Garden of Seasons - Music choices- week 12
Today my task is finding the perfect background music for my project.
The music I chose in this season is from Japanese animation Natsume's Book of Friends and its name is ăľăăă¨ăŽĺă written by ĺ棎俥 (ăŽăźăťăł).
Natsume's Book of Friends is my favourite animation, and spring always remind me of the Sakura Trees in Japan. Those pink panels flying in the sky with the breeze is so romantic and relaxing. And it also reminds me of the innocent and pure love in a young age.
Summer :
The music I chose for summer is Clair de Lune from The Bergamask Suite which is a piano suite created by the French composer Achille Claude Debussy. It was first created around 1890, but it was significantly modified before it was published in 1905.Â
It consists of four movements, PrĂŠlude, Menuet, Clair de lune and Passepied, among which Clair de lune is best known.
Clair de luneâs rhythm is quite gentle and slow, describes a quiet and peaceful moon light at night. It reminds me of the scene of walking under the shield of summer trees at night, watching the gentle moon light shining on the lake, on the sleeping plants.
This music has many names. It is named Farewell in China, most people know that its lyrics are written by Shutting Li. But there are hardly people know that its another two names.
In the 19th century, American musician J.P. Odway made a song "Dreaming of Home and Mother". After the song was circulated to Japan, the Japanese lyricist Dog Tongqixi adopted "dream home." The melody of the mother and the mother wrote a lyric called "Lover". After the publication of "Travel" in 1904, it was widely circulated in Japan. From 1905 to 1910, Li Shutong was exposed to the "Traveling" during his study in Japan. He was impressed by the beautiful melody of this song, and he created his inspiration for the song "Farewell" that has been passed down from China to the present. Li Shutongâs "Farewell" is taken from the "Traveling" of the Dog Tongqi Stream. Today, "Travel" is not bad in Japan, and "Farewell" has become the best classic in Chinese songs.
From the lyrics, "Dream Home and Mother", "Travel", "Farewell" are the individual creations of three artists, and are three independent works.
Farewell is one of my most familiar songs, it contains too many memories with my friends during the progress of growing up. In every stage of my life, when I graduated from different level of schools, Farewell is the song for us to say goodbye to our old school life. In my game, this Farewell is played by my cousin Ren Liu, who is a musician and music teacher now, with piano.
It is shame that Iâm not good at deal with the live music, I learned how to remove the noise from the recorded song, but still, the volume besoms too low. My senses to tone and rhythm of a music are not very sensitive, so thereâs still a bit pity on dealing with the music.
ć˘
čą(Plum Flower)ä¸ĺź ďźMei Hua San Nongďź is an ancient Chinese stringed music. The history can be traced back to the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It may be a flute or a singer at first. However, only the ancient lyrics are preserved. The earliest surviving "Meihua Sannong" Guqin spectrum is found in "Mysterious Secrets." It uses positive tuning strings. Through the characteristics of plum white fragrance and cold resistance of plum blossoms, the music sings and praises people with noble exercises. There are 10 passages in the whole song. Because the theme plays three times on the overtones of the different emblems of the piano (played in three parts: upper, middle and lower), it is called "three".
After being adapted from a part of this piece of music, it has become the theme music of the Voice of China on the Central Peopleâs Broadcasting Station since 2004.
The reason why I chose this song as the background music in winter is because the topic in this season is the love of family. In this scene, I aim to use this song from my hometown to express my feeling of home. This song had accompanied with me for at least 5 years since I went to the primary school. My grandpa used listening to the morning news radio every morning at 6 am and at the same time he woke me up because my class will start at 7. So no matter how hard for me to get up, especially in winter, every day when I heard this music, I knew it was the time that I had to get up. So this music contains a lot memory of my grandpa.
I hasnât heard this song since he passed away, the year after I graduated from primary school. As I explained in winter scene about Plum tree, itâs never afraid of the cold in winter and blooms in the hard situations. It just reminds me of my grandpa so bad. He used to a soldier to protect our home town, but unfortunately he lost his eyes in the war. But he never gave up himself, he used his knowledge and memory to make speech and encourage people who was suffering from the war and famine, he became an important leader in my hometown and led people to find the way to survive. So even he couldnât see anymore, but still he won all residents respect. And also, thatâs what he always taught me, never give up.
I think it is my familyâs support gives me courage to face the challenges in my life. And I hope I can express this spirit from my family to my audiences who are struggling from the difficulties of their life.
Debussy, A. (1890). Clair de Lune. [online].
溼éŞć(2015). ć˘
čąä¸ĺź.
ăľăăă¨ăŽĺă. (2019). [online].
