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我想成為搖滾明星,我這麼夢想著,這是我全部的夢想。說正確點,我想成為流行歌手,這是80年代末的事,我極想成為流行尖端或杜蘭杜蘭樂團的第五名團員,他們沒同意我加入。我看不懂樂譜,但我演奏音樂合成器和電子鼓。我在內華達州北部的農業小鎮成長,我曾確信我的人生就是如此。
在18歲時,我就讀於拉斯維加斯的內華達大學,我驚訝地發現,那裡沒有流行歌手訓練,甚至沒有這方面的學位課程,那裡的合唱團指導者知道我會唱歌,邀請我加入合唱團,我說,「好,我很樂意,聽起來不錯。」我離開房間後說,「想都別想!」我高中時代的合唱團團員很古怪,我不可能跟那些人混在一起。約一個星期後,一個朋友來找我,說,「聽著,你一定要加入合唱團,這學期末我們要到墨西哥旅行,一毛都不用花,而且女高音部全是辣妹。」所以我想,為了墨西哥和辣妹,做什麼我都願意。
我去合唱團的第一天,坐在男低音部中,越過我的肩膀,看他們在做什麼。他們打開樂譜,指揮作出下拍手勢,然後,砰,他們從莫扎特《安魂曲》的《垂憐經》開始。在那之前,我一生中一向只看到黑與白,突然間,一切都變成令人震驚的鮮豔色彩,這是我曾擁有過最脫胎換骨的經驗。在那一刻,同時聆聽不和諧與和諧,人們唱歌,人們聚集在一起,有著共同願景,我生命中第一次感覺到,我是屬於某個比我自己更偉大事物的一部分。女高音部有很多可愛的女孩,確實如此。
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
I wanted to be a rock star. I dreamed of it, and that's all I dreamed of. To be more accurate, I wanted to be a pop star. This was in the late 80s. And mostly I wanted to be the fifth member of Depeche Mode or Duran Duran. They wouldn't have me. I didn't read music, but I played synthesizers and drum machines. And I grew up in this little farming town in northern Nevada. And I was certain that's what my life would be.
And when I went to college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas when I was 18, I was stunned to find that there was not a pop star 101, or even a degree program for that interest. And the choir conductor there knew that I sang and invited me to come and join the choir. And I said, "Yes, I would love to do that. It sounds great." And I left the room and said, "No way." The choir people in my high school were pretty geeky, and there was no way I was going to have anything to do with those people. And about a week later, I friend of mine came to me and said, "Listen, you've got to join choir. At the end of the semester, we're taking a trip to Mexico, all expenses paid. And the soprano section is just full of hot girls." And so I figured for Mexico and babes, I could do just about anything.
And I went to my first day in choir, and I sat down with the basses and sort of looked over my shoulder to see what they were doing. They opened their scores, the conductor gave the downbeat, and, boom, they launched into the Kyrie from the "Requiem" by Mozart. In my entire life I had seen in black and white, and suddenly everything was in shocking Technicolor. The most transformative experience I've ever had -- in that single moment, hearing dissonance and harmony and people singing, people together, the shared vision. And I felt for the first time in my life that I was part of something bigger than myself. And there were a lot of cute girls in the soprano section, as it turns out.
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幾年後,我決定為合唱團寫一曲,作為給指導者的禮物,他改變了我的生命。那時我學著看譜,或者慢慢地學著看譜。這曲發表後,我又寫了另一曲,也發表了,然後我就開始指揮,最後在茱莉亞音樂學院念碩士。我發現自己現在身處意想不到的位置,站在你們所有人面前,以專業古典作曲家和指揮家的身分。
幾年前,我一位朋友發電子郵件給我,一條連結,YouTube的連結,他說,「你得看看這個。」是個年輕女孩貼的,一部給我的粉絲影片,唱女高音部,以我一首名為《沉睡》的曲子。
(影片)Britlin Losee:嗨,Eric Whitacre先生,我的名字是Britlin Losee,這是一個影片,我為你做的,我演唱《沉睡》,我有點緊張,只是讓你知道一下。(歌唱)「如果夜晚有噪音」。
Eric Whitacre:我很驚訝,Britlin是那麼天真甜美,她的聲音是那麼純潔,我甚至喜歡她身後的東西,我能看到她身後坐在鋼琴上的小泰迪熊,這麼親密的影片。
我有了這個想法:如果我能讓50個人全都做同樣的事,唱他們的部分,女高音、女低音、男高音和男低音,無論他們在世上何處,將他們的影片貼到YouTube後,我們可以把這些全都剪在一起,創造一個虛擬合唱團,所以我在我的部落格寫,「OMG OMG」,(譯註:為「天哪」(Oh My God)的縮寫),我真的寫了「OMG」,希望這是最後一次在公眾前這麼做。(笑聲)我向歌手發出這個呼籲,我提供免費下載音樂,是一首我於2000年所寫的歌曲,名為《Lux Aurumque》,意思是「金色光華」。瞧,人們開始上傳他們的影片。
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I decided to write a piece for choir a couple of years later as a gift to this conductor who had changed my life. I had learned to read music by then, or slowly learning to read music. And that piece was published, and then I wrote another piece, and that got published. And then I started conducting, and I ended up doing my master's degree at the Juilliard School. And I find myself now in the unlikely position of standing in front of all of you as a professional classical composer and conductor.
Well a couple of years ago, a friend of mine emailed me a link, a YouTube link, and said, "You have got to see this." And it was this young woman who had posted a fan video to me, singing the soprano line to a piece of mine called "Sleep."
(Video) Britlin Losee: Hi Mr. Eric Whitacre. My name is Britlin Losee, and this is a video that I'd like to make for you. Here's me singing "Sleep." I'm a little nervous, just to let you know. ♫ If there are noises ♫ ♫ in the night ♫
Eric Whitacre: I was thunderstruck. Britlin was so innocent and so sweet, and her voice was so pure. And I even loved seeing behind her. I could see the little teddy bear sitting on the piano behind her in her room. Such an intimate video.
And I had this idea: if I could get 50 people to all do this same thing, sing their parts -- soprano, alto, tenor and bass -- wherever they were in the world, post their videos to YouTube, we could cut it all together and create a virtual choir. So I wrote on my blog, "OMG OMG." I actually wrote, "OMG," hopefully for the last time in public ever. (Laughter) And I sent out this call to singers. And I made free the download of the music to a piece that I had written in the year 2000 called "Lux Aurumque", which means "light and gold." And low and behold, people started uploading their videos.
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我該說,在這之前,我所做的是,貼上這首歌的指揮影片,我自己指揮的,我錄製的時候是完全無聲的,因為我只在腦海裡聆聽這首樂曲,想像某天將成立的合唱團。後來,我放上了鋼琴配樂,這樣歌手就有配樂可聽。然後影片開始出現。
(歌唱)這是來自新加坡的Cheryl Ang。
(歌唱)這是Evangelina Etienne,
(歌唱)來自麻薩諸塞州。
(歌唱)來自瑞典的Stephen Hanson。
(歌唱)這是來自德州達拉斯的Jamal Walker。
(歌唱)
這首歌中甚至還有一些女高音獨唱,所以我已做了試鏡,以及一些女高音上傳自己的部分。後來有人告訴我,很多歌手也參加了,他們有時錄下50或60個不同的試唱,直到唱出了風格契合的才上傳。這是我們女高音獨唱的中選者,來自田納西州的Melanie Myers。(歌唱)我喜歡那個她標在上方的微笑,像是在說,「沒問題,一切都會很順利。」
(笑聲)
而在這些人中,出現了這個年輕人,Scott Haines,他說:「聽著,這個計畫是我畢生一直在追尋的東西,我希望成為將這一切編輯在一起的人。」我說:「謝謝你,Scott,很高興你找到了我。」Scott收集所有的影片,將聲音匯集,確保一切同步。我們大約在一年半以前將這個影片上傳到YouTube,這是虛擬合唱團演唱的《Lux Aurumque》。
(歌唱)
為了節省時間,我在這裡停下。(掌聲)
謝謝,謝謝。
(掌聲)
謝謝,還有更多,還有更多,非常感謝。
我和你們有同樣的反應,其實,我第一次看見時感動得哭了,我簡直不敢相信這像詩一樣美的歌聲,這些在他們各自荒島上的靈魂,將瓶中電子訊息發給彼此。這影片廣為流傳,第一個月我們有一百萬次點擊率,大受矚目,正因如此,很多歌手開始說,「好吧,虛擬合唱團2.0呢?」於是,我決定為虛擬合唱團2.0選擇與Britlin唱的同一首歌,《沉睡》,這是另一首作品,我於2000年寫的,歌詞由我朋友Charles Anthony Silvestri所寫。再次的,我貼上了指揮影片,我們開始接受投稿,這次我們募集到一些較年長的成員,(歌唱)和一些較年輕的成員。
(影片)女高音:「睡在枕上,安穩地在床上」
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Now I should say, before that, what I did is I posted a conductor track of myself conducting. And it's in complete silence when I filmed it, because I was only hearing the music in my head, imagining the choir that would one day come to be. Afterwards, I played a piano track underneath so that the singers would have something to listen to. And then as the videos started to come in ...
(Singing) This is Cheryl Ang from Singapore.
(Singing) This is Evangelina Etienne
(Singing) from Massachusetts.
(Singing) Stephen Hanson from Sweden.
(Singing) This is Jamal Walker from Dallas, Texas.
(Singing)
There was even a little soprano solo in the piece, and so I had auditions. And a number of sopranos uploaded their parts. I was told later, and also by lots of singers who were involved in this, that they sometimes recorded 50 or 60 different takes until they got just the right take -- they uploaded it. Here's our winner of the soprano solo. This is Melanie Myers from Tennessee. (Singing) I love the little smile she does right over the top of the note -- like, "No problem, everything's fine."
(Laughter)
And from the crowd, emerged this young man, Scott Haines. And he said, "Listen, this is the project I've been looking for my whole life. I'd like to be the person to edit this all together." I said, "Thank you, Scott. I'm so glad that you found me." And Scott aggregated all of the videos. He scrubbed the audio. He made sure everything lined up. And then we posted this video to YouTube about a year and a half ago. This is "Lux Aurumque" sung by the Virtual Choir.
(Singing)
I'll stop it there in the interest of time. (Applause)
Thank you. Thank you.
(Applause)
Thank you. So there's more. There's more. Thank you so much.
And I had the same reaction you did. I actually was moved to tears when I first saw it. I just couldn't believe the poetry of all of it -- these souls all on their own desert island, sending electronic messages in bottles to each other. And the video went viral. We had a million hits in the first month and got a lot of attention for it. And because of that, then a lot of singers started saying, "All right, what's Virtual Choir 2.0?" And so I decided for Virtual Choir 2.0 that I would choose the same piece that Britlin was singing, "Sleep", which is another work that I wrote in the year 2000 -- poetry by my dear friend Charles Anthony Silvestri. And again, I posted a conductor video, and we started accepting submissions. This time we got some more mature members. (Singing) And some younger members.
(Video) Soprano: ♫ Upon my pillow ♫ ♫ Safe in bed ♫ EW: That's Georgie from England. She's only nine. Isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever seen?
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EW:這是來自英國的Georgie,只有九歲,這不是你見過最美的事嗎?
有人做了八部影片,從男低音甚至唱到女高音部分,這是Beau Awtin。
(影片)Beau Awtin.:「安穩地在床上」
EW:我們的目標-是有點隨意的目標,有一個MTV節目,全都演唱流行歌曲,他們讓來自世界各地的人只唱那一小段旋律,有900人參與。我對那些歌手說,「這就是我們的目標,這就是我們要挑戰的人數。」我們在1月10日剛截止投稿,我們最後共收到2,051部影片,來自58個不同國家,謝謝。(掌聲)從馬爾他、馬達加斯加、泰國、越南、約旦、埃及、以色列,北至阿拉斯加,南至紐西蘭。
我們也在Facebook上開了網頁,讓歌手上傳他們的感言,這首歌對他們的意義及演唱經驗,我這裡只選擇一小部分。「我姐姐和我曾在合唱團裡一起唱歌,現在她是一個經常旅行的空軍飛行員,能再度一起唱歌是如此美妙!」我喜歡她與姐姐一起唱歌這個想法。「除了美妙的音樂,知道我屬於全世界從未謀面人們中的一份子,感覺很棒,而我們彼此相連。」我個人最喜歡的,「當我告訴丈夫,我將成為其中一份子,他告訴我,我的聲音不夠格。」是的,你們肯定有很多人也聽過,我也是。「這很傷人,我流下淚水,儘管他這麼說,但我內心有某種感覺依然想這麼做,成為這合唱團的一份子像是美夢成真,彷彿我從未有過歸屬感,當我要在Google地圖做標記時,我必須定位到最近的城市,大約在離我家400英里以外的地方。當我在Great Alaskan Bush時,衛星是我與全世界的連結。」
有兩件事深深震撼了我,首先是,人類願意盡一切可能尋找與他人的聯繫。這與科技無關。第二是,人們歷經的似乎是一種實際的連結,這不是一個虛擬的合唱團。網路上有些人變成朋友,但他們從未見過面,但我知道自己也是,我感到這個虛擬團隊的精神,如果你成為他們當中的一份子,我感覺跟這個合唱團很親密,幾乎像個家庭。
我今天想以這個做結束,第一次放映虛擬合唱團2.0演唱的《沉睡》,今天是個首映,我們還沒有完成這部影片。你可以想像,將2000部YouTube影片同步,時間演算統合相當困難,但我們已完成前三分鐘,相當榮幸能先在這裡向你們展示,你們是最先看到這個的人,這就是虛擬合唱團演唱的《沉睡》。
(影片)虛擬合唱團:「夜晚懸在月亮之下,黑暗沙丘上的銀線,閉上的眼及躺臥的頭,我知道睡眠即將到來。睡在枕上,安穩地在床上,腦海裡填滿一千張圖片,我無法入睡,我心飛揚,但四肢如鉛般沉重,如果夜裡有噪音-」
Eric Whitacre:謝謝,非常感謝,謝謝。(掌聲)非常感謝,謝謝,謝謝。
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Someone did all eight videos -- a bass even singing the soprano parts. This is Beau Awtin. (Video) Beau Awtin: ♫ Safe in bed ♫
EW: And our goal -- it was sort of an arbitrary goal -- there was an MTV video where they all sang "Lollipop" and they got people from all over the world to just sing that little melody. And there were 900 people involved in that. So I told the singers, "That's our goal. That's the number for us to beat." And we just closed submissions January 10th, and our final tally was 2,051 videos from 58 different countries. Thank you. (Applause) From Malta, Madagascar, Thailand, Vietnam, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, as far north as Alaska and as far south as New Zealand.
And we also put a page on Facebook for the singers to upload their testimonials, what it was like for them, their experience singing it. And I've just chosen a few of them here. "My sister and I used to sing in choirs together constantly. Now she's an airman in the air force constantly traveling. It's so wonderful to sing together again!" I love the idea that she's singing with her sister. "Aside from beautiful music, it's great just to know I'm part of a a worldwide community of people I never met before, but who are connected anyway." And my personal favorite, "When I told my husband that I was going to be a part of this, he told me that I did not have the voice for it." Yeah, I'm sure a lot of you have heard that too. Me too. "It hurt so much, and I shed some tears, but something inside of me wanted to do this despite his words. It is a dream come true to be part of this choir, as I've never been part of one. When I placed a marker on the Google Earth Map, I had to go with the nearest city, which is about 400 miles away from where I live. As I am in the Great Alaskan Bush, satellite is my connection to the world."
So two things struck me deeply about this. The first is that human beings will go to any lengths necessary to find and connect with each other. It doesn't matter the technology. And the second is that people seem to be experiencing an actual connection. It wasn't a virtual choir. There are people now online that are friends; they've never met. But, I know myself too, I feel this virtual esprit de corps, if you will, with all of them. I feel a closeness to this choir -- almost like a family.
What I'd like to close with then today is the first look at "Sleep" by Virtual Choir 2.0. This will be a premier today. We're not finished with the video yet. You can imagine, with 2,000 synchronized YouTube videos, the render time is just atrocious. But we do have the first three minutes. And it's a tremendous honor for me to be able to show it to you here first. You're the very first people to see this. This is "Sleep," the Virtual Choir.
(Video) Virtual Choir: ♫ The evening hangs ♫ ♫ beneath the moon ♫ ♫ A silver thread on darkened dune ♫ ♫ With closing eyes and resting head ♫ ♫ I know that sleep is coming soon ♫ ♫ Upon my pillow, ♫ ♫ safe in bed, ♫ ♫ a thousand pictures fill my head ♫ ♫ I cannot sleep ♫ ♫ my mind's aflight ♫ ♫ and yet my limbs seem made of lead ♫ ♫ If there are noises in the night ♫
Eric Whitacre: Thank you very, very much. Thank you. (Applause) Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.