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自５岁起，我就一直是个音乐人。那时，我的父母，与西方的众多父母一样，逼着我去学习钢琴，而我根本就不领情。我发现，钢琴教学中所用的乐曲没有启发性，平淡无奇。８岁时，我开始学习吉他，并在１１岁时得到了我的第一把电吉他。１３岁时，我犯了一个大错――最终放弃了钢琴课的学习，不过，我仍旧在进行着自学。
在英国，进入乐界非常困难。你常常要在数月之内做一堆没有薪水的实习工作，从而得到获得一份带薪工作所需的经验。这是因为音乐行业非常热门。虽然薪酬几乎总是比其他领域中的同类工作要低（除非你属于明星音乐人之列），但仍有许多人为了能入行而准备接受低薪。
到了北京以后，有一份中国某唱片公司的工作摆在了我的面前，当然我同意了。我负责安排录音档期，包括预订录音棚、组织音乐人，以及坐在录音棚里监听录音。而歌手和音乐人的专业程度，以及他们被要求重来或改录时并不动怒的作风，始终都给我留下了深刻的印象。
与欧美和日本相比，中国的音乐行业大不相同。在那些地方，音乐是大产业。例如，英国每年输出的音乐产值超过４亿英磅。在那里，当一家唱片公司想要为一位艺人录制唱片时，他们通常会借给他（她）出唱片的资金，在音乐完成后，从这位艺人的收入中拿回资金。而这些收入中的大部分来自ＣＤ销售，其他收入则来自演出以及偶尔的赞助。
在中国，主要的难题就是盗版猖獗。录制唱片本身不会赚大钱。歌曲或专辑越火，盗版就越猖獗。即使是天才艺人也会发现难以寻求资金来录制他们的音乐。在中国，大部分收入来自演出，如果艺人真的够红，那么还来自赞助。在我们必做的工作中，大部分都与努力为我们的艺人拉赞助合约有关。与饮品公司签合约在中国极为普遍，不过艺人们发现他们也常常会受到许多不同类型的公司的赞助。
这一不同的模式导致了奇特现象的出现――中国的艺人们非常乐于其音乐在互联网上被免费下载，而大多数西方艺人对此特别憎恶。这增加了他们的知名度，使他们可以通过演出和赞助合约赚得更多。
西方社会的多元化使西方音乐颇为受益。在美国，制作人时常借鉴别处的音乐风格，有来自拉美和加勒比地区的，当然也有来自拥有巨大影响力的非裔群体。在英国，音乐部分地受到了巨大的印度人群体以及人口中其他族裔的影响。而中国还没有大量的移民，不过这肯定会随着经济的持续发展而发生改变的。
话虽如此，中国音乐确实从本国的众多少数民族中受益。譬如，在我最喜爱的中国音乐人中，有一些就是来自新疆的吉他手，我认为他们可称得上是世界上技艺最精湛的表演者之一。我相信，中国流行音乐潜力巨大，能将中国的传统乐器、中国少数民族音乐与外国的音乐风格和技巧结合起来，开拓出自己的风格。
（本版英语原文请见ｗｗｗ．ｑｎｃｋ．ｎｅｔ．ｃｎ）
By Paul
Since the age of five, I have been a musician. At
that time, my parents, like so many in the West, forced me to learn the piano,
and I didn't appreciate it at all. I found that the music used in piano teaching
was uninspiring and bland. Aged eight, I began to learn the guitar, and got my
first electric guitar when I was eleven. At thirteen, I made a big mistake by
finally quitting taking piano lessons, although I continued to learn on my own.
During secondary school and whilst studying Chinese at university, my
interest in and love of music grew and grew. I can safely say that listening to
and playing music is a passion for me, not just a hobby. Despite this I never
really considered a career in the music industry.
In Britain, the music
business is very difficult to get into. You often have to take a series of
unpaid internships over many months in order to gain the experience needed to
get a paid job. This is because the music industry is very popular. Salaries are
nearly always lower than for equivalent jobs in other sectors (unless you are
one of the star musicians), yet still many people are prepared to take this
pay-cut in order to get in.
Thus, when I came to China, I did not intend
to pursue a career that involved music. However, after arriving in Beijing, I
was offered a job in a Chinese record company and of course I had to say yes. As
the company is quite small, I find myself doing many different jobs, although my
main title is Production Director. I am responsible for arranging recording
sessions, including booking studios, organising musicians and also sitting in
the studio to supervise the recordings. I am always impressed at how
professional the singers and musicians are, and how they don't get annoyed when
I tell them to play something again or to change their recording.
Working
in a music company is wonderful if you are very interested in music. The general
office atmosphere can be more relaxed, and this makes up for the long hours that
are needed in the recording studios. As a producer there is always the
opportunity to be creative and give input into the music, but there is also work
to do involving the organisational and financial side of things.
China's
music industry is very different from that of the US, Europe and Japan. In these
major markets, music really is big business. For example, Britain exports over
400 million pounds' worth of music every year. In these markets, when a record
company want to record an artist, they will often lend him or her the money to
make the album, and then take the money back from the artist's earnings when the
music is finished. The larger part of these earnings comes from CD sales, with
other money being earned from performances and sometimes sponsorship.
The
main difficulty in China is rampant piracy. There are no big earnings from a
recording itself. The more popular a song or album is, the more it will be
pirated. Even talented artists can find it difficult to find funds with which to
record their music. In China, most earnings have to come from performances and,
if an artist is popular enough, sponsorship. Much of the work we have to do
involves trying to get sponsorship deals for our artists. Particularly popular
in China are deals with soft drinks companies, but artists often find themselves
sponsored by many different types of company.
This different structure
leads to the curious situation where Chinese artists are often quite happy to
have their music pirated over the internet (something that most Western artists
particularly detest). This raises their profile, allowing them to earn more
through performances and sponsorship deals.
The piracy problem also means
that a lot of foreign music is never released in China. I find this annoying, as
the music I like is never available here, but I also believe this has a negative
effect on the Chinese music industry as a whole. Modern music production relies
heavily on computer based software, but much of this software is never released
in China as its distributors fear piracy so much. Equally, musicians and
producers are influenced by other musicians and producers, and as so much music
is not available in China, what these people can hear and learn from is limited.
Western music gains greatly from the diversity of western societies. In
the US, producers regularly use musical styles borrowed from Latin America, the
Caribbean, and of course the hugely influential African-American population. In
Britain, music is partially influenced by the large Indian population as well as
the other ethnic groups that make up the population. China is yet to receive a
large amount of immigration, but this is sure to change as the economy continues
to develop.
Having said this, Chinese music does benefit from the many
ethnic minorities in the country. For example, some of my favourite musicians to
watch in China are guitar players from Xinjiang, I believe that they are amongst
the most skilled players in the world. I often hire them to accompany our
company's singers in the recoding studios, and believe that there is great
potential for Chinese popular music to develop its own flavour, fusing
traditional Chinese instruments and China's ethnic minority music with foreign
musical styles and techniques.
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