Eric Whitacre在TED演講：一個2000人的虛擬唱詩班高聲歌唱

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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.

我想成為一名搖滾歌星。 這就是我的夢想，我夢想的一切。 更準確的說，我想成為一名流行歌星。 那是在八十年代末。 我主要是想成為 流行尖端或杜蘭杜蘭(兩個著名樂隊)的第五名成員。 但沒成功。 我不識譜，但我會用合成器和電子鼓。 我在內(nèi)華達州北部的一個農(nóng)業(yè)小鎮(zhèn)長大。 我很確定我的生活會是怎樣。

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, a 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.

去拉斯維加斯的內(nèi)華達大學上學時 我18歲， 我吃驚地發(fā)現(xiàn) 那兒沒有流行歌星基礎(chǔ)課程， 甚至也沒有與此相關(guān)的學位。 那兒的唱詩班指揮 知道我會唱歌 并邀請我加入唱詩班。 我回答道，“好的，我非常愿意加入。聽起來非常不錯。” 接著我離開了房間，說到，“沒門。” 我高中學校唱詩班里的人都非常怪異， 我可不想與這種人有任何關(guān)聯(lián)。 大約一周后，我一位朋友找到我，對我說， “聽著，你必須加入唱詩班。 在這學期末，我們一起去墨西哥旅行， 所有費用全免。 而且女高音部全是辣妹。” 因此因為墨西哥和美女們，我想通了， 我能為此做任何事。

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.

我去唱詩班的第一天， 與坐在了男低音部 仔細觀察他們在做什么。 他們打開樂譜，指揮一揮指揮棒， 轟隆一聲，他們開始演唱 莫扎特“安魂曲”中的求憐經(jīng)。 在此之前我的世界是黑白的， 而突然所有的事物都變得絢麗多彩。 這是我經(jīng)歷過的最具變革性的經(jīng)歷 -- 在那一刻，聽著和諧的不和諧的歌聲 人們在歌唱，人們擁有共同的愿景。 我人生中第一次感受到 我是比自身更大的事物的一部分。 事實證明，在女高音部有許多可愛的女孩兒。

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.

在一兩年后我決定為 唱詩班寫一篇作品， 作為禮物獻給這名 改變了我人生的指揮。 我在那時學會了閱讀五線譜，或者說慢慢地學會了讀五線譜。 這一作品發(fā)行了， 然后我又寫了一個，也發(fā)行了。 接著我開始指揮樂隊， 我在茱莉亞音樂學院獲得碩士學位。 我發(fā)現(xiàn)我現(xiàn)在作為一名專業(yè)古典作曲者和指揮 站在各位面前還是讓我有些恍惚。

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."

幾年前， 我的一個朋友email給我 一個鏈接，一個YouTube的鏈接， 說道，“你必須看看這個。” 那是名年輕的女性上傳的一段獻給我的視頻， 演唱的是我的 一部女高音作品，名為“睡眠”。

(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 ♫

(視頻)布瑞林·洛西：你好，埃里克·惠特克先生。 我的名字叫布瑞林·洛西， 這個視頻我想獻給你。 由我演唱的“睡眠”。 我只想告訴你，我有點緊張。 ♫如果在夜晚♫ ♫出現(xiàn)噪音♫

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.

埃里克·惠特克：我震驚了。 布瑞林是如此的單純，如此的甜美， 她的聲音是如此的純凈。 我甚至愛上了在她后面看到的東西。 我能看到在她房間中在她身后一只小泰迪熊坐在鋼琴上。 多么親切的一個視頻啊。

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 lo and behold, people started uploading their videos.

我有了這樣的想法：如果我能讓50個人 都做這同一件事， 演唱自己的聲部 -- 女高音、女低音、男高音和男低音 -- 無論他們身處何方，再把他們的視頻放到Y(jié)ouTube上， 我們能把這些視頻剪輯在一起，變成一個虛擬的唱詩班。 我在我的博客上寫道，“OMG OMG”(天吶!天吶!) 我真的寫了，“OMG”(天吶!) 希望這是我最后一次在公眾面前這么做。 (笑聲) 我開始招募演唱者。 我提供了我在2000年創(chuàng)作的 作品的免費下載， 作品名為“金色之光”，它表示“光芒和金子。” 慢慢引起了注意，人們開始上傳他們的視頻。

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 ...

我得說，在此之前， 我所做的就是貼出了我自己 指揮的一段音頻。 在我錄制它的時候，完全沉浸其中， 因為我在腦海里僅有聽到的音樂， 想象著某天能夠成真的唱詩班。 然后，我在后面演奏了一段鋼琴曲， 這樣演唱者就能夠有伴奏可以邊聽邊唱了。 接著視頻開始進入時...

(Singing) This is Cheryl Ang from Singapore.

(歌聲) 這是來自新加坡的謝麗爾·昂。

(Singing) This is Evangelina Etienne

(歌聲) 這是伊萬杰里納·艾蒂安

(Singing) from Massachusetts.

(歌聲) 來自馬薩諸塞州。

(Singing) Stephen Hanson from Sweden.

(歌聲) 來自瑞典的斯蒂芬·漢森。

(Singing) This is Jamal Walker from Dallas, Texas.

(歌聲) 來自德克薩斯州達拉斯市的賈馬爾·沃克。

(Singing)

(歌聲)

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 Melody Myers from Tennessee. (Singing) I love the little smile she does right over the top of the note -- like, "No problem, everything's fine."

這一作品中甚至還有一小段女高音獨唱， 因此我有試鏡的程序。 不少女高音歌手上傳了她們演唱的部分。 后來有人告訴我， 許多參與這個項目的歌唱者也告訴過我， 他們有時會錄制50或60個不同的鏡頭， 直到他們滿意 -- 然后再上傳。 這是我們女高音獨唱的優(yōu)勝者。 來自田納西州的梅勒妮·梅爾斯。 (歌聲) 我喜歡她在上面露出的小笑臉 -- 就像是在說，“沒問題，一切都很好。”

(Laughter)

(笑聲)

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 that 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.

從人群中 脫穎而出一個年輕人，斯科特·海恩斯。 他說道，“聽，這就是 我一生都在尋找的。 我非常榮幸成為這些視頻的剪輯者。” 我說道，“謝謝你，斯科特。我很高興你找到了我。” 斯科特把所有視頻聚集在一起。 他整理了音頻。 他確保一切井井有條。 接著一年半之前我們把這段視頻放在了YouTube上。 這是由虛擬唱詩班演唱的“金色之光”。

(Singing)

(歌聲)

I'll stop it there in the interest of time. (Applause)

時間有限，就放到這里吧。 (掌聲)

Thank you. Thank you.

謝謝。謝謝。

(Applause)

(掌聲)

Thank you. So there's more. There's more. Thank you so much.

謝謝。 還有更多，更多。 非常感謝。

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.

我也有與各位同樣的反應。 我第一次聽的時候，感動的淚流滿面。 我簡直不敢相信其中蘊含的詩意 -- 這些靈魂都在自己的荒島上， 相互用瓶子發(fā)送電子信息。 這個視頻迅速傳播開來。 第一個月就有一百萬次點擊， 它受到了極大的關(guān)注。 正因如此，許多歌唱者開始說， “不錯，虛擬唱詩班2.0呢?” 因此，我決定開始制作虛擬唱詩班2.0， 其中我會選擇一些與布瑞林所演唱的相同的片段。 “睡眠”，這是另一個我在 2000年創(chuàng)作的作品 -- 由我親愛的朋友查爾斯·安東尼·維斯特里創(chuàng)作詩詞。 再一次的，我貼出了指揮視頻， 接著開始接收提交的作品。 這次我們發(fā)現(xiàn)了有些更年長的參與者。 (歌聲) 一些更年輕的參與者。

(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?

(視頻)女高音：♫在我的枕頭之上♫ ♫安睡在床上♫ 埃里克：這是來自英格蘭的喬吉。她只有九歲。 這難道不是各位曾看到過的最甜美的事物么?

Someone did all eight videos -- a bass even singing the soprano parts. This is Beau Awtin. (Video) Beau Awtin: ♫ Safe in bed ♫

有人完成了所有八個視頻 -- 一個男低音甚至演唱了女高音的部分。 這是柏·安汀。 (視頻)柏·安汀：♫安睡在床上♫

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.

埃里克：我們的目標是 -- 這是個有點隨意的目標 -- 有一個音樂電視中大家都在唱“棒棒糖”， 他們讓來自世界各地的人演唱那一小段曲調(diào)。 有超過900人參與其中。 因此我告訴演唱者，“這就是我們的目標。 這就是我們要超越的數(shù)字。” 我們在一月十號停止接收作品， 我們最終收到了2,051個視頻 來自58個不同的國家。 謝謝。 (掌聲) 來自馬耳他、馬達加斯加、泰國、越南、 約旦、埃及、以色列， 最北端來自阿拉斯加，最南端來自新西蘭。

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 the beautiful music, it's great just to know I'm part of 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."

我們在Facebook也有一個頁面 讓歌唱者可以上傳他們的推薦作品， 他們喜歡什么樣的作品，他們演唱時的經(jīng)歷。 我也從中選出了一部分。 “我姐姐和我過去時常一起在唱詩班中唱歌。 現(xiàn)在她是一名不斷旅行的空軍飛行員。 能再次一起演唱實在是太棒了!” 我喜歡她與她姐姐一起唱歌的看法。 “除了美妙的音樂以外， 這是一個我之前從未遇到的世界范圍的社區(qū)，其中的人們聯(lián)系在一起， 知道自己是其中的一份子真是太好了。” 我個人最喜歡的一段， “當我告訴我丈夫我打算參與其中時， 他對我說，你沒有唱這些歌的嗓子。” 是的，我保證各位中許多人都曾聽到過這些。 我也是。 “這太傷人了，我的眼淚噴涌而出， 但盡管他說了這些傷人的話，我內(nèi)心深處還是想?yún)⑴c其中。 參與這個唱詩班能讓夢想成真， 我從未參與過唱詩班。 當我在Google Earth Map上做上標記時， 我不得不去最近的城市，離我生活的地方大約有400英里遠。 由于我生活在大阿拉斯加小鎮(zhèn)， 衛(wèi)星是我與世界的唯一連接途徑。”

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.

有兩件事讓我深有感觸。 第一件是，人類將跨越任何距離去相互尋找和聯(lián)系。 這與科技無關(guān)。 第二件是， 人們似乎正在經(jīng)歷的是一個真實的聯(lián)系。 這不是個虛擬唱詩班。 這些在線的人們是朋友;他們從未見過。 但我也了解我自己，我感覺得到所有參與者的這一虛擬團隊精神。 我感覺到這一唱詩班的親密 -- 幾乎像個大家庭。

What I'd like to close with then today is the first look at "Sleep" by Virtual Choir 2.0. This will be a premiere 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.

我想用來結(jié)束今天的演講的是 由虛擬唱詩班2.0 演唱的“睡眠”的首映。 這是初次亮相。 我們還沒完成這一視頻。 各位能想象一下，2,000個同步的YouTube視頻， 光是渲染的時間就夠駭人聽聞的了。 但我們完成了頭三分鐘。 我感到極其榮幸， 能夠在這兒向各位首次展示這一視頻。 各位是最先看到它的人。 這就是虛擬唱詩班歌唱的“睡眠”。

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 ♫

虛擬唱詩班：♫夜晚懸掛在♫ ♫月亮之下♫ ♫一道銀絲在黑暗的沙丘之上♫ ♫緊閉的雙眼和放松的頭部♫ ♫我知道睡眠就要來臨♫ ♫在我的枕頭之上♫ ♫安睡在床上♫ ♫腦海中充滿了無數(shù)畫面♫ ♫我無法入睡♫ ♫我心潮澎湃♫ ♫而我的四肢像是灌滿了鉛♫ ♫如果在夜晚出現(xiàn)噪音♫

Eric Whitacre: Thank you very, very much. Thank you. (Applause) Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

埃里克·惠特克：非常非常感謝。謝謝。 (掌聲) 非常感謝。謝謝。謝謝。

(Applause)

(掌聲)