accurately, the music made for the documentary of The Forbidden City, reflects the cultural interpretation of China cultural admirers' own music. Among them, there are not only grand symphony backgrounds, but also the main melody melody played by some China characteristic musical instruments (such as electronic synthetic chimes and erhu), which has a long history and endless aftertaste.

Thinkers are a group of two artists who are good at electronic music. Originally named Sensitivity Project, 1986 was renamed as S.E.N.S As the soundtrack of the documentary Maritime Silk Road by NHK TV, it takes the homonym of sense and cense, and the four letters stand for sound nature earth spirit respectively. Thinkers mainly focus on the soundtracks of movies and TV series, and have published many wonderful soundtracks. I collected the soundtrack of the movie "City of Sorrow". This film directed by Hou Xiaoxian in Taiwan Province Province, China, won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival with 1989, and the thoughtful and euphemistic soundtrack contributed a lot.

George winston and The Thinker seem to have opened a new door in my heart, a door to a new music world. I no longer linger on the pop music album in the most prominent position in the record store, but eagerly look for the new era music album, because compared with the new era music, pop is so superficial in a sense. The new era music-whether it is Chopin and other classical masters who adapted the earliest mantovani Orchestra, or Liszt's works as light music that appeals to both refined and popular tastes, or Kitaro Vangelis's exquisite soundtrack for movies and TV documentaries-covers every corner of music. This group of artists, who are full of hope for the future, combine the classical with the modern, showing an unprecedented art school. In the past, I found a professor's definition of this kind of music in the Conservatory of Music of Qingdao University: "The so-called new era music is to interpret classical music, national music and local music with modern music equipment and means." ("The End of Language is the Place where Music Appears-New Era Music" Author: Jiang, Department of Music, Conservatory of Music, Qingdao University) Although I am far less accomplished in art than this professor, I personally don't quite agree with this statement. It is true that many musicians, such as Mystery Garden and Ji Shen, have made immortal contributions to the exploration of their own national music. Mantovani and Yo-Yo Ma (their position in the new era music is still controversial) are unique in exploring classical music, but the new era music is definitely not only national, local and classical. In my opinion, the unique charm of new era music is that it has no definite boundaries, and all kinds of melodies that want to express deep meditation can be counted as new era music. From the orange dream of German electronic school, to China Deng Weibiao full of Buddhist connotation, from the passionate Spanish gypsy king, to the calm and indecisive American suzanne ciani, as well as the animation soundtrack with Japanese national style in Joe Hisaishi, and the piano melody of a slightly sad pianist daydreaming across the border in China, all point to a brand-new musical concept. This idea may be very suitable to use the word Kitaro to describe his music, that is, spiritual, spiritual. Alcorld, an American woman writer, said: "The eyes are clearer because of more tears, and the heart is warmer because of more suffering." I think, the spiritual characteristics of the new era music may also make the audience feel "clear and gentle", which is probably the reason why the new era music is so different!

George winston's Collection of Ten Piano Essays was published by China Guangzhou Star Alien Company. I bought all the albums one after another and listened to each one carefully. When I hear every note, I can recite the modified sound. George winston touched me not only with his skillful skills, but also with the true feelings he injected into music. This sounds unpretentious at all, and it is a heartfelt compliment to his hometown of Montana. I've almost heard of Bandelli's works, but I don't know whether it's because domestic sellers spare no effort to promote them, which makes them vulgar and rotten, or whether these Swiss musicians themselves are building their musical ideals on illusory reality. Anyway, those music have illusory names such as "Qingfenggu" and "Dream Garden", but after listening to them, they will never produce real artistic conception, just illusory musical notes instead of melody. George winston has an album "Winter Go and Spring Come". When the notes are played continuously and intensively, I can't help but think of the spring rain and the vibrant scene of everything in spring. When I opened the album centerfold, I was surprised to find that the song was called Rain. And this kind of feeling, it is absolutely impossible to enjoy listening to Bandelli's moaning music.

In contrast, thinkers' music is rarely released in China. In addition to the trilogy of the Forbidden City, there is also an anthology "Transparent Music" and a TV series soundtrack "Two Thousand Years of Love", that's all. I am embarrassed to admit that my "City of Sadness" is also pirated. I downloaded the albums of all other thinkers online, and I was shocked and moved by them again and again. There are many tunes, as simple as the main theme of eight bars, but the interweaving of piano and strings has produced incredible harmony and fullness. For example, in the music album "Asian Blue" published by thinkers in 2000, there is a song "Sican-Prayer". The piano melody is repeated twice, and then the same melody is integrated into the strings, repeated and changed again. The structure is exaggerated, but the silent gentleness is memorable.

I sometimes like to make an analogy: george winston's works are like light and fresh modern poems, with a feeling of being at arm's length. The listener and the musician are neither far away nor too close, and the musicians are separated by this established distance, so that the listener can sing. Thinkers' works are more like elegant prose, which completely wraps the listener's heart with an overwhelming force. This kind of warmth is meticulous, so that the listener can completely immerse himself in the artistic world created by himself, open his heart and directly feel this wonderful melody with a fiery heart. As to which is better, modern poetry or prose, I think there is no conclusion. Both styles have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they also inspire the lives of generations, making their lives full of unforgettable fragments.

If you search for george winston in Baidu, the first (and most) thing that appears is an abbreviated version of Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D major adapted by george winston in the movie My Wild Girlfriend by Gianna Jun. John Pachelbel, a baroque musician who had a great influence on Bach, would never have thought that his first Canon had been changed for dozens of versions, and it was constantly played and lasted for a long time. On the other hand, george winston probably wouldn't have thought that his hundreds of wonderful piano sketches, driven by movies, were not as popular as an adaptation. In my opinion, sometimes art is a helpless and embarrassing contradictory unity: on the one hand, artists constantly create newer and better works in order to let more art audiences enjoy better spiritual food. On the other hand, art can't be completely condescending, completely abandon the elegant "dowry", let all the general public work hard to promote it, and finally lose the appeal that art should enjoy. Let me take Bandelli as an example. This group of uncontested Swiss musicians enclosed themselves in the virgin forest of Switzerland and devoted themselves to their creation in order to let more people know their yearning spiritual world. I don't know what happened in other parts of the world. At least in China, Bandelli's publishing units are very chaotic. Many publishing houses "release" Bandelli's album at the same time, with inexplicable illustrations unrelated to the album content. The owners of record stores, supermarkets and shopping centers seem to have grasped the straws, thinking that playing this kind of "elegant music" in their stores can attract more customers. As a result, Bandry quickly swept the streets, and almost everyone intentionally or unintentionally heard a lot of Bandry's works. Even if this kind of music is elegant, it can only follow the path of conventional pop music. The same problem seems to be eroding Enya, Sarah Bleiman, Kenneth, and even Yani, Mystery Garden and Enigma. I don't know how long it will take the children on the roadside to go to school humming "The Shepherd's Moon". I have great respect for this female musician from the Irish choir, but Enya's music has also become popular and civilian. Finally ... I hope that "eventually" will not happen, at least it will happen in the future, so that we would-be "philharmonic lovers" can continue to enjoy her little "privilege".

One night, I heard the music of familiar thinkers in the school radio station, including Aphrodite in Silk Road on the Sea and Rain in Galloping, one was the soundtrack of a documentary and the other was the soundtrack of a movie. The beautiful melody is played in the uncoordinated loudspeaker of campus radio, but it still retains the elegance and tenderness of the original song, which makes me excited. But listening to music, my mood becomes complicated unconsciously. I once recommended the music of thinkers to my classmates in the dormitory, but I finally found that the appeal of thinkers was far less than that of Jay Chou, so I had to give up. At that time, I really hoped to find someone who could share the fun of listening to thinkers' music, but if campus radio spared no effort to promote thinkers, Zhejiang University students finally fell in love with this group, and thinkers were constantly publicized and eventually became like Jay Chou. At that time, I think I will never lack someone to talk to about my musical feelings. But when everyone is listening to the same music, and they all feel good about themselves, or express their views deeply or shallowly, as if they understand but don't understand well, I guess … I will definitely choose silence. But I'm still recommending it to people. I'm still introducing george winston, a thinker, new era music and this group of elegant dancers, who danced in the world of art with brisk steps and left unforgettable classical music. And I just want to be an audience and feel with my heart. While perceiving the artistic world of the masters, my heart seems to become clear. By listening to music, my heart becomes clearer. I believe anyone who loves music can do it.