After the concert, we were quite fascinated to see on the program that all songs were arranged by foreigners. According to Director Chu, a cappella music arrangement is very difficult, and there aren’t many people in Taiwan who are competent to do it. As a result, most of the songs performed by HanGuang Vocal Band are arranged by talented musicians from overseas! Furthermore, Teacher Allegro told us that HanGuang Vocal Band sings its own songs, not popular songs that you can get off the market. In order to learn more about the story behind music arrangement for HanGuang Vocal Band, we paid another visit to Taiwan Choral Music Center and interviewed Teacher Allegro and Director Chu, and we hope they could shed some light on it.
Major discoveries from the interview:
Poems are selected based on the topic：There is an annual theme for HanGuang Vocal Band in choosing for its poems. In 2014, our concerts were focused on ‘flower’ and ‘tea.’ They may not be the ones that you will find in textbooks, but they certainly are poems with great depth.
Good music comes when east meets west：After students in Taiwan have selected a poem, it is then first arranged with a strong oriental melody. Therefore, a team from overseas is then invited by HanGuang to arrange the music to create a sweet-sounding tune that is a fusion of eastern melody and western harmony.
| Source: 'HanGuang Vocal Band' |
Interview Q&A:
Q:We know that what separates HanGuang Vocal Band from other a cappella groups is the fusion of classical poetries with a cappella. We heard a lot of that in the concert on November 19th. Could you tell us how are those poems chosen for your music?
A:HanGuang Education Foundation hosts ‘Old Lover – New Darling: Classical Poetry Music Arrangement and Singing Competition’ annually. There is a theme for each year. For example, the theme could be about tea or flower, and hence we had songs
like A spray of flowers (Not giving in to old age)- coda and Drunken Flowers, or about studying, and hence we had songs like Joy of Studying in Four Seasons, Thousand Character Classic, and Encouraging learning articles. We have hundreds of outstanding entries every year from the competition. After our professional judging panel, who are judges from the Golden Melody Award, the Golden Bell Award, or the Golden Horse Award, review them, the songs that they have chosen are exceptional pieces that are done professionally. These songs will then become the songs for HanGuang Vocal Band. Next, an even tougher task lies ahead in turning these poetries into a cappella.
A:We choose the ones that are easier to interpret through a cappella, and then we invite musicians overseas to rearrange them. Since a cappella originated in the west, and poetry is from the east, so we try to fuse the two, and the result has been quite impressive.
Q:How do you discuss and communicate with your overseas team?
A:We will include the music, poem, and a translated version of the poem. In the beginning, they would say the poems were impossible to comprehend after seeing the translation. We would then run through the poem with them, explaining every single word, phrase, and stanza, including the underlying meaning of each poem. Furthermore, we would also sing the poems for them a few times, but they were still having trouble understanding them thoroughly. It is not difficult to see there are certainly some degrees of difficulties for westerners to understand the essence of Chinese literature. Surprisingly, they would always come up with something great after the song is finalized, so I found out that music is our mutual language after all.
A:Translating classical poetries into English is a tough job. The translator needs to convey the sound and meaning through words. After they understood the poems, they then proceed with rearranging the song. This is where we spent a lot of time on. Many things may seem simple on the surface, but behind them, there is a tremendous amount of human, material, financial resources invested in them.
Q:Were there songs that you weren’t quite satisfied with?
A:We weren’t quite pleased with Thousand Character Classic because the colossal momentum was not captured in the rearranged version. Afterwards, we had to add in the sounds of thunder and lower the tune by one full octave. After we did that, the bass sound would literally rock the floor. When the song wasn’t able to catch the essence of the poem, we would improvise with some special effects just to make up for the deficiencies.
Whereas in their first song, Restful Minds as Clouds and Water, they were able to capture the essence of the poem, and I was really impressed. After that, I started giving them room to let their creativity take charge of rearrange our music, and the results have been extraordinary.
