Chapter 122: Discovery Backstage

In his previous life, Hong Tao had sung mostly adult songs, and his range of listening was not particularly broad. Only a handful of singers had ever caught his attention, so choosing a suitable song proved extremely difficult. After searching for a long time, he finally found one called “Childhood,” which was at least fairly appropriate. As for whether Brother Dayou had already written the song, Hong Tao could not be bothered to worry about it. The man was still in Taiwan, after all, and would not be coming over anytime soon. If he used it, then he used it. What could the man do—take a bite out of him?

“What should I choose next? Ying Na? Faye Wong? Shuk-Chi Hsin?” After finding the first song, Hong Tao began searching for a second. This time, he simply gave up on male singers and concentrated on female singers instead. Yet after pondering for ages, he still could not find a single suitable song. Female singers were clearly far more sentimental than male singers; without love, they seemed unable to survive.

“Fine, let’s go with ‘Fly Higher.’ It may not be especially suitable for children to sing, but at least there’s no romance in it. It can count as positive and uplifting, right? And then there’s ‘My Future Is Not a Dream.’ What a wonderful title!”

After thinking through two entire lessons, Hong Tao still could not come up with a song suitable for primary-school children. In the end, he could only pick the best of a poor lot. As long as he avoided anything inappropriate, that would have to do.

“The music teacher has heard ‘Fly Higher.’ The other two songs are new to her, so sing them for me once. I’ll close the door! We’ll sing in secret!”

The next day, after Hong Tao handed the lyrics, complete with numbered musical notation, to the music teacher, she became like a child who had just received a new toy. She coaxed Hong Tao into playing the song together with her in the music room, and only then let him go home for dinner.

In fact, Hong Tao had paid particular attention to the matter of accompaniment when choosing the songs. This was an era before electronic keyboards, synthesizers, electric guitars, and the like. Even if such instruments existed somewhere, there was no chance that a small children’s cultural center would possess them. Hong Tao therefore had to choose songs that required no rearrangement, limiting himself to instruments such as the piano, accordion, guitar, and drum kit. He was not even sure whether the cultural center could provide anything beyond those.

The school’s singing competition soon began. Starting in April, every class set aside a little time each day to rehearse its chorus. Whenever that happened, Hong Tao would use the excuse that he needed to practice his solo and slip away. The homeroom teacher did not object to his attitude. In his opinion, having one more Hong Tao in the class would only make things more troublesome, since the boy was far taller than the others his age. It would be difficult to arrange him in the formation.

“Brother Xiaotao, you’re doing a solo. What song are you singing?”

Jin Yue was the lead singer selected by Class One. After dinner, she came to find Hong Tao with a sheet of numbered musical notation so they could practice. By now, she had already tasted the flavor of authority. She was thriving as the little class monitor, and every first-year student in the school knew that Class One had a monitor more formidable than any teacher. She had brought the class completely under control. As for the honor of representing the school at the district competition, she would never yield it to anyone else. The class monitor had to shoulder that responsibility.

“You’ve definitely never heard the song I’m singing. Let me see what you’ve got here. Oh, ‘Little Conch Horn.’ All right, this one suits you.”

Hong Tao glanced at the lyrics in Jin Yue’s hand. He knew the song, and it was perfectly suited to her clear, ringing voice.

“Brother Xiaotao, you already have three plus marks. Could you let me have one this time? I want to earn a plus mark too. The music teacher said that if I can go to the children’s cultural center competition, she’ll give me one. And I want to go on to compete in the city competition.”

Jin Yue had not come to practice with Hong Tao at all. She had come to ask him for a favor.

“...Fine. When we compete at the cultural center, I’ll let you win. I’ll deliberately sing off-key, and then our Jin Yue will take first place. Now go practice. I still have to help out at my aunt’s place.”

Hong Tao had not expected Jin Yue to say something like that. It seemed that his intervention had caused the girl to mature rather early. What she had failed to understand, however, was that the choral and solo competitions would not be held together. They were separate events.

The school competition went smoothly, and the venue was the auditorium of the children’s cultural center. The center stood on South Street at the time; only later was it moved beside Poly Plaza. Hong Tao took first place in the primary-school division without the slightest suspense. The entire school had only four music teachers, and all of them chose his “Childhood” to represent the primary-school division in the district competition. As for the opinions of the other teachers, they could only serve as reference.

It was not merely the music teachers who supported Hong Tao. The middle- and high-school students were also extremely fond of the song he sang. Before the song had even ended, the older children had begun applauding and cheering. On the one hand, his maternal uncle and his high-school friends had led the way. On the other, children of that age already knew what they liked, and teachers could no longer sway them. In truth, the teachers had even less ability to control them.

“Principal, I have a feeling our school is about to become famous again. Hong Tao is not only a thorn in our side—he’s also one of our treasures!”

Director Bai—no, Vice Principal Bai—was seated in the last row of the auditorium. Watching the older students clap, stamp their feet, and pound on the chairs as they cheered Hong Tao onstage, he could not help striking up a conversation with the newly appointed principal.

“Ah, as principal, I had only just arrived last year, so I didn’t yet understand the school’s situation very well. That made it difficult for me to express an opinion on many matters. A great many teachers have strong objections to this child. Still, his shortcomings are obvious, and so are his strengths. In all my years teaching in primary and secondary schools, I’ve never seen a student quite like him. In this respect, I’ll have to rely on you. After all, you’ve spent more time with him.”

The new principal was even younger than Director Bai, but he was extremely skilled at speaking. After circling around the subject at length, he had effectively said nothing at all.

Hong Tao had already understood the music teacher’s meaning: as long as he performed the song from beginning to end without mishap, his place in the district competition was guaranteed. He had never imagined that he would one day enjoy the privilege of being selected in advance.

What surprised him even more was that, backstage at the cultural center auditorium, he discovered an entire set of brand-new sound equipment: an analog sixteen-channel mixing console, a professional dual cassette deck, a reverb unit, two equalizers, a compressor-limiter, a crossover, and four power amplifiers. Several pairs of separate passive speakers were piled in a corner, still in their unopened packaging, while several technicians stood around discussing something.

“Master Wang, have you ever worked with this thing? The manual’s all in a foreign language. I can’t understand a single word! This is going to make me look like an idiot. I can’t do it—find someone else!”

A middle-aged man in a blue work coat was waving a stack of manuals angrily.

“Old Li, don’t get worked up. We’ve been handling lighting and sound for so many years—are we really going to be defeated by a few pieces of equipment? We’ll take it slowly. Three cobblers together can match Zhuge Liang, can’t they? I’ve looked these things over. The speakers are nothing unusual; we connect them the way we always do. It’s just the high and low frequencies. I’ve used mixing consoles too. This Japanese contraption may be more refined than the ones I’m used to, but the basic principle is much the same. The main problem now is figuring out what these few little devices are. Teacher Zhang is here as well. Once he works out what they do, we’ll be fine. District officials are coming to observe this performance. It’s an assignment, and we have to complete it. There’s no room for discussion.”

The bald, older man called Master Wang had no real solution either, but his tone was forceful. Clearly, he was some kind of minor supervisor.

“Master Wang, I teach English at a secondary school, just ordinary daily conversation. These manuals are full of technical terms, and I can’t make much sense of them. As far as I understand, this little device should be called an echo machine, and this one might be a frequency-blocking separator. This appears to be a compressor, but I truly have no idea how to use it. Everything inside is written in abbreviations. I don’t even know where to begin guessing what they mean!”

The tall, bespectacled man squatting on the floor spoke up. He, too, held a pile of manuals, and from what he said, he was evidently an English teacher.

“Look, why bother worrying about adjustments and separation? We’ll just connect the mixing console, cassette deck, equalizers, power amplifiers, and speakers the way we always do, and that’ll be the end of it. This isn’t a concert by the Central Philharmonic. As long as there’s sound, it’ll do. What do you say?”

A fat man standing nearby also held a manual. At this point, he simply tossed it onto a packing crate and prepared to muddle through by brute force.

“That’ll work, I suppose. Shall we give it a try?”

Master Wang did not seem to have any better idea.

“There’s no need to try. If you don’t connect the crossover, your speakers won’t produce any sound at all. These aren’t powered loudspeakers that start playing as soon as you plug them in. And without the compressor-limiter, if that child happens to drop the microphone, you could burn out both of those power amplifiers. If you’re willing to listen, I can explain what all these devices are for. But if you think I’m only a child and not worth bothering with, then pretend I’m not here. When the time comes, you can stand in front of the district officials and make fools of yourselves.”

Hong Tao could no longer bear listening. If they connected everything according to their plan, they might manage to get sound out of the system, but it would sound as though music were being played inside a water tank. Worse, they might destroy the equipment. Hong Tao did not know any of these people, but in the face of such a large collection of expensive imported professional audio gear, he felt obliged to help. As an audio enthusiast who had been considered something of an expert in his previous life, he absolutely could not stand by while good equipment was needlessly ruined before his eyes.

“...What are you doing back here? Go find your teacher. Children aren’t allowed to wander backstage. Didn’t your teacher tell you that?”

The fat man had not listened to a word Hong Tao said. He came over and tried to shoo him away.

“Wait! Wait! Young fellow, you know what these things are? Is that the compressor-limiter you were talking about? Could you explain to my teacher what it does?”

The English teacher was quicker than the fat man. He darted in front of Hong Tao, pulled one of the manuals from the pile in his hands, and questioned him.

To be continued...