北京摇滚音乐学会来啦 Let's Rock

Lincoln: Chinese authorities revealed plans to set up its first rock music academy. There’s an idea, there, that we might actually be seeing a school of rock! It’s very strange. Michael and I are smiling at each other across the monitors here, because this is all very strange to both of us. Michael: It seems like a very…what’s the right word? A very sanitized approach to rock music. You know, when you think about rock music, you maybe think of a rather hedonistic kind of lifestyle. TY: It’s all spontaneous. Michael: Well, exactly, and not something that’s been talked about at a seminar with some Chinese authorities. I think it’s certainly a very different way of looking at the genre. Lincoln: Rock music, again, like Michael said, is hedonistic, all-things-go, you know, people living this heavy lifestyle, and then to just have it in a seminar with a lecturer, it seems very strange, to us at least. TY: It’s probably the same [as] any other music school, it’s just called a school of rock. It probably teaches everything, from classical music to pop. Lincoln: Those schools exist already, I think, but it didn’t necessarily say here that it was teaching all those variants of rock and roll music. TY: How do you think that singer, the singer Tan Weiwei got those rock songs worked out and written in the first place? Lincoln: Because you just play it. You pick up a guitar and you know a guy who has some drums and you know a guy who has a bass… TY: No, you have to learn how those instruments work together. Michael: Sure, but I would argue there’s a world of difference between taking guitar lessons and sitting down and entering into a diploma of how to learn how to read and how to play and how to write rock music. I think the original genesis of rock music is that you come up with it on your own – you have this creativity, you know how to write songs, and it comes easy to you. You write the lyrics, you write the tune, you write the melody [Lincoln: All yourself] all yourself. I think the idea is that it should come from within, and I think you can always take influences from elsewhere, from other musical styles, but to me, it sounds a little bit sterile just sitting in a classroom and learning about this. TY: I think, probably to Chinese, everything can be acquired through training or learning. Lincoln: I think there’s a legitimate point there. Who’s to say that rock can’t be taught, and commodified into being an actual science where you can go to an academy and learn it? I don’t think it’s been tried before. TY: If you don’t learn, how can you come to know this in the first place? Lincoln: Because you hear it, and you try it, and you fail, but you fail in a unique way, and then you come up with your own thing. Michael: If this is like an actual registered course and diploma that everybody joins, and everybody does the same sorts of modules, won’t everybody just end up producing the same kind of music? Isn’t the whole point of rock music finding your own voice and your own style? Like you said, Lincoln, you might fail, but you might fail gloriously, and that might lead to something else unique, and I think it would take away some of the individuality of it, for me. Lincoln: I do think it is a strange idea, but I don’t necessarily think it is a bad idea. Michael: I would be fascinated to see what the curriculum actually entails, because all we’re doing here is speculating over what it might be, and I would be very interested to see exactly what the balance is of music theory, music history, or a practical element. Lincoln: Perhaps stage-diving 101, perhaps something like this? Michael: I’ve no idea how that would work, and I would actually be fascinated to see exactly how it goes.