“What kind of effects can a violin and erhu perform traditional Chinese repertoire?”

At the “Himalayan Night · 2021 Phantom Tour” gala held on December 3, Liu Xianhua and erhu actor Chen Jun performed a stunning ensemble. The delightful violin was beautifully fused with a thousand turns of erhu. The fusion of Chinese and Western instruments made the traditional Chinese classic song “Liang Zhu” perform brilliantly and full of creativity. The audience listened intently and heartily. Many Weibo netizens called the ensemble “amazing”. Traditional cultural classics such as “Liang Zhu” also made numerous appearances in “The Phantom Sound Journey,” and the ancient book “Shanhai Sutra” even became the source of the “worldview” for this story-style gala.

Through creative and youthful forms of expression, the Himalayas created a “national trend singer” gala for users. What kind of considerations did they take into account?

1 What is the reason for the rise of “Guochao IP” in audio?

The “rise of the national tide” has become a new cultural phenomenon in today's society, especially among young people. According to Baidu's data report, the popularity of “Guochao” searches has risen 528% in the past ten years, with the post-90s and post-00s showing the highest interest in “national style” culture among users.

The popularity of the national trend shows young people's increasingly strong cultural self-confidence. This is also one of the major trends brought about by the country's economic and cultural development. In the field of content creation, the rich spiritual connotations and high degree of extensibility of traditional Chinese culture also make it a rich cultural level, and can become a rich source of content creation — the rise of “national trends” in fields such as novels, games, movies, television, variety shows, animation, etc., has proven from different circles that the current mainstream consumers, especially young people, have a soft spot for local culture.

This “national style” is also in full swing in the field of long audio. The Himalayas have launched the full audio drama “Dream of the Red Mansion” performed by Zhang Guoli, the full audio drama of “Journey to the West” performed by Wang Gang, and “Liu Lin, Forensic Doctor Song Song”, “Bai Ke: Tang Song Has Hip-Hop”, “The Six Memories of Qin Hao: Fusheng”, “Liu Mintao: The Most Beautiful Love Poem Through the Ages”, and “Liu Mintao: A Little Life in the Song Dynasty”, and “Liu Mintao: A Little Life in the Song Dynasty”, which has ignited the “listeners” of young users to listen to “listeners”” Enthusiasm.

As a form of medium, “sound” is more “focused” than “emotion”, which is more clearly susceptible to graphics. Compared to video, which conveys information through vision, it is also more “focused”. However, in various scenes anytime, anywhere, the immersion brought by the sound transmission content in the headphones is also the unique appeal of audio content.

The rise of a large number of audio Guochao IP content in the Himalayas has allowed us to see the vast creative space and market potential of “Guochao+Audio”. At this “Phantom Sound Journey” gala, the audience was able to join the audience, including Bai Jugang, Da Zhang Wei, Ding Zhen, HENRY Liu Xianhua, Jiang Yingrong, Jin Zihan, Face Band, Tang Guoqiang, Tan Weiwei, Wang Liqun, Wu Xuanyi, Zhang Yuan, Wang Beiche, voice actors from Shanghai Film Translation and Studio, and representatives of Himalayan anchors. Feel more possibilities of the “sound” of the national tide.

2 When audio is integrated with national trends, how should the “sound” of culture be expressed?

This “Phantom Sound Journey” did not have the host's live performance model like a traditional gala. Instead, it was a “story party” that uses the ancient book “Shanhai Sutra” as a framework, breaks with traditional stage presentation styles, and tells the story of exploring the meaning of sound through a cinema-level storyline approach.

The party had a specially constructed worldview: the alien beast “Sonic Creature” attacked the “Sonic Creature” world, four types of sound energy fell to Earth, and “Shirasawa”, played by Ding Zhengu, would join forces with many “sound agents” to cross the four realms of Xuanwu, Blue Dragon, White Tiger, and Suzaku to retrieve sound energy and save the “Sonic Creature” world.

The “Shanhai Sutra” in “Shanhai Sutra” is an alien beast with three tails, shaped like a wild cat and “sounds like a hundred sounds”. The evening party clearly uses its sound characteristics to create the background of the evening story; while the “Four Elephants” in traditional culture became four major chapters during the party, forming two axes of time and space, and the content spanning two axes: Xuanwu's story about history and heritage, Suzaku's story about the present and the future; the Blue Dragon chapter reflects the diversity of sound, and the White Tiger chapter reflects the individualized expression of sound.

In addition to taking the main story from “Mountain and Sea Sutra”, “The Phantom Sound Journey” is also heavily modeled after Chinese cultural IP in the programming of specific programs, and “refreshed” the communication power of traditional culture through innovative expressions: Jin Zihan and Dong Jiaming danced “One Dream of the Red House”; Da Zhang Wei and Pinocchao's vocal orchestra recalled “Those Things of the Song Dynasty” in the sitcom; singer and actor Bai Jugang starred in “The True Heart of Tang Seng” in “One Man's Journey to the West”, and through classic plot lines such as “Three Dozen White Bones” The artistry expressed Tang Seng's journey; Tang Guoqiang, who played Zhu Geliang, also appeared live to comment on the Peking Opera excerpt “ “The Empty City Plan” is also called “respect” in contemporary internet buzzwords.

“Voice” is the absolute protagonist in these national shows of “Journey to the Phantom Sound.” Even if you don't look at the picture, the rhythm of the content of “Phantom Sound Journey” built through sound is also complete. It is reported that this is the result of a special design by the main creative team. In addition to watching with the eyes, it is also an evening where you can “listen” with a closed screen. Car users can listen on the Himalaya App on the machine, and visually impaired groups can also experience a coherent story and artistic beauty through a carefully choreographed “sound gala”.

In the process from “culture” to “trend,” the “phantom sound journey” was realized through bold creative innovation and breakthroughs. “Phantom Sound Journey” did not focus on the simple transformation of traditional culture in a plain and straightforward manner. Instead, it created a large number of creations that fit the aesthetic context of young people through creative and artistic forms: the collision between Liu Xianhua and Chen Jun's “Chinese and Western Music” instruments and the reinterpretation of “Liang Zhu”, and Bai Jugang's stage mood and textual temperament from “Tang Sengxin Road” to the song “Lost Dreams” complement each other. These creative forms all effectively promoted emotional connections with young audiences.

At the same time, in this process, entertainment stars no longer simply brought performances to the audience, but turned their talents and fame into a driving force for young people to learn about and explore Chinese culture. In the “Phantom Sound Journey”, the Himalayas used “audio” to express creative expressions that young people are happy to see. In the new communication model, it became a link that resonated with the youth community. It can be said that it was another major IP that created Guochao culture.

3. Empowered by Guochao IP to become a “spiritual home” for young people

“Journey to the Magical Sound” is a blockbuster IP of the year created during the “Himalaya 123 Carnival” on the occasion of the 9th anniversary of the Himalayas. Judging from the stars and podcast lineup to the level of refinement of the stage's audiovisual standards, this is a large-scale gala that requires a lot of effort and money. Having Guochao “take the lead role” at such an important gala is clearly not a Himalayan operating whim or sticking to the national trend of culture, but rather a natural expression based on the content IP ecosystem and user needs that have already been formed within the site.

From the perspective of content ecology, the Himalayas are already a cultural platform that gathers spiritual food such as classic works and national style culture, meeting the diverse needs of users of almost all ages and scenarios. As of the first half of 2021, there were 262 million monthly active users in all Himalayas, and 151 million monthly active users visited the Himalaya through IoT terminals such as smart speakers, in-car audio, and other third-party open platforms; while the total length of the platform's audio content was about 2.1 billion minutes, which could allow one person to listen without repetition for more than 4,000 years.

On the one hand, traditional forms of classical music such as Shan Tianfang and Yuan Kuocheng, Guo Degang and classic comedies from Deyun News are all available in the Himalayas, and are still very popular in the Himalayas. On the other hand, based on the differentiated demand for audio content from more young people, the Himalayas have never stopped exploring the “Audio+National Wave” program.

For example, “Dream of the Red Mansion”, which is one of the four famous works, has a variety of content in different forms and styles in the Himalayas. Among them, Liu Feng, the current director of Shanghai Translation Studio and voice artist, curated the full audio drama “Dream of the Red Mansion”, which has now been broadcast over 62 million times. This work, which belongs to the Himalayan “Echo Theatre”, not only gathers three generations of actors to participate in the interpretation of the original text, but also invited famous movie star Zhang Guoli to “solve the confusion” for the audience and Professor Ou Lijuan, who has studied the Red House for more than 20 years, to give users an in-depth interpretation from a literary and academic perspective, providing users with a truly high-quality and high-quality “Red House” program from the three perspectives of good listening, comprehension, and reading.

In addition to professional content such as audio dramas, radio dramas, storytelling, and songs, Himalayan anchors also provided more cultural content related to Dream of the Red Mansion from different perspectives. Writer Liu Xinwu started her podcast in the Himalayas in her 80s, and has updated 104 episodes. From “Dream of the Red Mansion”, she continues a consistent friendly style and analyzes famous Chinese and foreign works from a unique perspective; Wu Guang, a post-80s massage therapist for blind people in Shenyang, became a full-time storyteller in the Himalayas, and his “Dream of the Red Mansion” has had over 20 million hits... The rich cultural layers brought by these different forms and styles of audio content have given Guochao IP a “new life” in the Himalayas in the form of audio.

In the Himalayan Guochao content, the deep combination of “star+IP” appeared frequently, and celebrities such as Zhang Guoli, Wang Gang, Liu Lin, Bai Ke, Qin Hao, and Liu Mintao became members of the “audio anchors.” However, the Himalayas did not regard the addition of a star as a simple joint name or promotion, but rather a deep combination of the star's charisma and characteristics to determine the form of the program.

“Bai Ke: Tang Song Has Hip-Hop” is positioned as an interesting historical and cultural program. Bai Ke, who once played “Wang Dachui,” was able to make the most of her humorous talents in the program; “A Picture Book of Ancient and Modern Women” tells the story of strange women from ancient and modern times, while Liu Mintao distills the positive values of women in today's society. These creative methods not only more satisfy the content and emotional needs of today's young people, but have also formed a healthy content production model for the celebrity audio drama “IP+ Star”. Stars and IPs are empowering to reach more young people in both directions.

Only in such a deeply cultivated and refined process of incubating quality content can traditional culture have a path of becoming a “trend”, and can it find a new “driving force” for communication in the diverse and personalized aesthetic trends of young people. And as the reserves of “spiritual food” jointly built by the Himalayas and users increase day by day, I believe more and more young people will find their spiritual homes here.