Among all the songs performed by HanGuang Vocal Band, our favorite one has to be ‘Full River of Red.’ This song brings a natural high to all of us. It has a fast tempo with lively beats; it just makes us want to dance, or charging on the battlefield alongside General Yue Fei.
After discussing with our teacher, we hoped to gain a deeper insight into how Teacher Allegro and members of HanGuang Vocal Band fused this classical poetry with a cappella through analyzing ‘Full River of Red.’

Training

Secret to mimicking instruments

Teacher Allegro told us that members of HanGuang Vocal Band are all musicians as well. They have to perform voice percussion to replace instruments by changing instruments’ sound to one that is mimicked by human voice.
Therefore, they have to not only learn to mimic the sounds of instruments, but also play it according to that particular instrument’s tempo. If they can do that, they would have captured the essence of a cappella.

Multi-dimensional training

Since the essence of HanGuang is about fusing classical poetries with a cappella, one key element in their training is to bring Chinese elements into it. As a result, their training, in which we fused Chinese elements into poetries, literature, and body language, presented a major challenge to us.

• Performing Art: In the beginning, the band hired a performing art teacher to work on our members’ performing art to achieve the four-in-one performing target. Ms. Chen is now in charge of training and integrating the band’s artistic performance.
• Poetic literature:  In terms of literature and poetry, Director Chu analyzes the poems for our members and teaches them the pronunciation of certain words no longer in usage today. If band members wish to understand the essence of a particular poem, they may ask Director Chu for clarification.

The better they understand, the better their performance gets

		Director Chu: Many of our band members have some background in music. But in order to express the poem thoroughly in our music, we must also first understand the essence of the poem. ‘Full River of Red’ was written by Yue Fei, a national hero in the Song Dynasty. Before we sang the song, we have to travel through time into Yue Fei’s period so we could understand why Yue Fei was so furious when he wrote this poem. He was fighting against foreign tribes that had invaded his country, and it was in that historical background that prompted Yue Fei to write a poem with such strong emotion for winning. If we are able to understand that, then our singing would capture Yue Fei’s feeling as well, then that’s how we could move the audience with our music.

Dual lead singing to add depth to the song

		Teacher Allegro: ‘Full River of Red’ was arranged by a Singaporean a cappella band. That band was leaning more towards pop music, so the style of this song was made to reflect that, a bit on the rock and roll side. The song was originally set for one male lead, but then it was divided into two, with one part being the ‘serious’ side representing General Yue Fei, and the other being the ‘jester-like’ role with more lively and popular tune. When the two male leads go into solo, it feels like they are having a conversation, and that special way of interpretation adds lots of depth and liveliness into this song.

Highlights

Source: the Beautiful Voices │ Pictures: the Beautiful Voices