Zhao Zengxi has been working as a record production assistant since 1986. At that time, he had begun to cooperate with many singers such as Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui, Lun Yongliang, etc. During this period, he supervised the production of many works, one of which was Lin Yilian's "Wildflower" album.
Zengxi Zhao has also served as the music director of many concerts in Hong Kong and as a record producer for many Hong Kong singers. He also participated in film scoring and was nominated for the 1998 Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Original Film Score for "City of Glass" and "Anna Madeleine". He was also nominated for the 1996 Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Original Film Score for "Sweetie", "Mom's Trouble" and "Erotic Man and Woman", and won this award for "Sweetie".
Today’s popular music is not as well-known as in the past. Zhao Zengxi, who entered the record industry at its golden peak, experienced the music industry’s transformation and decline from a high position, witnessed the death of superstars with no successors, and felt deeply that he was destined to become a music star. Outsiders enter the heart and lungs.
In 2009, Zhao Zengxi, whose zodiac sign is Sheep, encountered Tai Sui on the sixth day of the Year of the Ox, and his life and career encountered turning points. At this moment, he had already planned to switch to administrative management and was ready. He silently hoped that the right time and place would meet him and create a superstar again. When the audience thought that the low-key Zhao Zengxi had stayed in yesterday's glory, he suddenly appeared on the stage of "The Voice" with a high profile, spouting cold-blooded comments like a producer, fighting to the death with the contestants, and being a producer who spoke mercilessly. The comments won a lot of applause, and the popularity among the public increased. It was originally intended to recruit talents, but before successfully recruiting stars, Zhao Zengxi himself seemed to have become a rising star, playing piano at the "Super Big Voice" concert.
In 1997, he won the Best Original Music Award at the 16th Hong Kong Film Awards for "Sweet Honey". In the same year, he served as the conductor for the first time for the original musical "Snow Wolf Lake" that shocked the Chinese region. . In 2005 and 2006, he supervised the production of the "Concert Hall" series for Hacken Lee, which was an unprecedented simultaneous record production for local live singing, radio recording, and video recording. It caused great repercussions both inside and outside the industry. As a lover of classical and orchestral music, he has organized many concerts for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and pop singers, such as "Hong Kong Philharmonic." Wang Leehom" (2008), "Hong Kong Philharmonic. "Zie Tian" (2007), etc. In recent years, his work has mainly been as a concert music director and dubbing and other behind-the-scenes production.
"Who has won the rookie championship after Eason? I have no impression at all." Regarding the music competition, Zhao Zengxi was indeed a little emotional when talking about it: "Lu Fang, Liang Hanwen, Xu Zhian, Sammi Cheng...many singers I have done They all come from singing competitions, so I will definitely agree that singing competitions are the place to create superstars. But looking back on the past ten years, the function of singing competitions has been completely lost. Superstars like Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung have never appeared again. The watershed should be Eason Chan. Who has won the Rookie Championship in the past?”
With Zhao Zengxi’s status, it is normal for him to be often invited to serve as a judge for singing competitions, but he never thought that he would also be a judge for "Super Big Voice". One of the "performers". "At first I thought "The Voice" was just a large-scale singing competition, but I had no idea it needed to be so high-profile! I once told the director that I wasn't good at talking in front of the camera, so they asked me to treat the scene as a recording studio, from being a daily producer to Just criticize from a different perspective." As a result, Zhao Zengxi's sharp criticism of the contestants was very popular. Then he found that the Hong Kong music scene was full of hope. "In recent years, the mediocre talent of singers has become known to everyone. To be honest, I am really a little disinterested. I never expected to see many young contestants in the competition. Their standards are extremely high. They are completely different before and after they take the stage! "Zhao Zengxi, whose eyes were shining, shared extremely excitedly. At this moment, he should agree that the publicity is worth the money. He had excellent qualifications. He studied at St. Joseph's English School, and his HKCEE scores were 2A1B3C. In the eyes of his father, who was engaged in the fabric trading business, Zhao Zengxi was naturally the best candidate to inherit the mantle. Unfortunately, his father passed away due to illness when he was in Form Five. Zhao Zengxi's unruly artistic nature completely dominated Zhao Zengxi. "After I was sad, I suddenly realized that no one could control me, and I played music even more crazily." I kept holding concerts, four or five a year; everyone attended the concerts, no matter how big or small; even if they had money or not, they even had to give money. Zhao Zengxi also performed, and playing music became his full-time job.
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Later, when a friend participated in a singing competition, Zhao Zengxi was originally only a backup singer, but the unintentional drama reappeared. "My friend participated in the rookie competition and chose to sing Culture Club's "Victims". There was no karaoke at that time. As an accompaniment, my friend's piano player was not familiar with English music, so he asked me to help with the accompaniment. In the end, his audition became my audition. After playing, Li Xiaotian came up and asked, "Are you interested in being my production assistant?" ’ Of course I agreed! "The more important reason is that after my father passed away, my mother took care of the entire family of seven sisters and brothers on her own. It is understandable that the pressure was heavy. In the past, as the only male, I used to have all the power, but today I suddenly felt the responsibility of being a man. “After finishing Form 7, there are people who are willing to hire me. They can help share the family income and do what I like. Why not kill two birds with one stone? "Youru participated in an unopposed competition, and Zhao Zengxi successfully entered the industry. "I knew my mother didn't like me doing this industry, so she asked sincerely: 'How many Gu Jiahui are there in this industry? ’ But all I knew at the time was that I was the only one who got into the industry based on this competition. "More than 20 years ago, the monthly salary of a newly hired production assistant was only NT$2,000, which was lower than that of an office assistant with a monthly salary of NT$3,000. Not everyone could handle the challenge of low salary, but Zhao Zengxi accepted it without thinking and started from the lowest level. , copying scores, copying demos, and courier music scores to lyricists, at first glance, they are all low-level tasks. "Nowadays, it is different from the past. I once hired several young assistants. I asked them if they really liked music, and then warned them that this was just their income. Work that is extremely inconsistent with the effort. They always say yes first, but no one can get through it. ”
The willingness to stick to one’s post brings endless opportunities. Zhao Zengxi said that opportunities are actually everywhere, and it often depends on whether people have the courage to seize them: “The first time I participated in a concert was I sang harmony for Anita Mui. After two years of singing, someone suddenly asked me if I could play the keyboard? bomb! Have you ever played? No, no problem, I will go back to practice. How much? It's not important, just think about it. The first person who came to me to play was Du Zizi, who played for Jenny Tsien's concert at Haicheng Nightclub in Tsim Sha Tsui.
The even more bold time was in 1997, when Jacky Cheung called and asked if he wanted to be a conductor? Likewise, he said yes without even thinking for a second. I thought you were brave enough to try and I was brave enough to do it. Being a conductor was my dream goal when I was thirty, but unfortunately I never had the time to force me to learn it. Since someone gave me the opportunity, there was no reason not to do it. Since I had no experience in conducting, I immediately called Ye Yongshi for help. After eight classes, I did forty-two performances of "Snow Wolf Lake". Finally, I made no major mistakes, and coincidentally fulfilled Leslie Cheung's promise that I would be in my early thirties. explain! "
After analyzing and dismantling his past, Zhao Zengxi came to a conclusion that will be useful in this life: "When an opportunity is in front of you, don't calculate it, just be bold and seize it. I became a concert music director simply because I dared to seize the opportunity that was "bigger than your ability". Even if it was a challenge, I had to jump to it, even if I was exhausted, I would wait until later. "Arranger" is one of Zhao Zengxi's identities. From the 1980s when adapted songs were popular, to the 1990s when authenticity was emphasized, the definition of the word arranger has undergone major changes. Zhao Zengxi said: "I just entered the industry. At that time, adapted songs flooded the music scene, and most of the songs that her brother Mei and sister Allen sang were covers of popular songs in England, Korea, and Japan. As for the situation of buying copyright, for example, if Japan sells you the copyright of a certain song, it is just a right to use it. They will not send the background music of the song itself, so Hong Kong needs to find someone to re-produce the song piece by piece. The grainy sounds were written into a musical score, and then the background music of the song was re-recorded. This almost copying action was called 'arranging', or 'transcribe', which was a very common practice in Hong Kong at that time. The word composer comes from classical music, composition and orchestration are basically simultaneous processes. Nowadays, original music is popular, and the distinction between arrangement and composition of popular songs is very clear. Composers can be pure melody writers. The demos they provide may be just simple piano playing to create the background, and they need to rely on arrangers to enrich the music. This is Arranger work.
In a concert situation, when we want to give a song a new style and feel, arranger will re-score and edit the music melody, which is also called arrangement. There is no doubt that composing original songs involves more creation. "
"For example, "Wild Flowers" by Lin Yilian, no one can cover it, no one has the courage. "Any media-related work is tiring. Zhao Zengxi worked overtime until late at night the night before the interview, but in front of him he was full of energy. There was no trace of age on his face. He was in his forties but looked like he was in his early thirties. "I There is no need to travel to recharge or rely on crazy consumption to relieve stress. As long as you find what you love, keep doing it, and don't feel it's hard, you won't be disabled or old. If you have fun at work, that satisfaction is the best moisturizer. "That's why Zhao Zengxi asked us to prepare a piano for him beforehand, so that he could experience the unique texture of the grand piano while working. He, who had never passed the Grade 8 piano exam, played the music of his daughter's Grade 8 exam. Said: “I studied half classical music and half pop music, so I didn’t teach her personally. My son initially wanted to learn the flute, but the boy's posture when holding the flute was weird, so he was asked to play the clarinet. He is 18 years old and 6 feet tall, and is taking music courses at the Baptist Church. We often joke that three of them can form a group together. "Superstars can probably be found at home.
Zhao Zengxi said that with the advent of the original music era, market demand has greatly increased, which has created a large number of songwriters and indirectly formed the karaoke era. "Now Looking back, the original songs in the 1980s were actually karaoke songs. Even Lei Songde had not started writing songs at that time, and karaoke culture was brewing. The collision of the two created a local karaoke song writing trend. The so-called karaoke songs are actually written for the public to sing rather than for the public to listen to. "Zhao Zengxi, the official in the government, couldn't figure out what was right or wrong, but he was absolutely certain that he would resist doing karaoke songs again. "Anyone can sing karaoke songs. There is no difference between singer A and singer B. The identity of the singer is irrelevant. When it comes to songs for people to listen to, there is a tailor-made relationship between the song and the singer. It is a unique way and thought of singing and singing, which derives the style and route of the song and the soundtrack. Only when a specific person sings can the chemical effect be produced. For example, Lin Yilian's "Wild Flowers", no one can cover it, no one has the courage. "Zhao Zengxi talked about those days with great interest, and suddenly he mentioned the fun brought by new technology. There are fewer and fewer pop songs that can really become popular, and the number of CDs sold has dropped from 400,000 in the heyday of the 1980s to 50,000 today. It is also a very rare situation. The music industry is not easy to do, which can be seen from the fact that Zhao Zengxi's job scope has been largely transferred from arranger and producer to concert music director. "The nature of my job is passive and I am not involved. There are too many composition jobs, and I increasingly like to be with a group of people and feel the live atmosphere at the venue, so I especially like to perform in concerts. Even my record work in recent years has been related to concerts, such as Tsai Chin’s "Golden Sound Concert Hall" ", Li Hacken's "Concert Hall", etc. ”
Zhao Zengxi said that even if he switches to concert production, his work will not necessarily increase significantly. Holding a concert in the Hong Kong Coliseum is a milestone in a singer’s career. To be honest, there are only a few singers who have the ability to perform. Quality determines the number of concerts. Nowadays, newcomers who are relatively well-known will go to the Coliseum, but they must also understand that if they hit the wall in the Coliseum, they will be eliminated immediately. You want the audience to spend three hours with you, and you'd better. Impress me (you better impress me), otherwise no one will want to see you or buy your records.
A certain near-king-level male singer many years ago is a classic example, obviously. The album sells well, but her popularity plummets immediately after a concert. An example is a female singer who had a great rise a few years ago and suddenly had six concerts in the Coliseum. The number is easy to calculate. Sales volume of 20,000 is equal to the total number of people attending the two Coliseum concerts. Opening two concerts is more than enough to satisfy the fans, and the response must be good. If the company is too greedy and opens six concerts, four of the attendees will be non-fans. Audiences may become impatient after listening to two or three familiar songs, and the singer's live appeal is immature. It will leave a bad impression on the audience in three hours, and these 40,000 people will become "bad word of mouth." "Swarm", and usually their destructive power is quite strong...