All-rounder Artist

Unaware of Jiang Kui and Sun Yaohuo’s thoughts, Lin Yuan slowly said, “Can you two cooperate and sing a duet? In other words, harmony.”

“Harmony in a duet?”

Sun Yaohuo and Jiang Kui exchanged glances, didn’t dare to answer immediately. After thinking for a while, Sun Yaohuo finally said, “We basically can.”

Jiang Kui said, “I can too.”

Both of them were trained professionals, having learned vocal music systematically, of course, they knew how to sing in harmony. However, the ability to harmonize didn’t necessarily equate with singing performance.

Furthermore.

They didn’t know what Lin Yuan’s standard for “being able to” was. If it was about the cooperation between two people, it actually needed some time for adjustment.

Worth mentioning was.

In professional terms, harmony wasn’t exactly a duet. Non-professionals often confound that harmony is simply the juxtaposition of vocals.

Originally, there wasn’t such a term in the professional field as dolphin sounds, it’s just that it was frequently mentioned by non-professionals, so everyone stopped fussing over it. As long as the meaning is correctly conveyed, it’s fine — a case of wrong becoming right according to local customs.

Harmony could be understood as divided parts.

The lead singer performs the main melody, commonly, another part follows in harmony, usually called second part — this kind of duet is most commonly and simply performed in a three-five-eight-degree range.

If the lead singer sings 123.

The back singer sings 345.

Based on the harmony, just add three degrees, whether it’s a major third or minor third depends on the chord, of course, according to different vocal ranges, the differences between male and female voice, or for special needs, this three degrees can be flipped to sing in octave.

Flexible, not rigid.

But even this kind of duet requires skill. If not practiced sufficiently, disharmony can easily arise, just like when two top vocalists try to perform a duet…

It isn’t guaranteed that a duet by the King and Queen of Singing will be explosive.

There will certainly be parts in the duet where they have to harmonize. If they coordinate well, the effect is absolutely more than the sum of their individual efforts. But if their coordination is off, it will feel uncomfortable to the audience.

The sum can be greater than the parts.

The sum can even be less than one.

Hearing Lin Yuan say this, Sun Yaohuo and Jiang Kui both have some idea of each other’s thoughts: “Junior Brother Lin, do you want me and Jiang Kui to perform a mixed-gender duet?”

Lin Yuan nodded, “Yes.”

The company’s task was to promote a male singer and a female singer. Lin Yuan figured that the easiest way to do so was through a duet.

Of course.

Ease was secondary, Lin Yuan was not a lazy person. What mattered most was, this method —

was the most cost-effective!

This was a loophole in the System that Lin Yuan found after much thought. If the system charged for one song per request, why not just request a mixed-gender duet that promoted both singers at the same time?

“So…”

Lin Yuan said, “You two can go back and practice some duet songs. It’d be better if you had a professional to guide you. A mixed-gender duet requires a lot of tacit understanding. Both of your vocal ranges and tones match well, so there will not be any vocal clashing.”

“Understood.”

Sun Yaohuo had no objections.

Jiang Kui naturally had no objections either. With this arrangement, there wouldn’t be any competition between her and Sun Yaohuo. At least for the first song given by the Ninth Floor, the only path to victory was through cooperation.

…

After Sun Yaohuo and Jiang Kui left, Lin Yuan summoned the System.

Should he customize it thoroughly?

Or leave it somewhat random?

Lin Yuan chose the less-costly customization method: “System, I’ll put in a million, customize a mixed-gender duet song.”

Being cost-effective meant risk.

In a mixed-gender duet, the vocal ranges and tones of both singers had to be considered. If the song provided by the System did not match well with both singers’ voices, that would be problematic.

But there was another loophole in the system he could exploit to solve this:

The character card of Yang Zhongming!

No matter what mixed-gender duet the System offered, Lin Yuan could activate Yang Zhongming’s character card to adapt the song, modifying it to be most suitable for the voices of the two singers.

He wondered if the System had discovered this loophole.

Indeed, Lin Yuan couldn’t use Yang Zhongming’s character card for creation, but the System did allow Lin Yuan to use Yang Zhongming’s character card to arrange existing compositions.

So no matter what song the System provided, Lin Yuan wouldn’t have to worry too much.

Considering the System might charge at random, he set the customization price at one million.

“Ding dong.”

The System appeared, “Song customization in progress…”

Thirty seconds later.

The System prompted, “Customization of the song is complete, congratulations on obtaining the mixed-gender duet song ‘Rooftop’.”

It’s Director Zhou’s song?

It seems this is the first time getting a song from Director Zhou.

This song was composed by Director Zhou for Wu Zongxian in his early career. The original version was a duet by Wu Zongxian and Wen Lan, which belongs to the category of classic duets, both quality and recognition were fairly high.

The System provided two versions.

The first version was a duet by Wu and Wen, the second version was a duet by Zhou and Wen.

The former had an older arrangement style, somewhat outdated; the latter fit more with modern musical aesthetics.

For both versions, Lin Yuan felt they were not bad.

But maybe because the second version was sung by Director Zhou, it was more popular. Although in Lin Yuan’s opinion, Wen Lan’s voice didn’t match perfectly with Director Zhou’s, and needed studio effects for adjustment.

The female singer whose voice truly matched Zhou’s should be Jolin Tsai, but let’s not discuss the specific songs now.

“Wait until their duet chemistry is developed before trying the song.”

“This song isn’t difficult to perform; if Senior Yao Huo and Jiang Kui sing it, it basically won’t need any modifications. This is good news, as it’s best to not change anything if possible.”

With the song confirmed, Lin Yuan prepared to download it.

But when the download was halfway through, the System prompted, “Download failed.”

Lin Yuan was startled, “No internet?”

He instinctively wanted to check his wifi.

“The System does not require internet… The song failed to download because the System hopes that the host would increase participation once again and personally complete the arrangement and the demo recording. This will be the process for all the songs provided by the System in the future.”

“…”

Lin Yuan said, “Understood.”

He wasn’t angry about it. Lin Yuan didn’t resist increasing his participation in the song. As he said before, he wasn’t a very lazy person.

If he was going to record it himself, then he would do it — it was only a demo anyway.

Having a template for the final arrangement meant that Lin Yuan only needed to exercise his hands-on imitation ability and didn’t need to find someone else to do the arrangement.

Just like with novels.

The novels provided by the System in the beginning were directly usable, but later on, the System had Lin Yuan write them himself. The situation was similar now.

Creating a demo, also known as creating a demo recording, was not difficult.

All that’s needed is a computer and related software for convenient song recording; Lin Yuan had taken courses on this. Using this as an opportunity to improve his hands-on ability was a good idea, especially since it wasn’t a very formal performance.

He called over Gu Dong and made the necessary preparations before starting on the demo production.

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