This is a simple project. I invited a few musician friends to choose an open space outdoors (wherever they liked) in which they would play some things and record them. A duration of 30 minutes. I specifically didn’t want to say what they might do or how they might do it. Each person received the same instructions, just a few words. After collecting all of the recordings, I would take the material, layer the tracks together into a single recording, and produce a cassette.
The piece is called 30 minutes on earth. Even though the name sounds a little too grandiose, it doesn’t really matter as far as I’m concerned. The idea for this project came to me one day while I was riding my bike, it took about 30 minutes to think through.
I thought of a few musicians who might be interested in this piece, they all lived in different parts of the world. Although among them were some very close friends, most were people where we’ve only met each other a few times at performances, however even at the first meeting it felt like seeing an old friend: maybe I had arranged a concert for them or they had arranged a concert for me; or I was just an audience member who saw their performance; or I missed the performance but we chatted and had some food together after the show… I mention these examples to emphasize that I have met them in person, it’s an important aspect.
I sent out the invitations and everybody readily accepted. After this there was a long wait. I know you can’t really say a month is a ‘long wait’, it’s just that I originally thought that this would be a very short piece that could recorded in a half an afternoon. But in fact maybe things aren’t so straightforward. There can always be some unforeseen event: monsoon season, a bushfire, it might be blowing a gale… or something unexpected in day to day life. Everybody’s busy with their jobs and their own projects.
In January 2019 I received the last recording, and I started mixing. In fact I finished it in an afternoon. The only thing I did was balance the audio levels of the different tracks as well as cut the beginnings and/or the endings of a few tracks which were longer than 30 minutes. I took four of the musicians’ recordings and mixed them into one track, and the other four into the other track. Each piece became one side of the cassette.
I’ll just write a bit about the environments where the eight musicians did their recordings. Li Song was in a park in Xi’an; Zhu Songjie was by the side of Shanghai’s Huangpu River; Yoko Ikeda was in park in Tokyo; Fangyi Liu was at a pier in Kaohsiung; Kevin Corcoran was in the Californian wilderness somewhere near the Pacific Ocean; Paolo Gàiba Riva was on a bridge in a city in Vietnam (I found the location by looking up coordinates that he sent me, at that time he was on a tour of South East Asia); Andrew Fedorovitch might have been in the backyard of his place in Sydney, he didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask; only Montreal’s Craig Pedersen made his recording inside: winter in Canada is freezing and no one wants to stay out in the cold for long!
I can’t express clearly why I wanted to do this project. Although there’s no doubt that I’m interested in outdoor performance, perhaps this network of musicians can be mentioned again. They are all excellent musicians, but apart from this they are all active organizers and participants in their local communities. I would like that our connections together can deepen (as well as connections to the places I have been, or haven’t been to yet), or at the very least that the participants can be introduced to each other a little. I also hope that they, together with Liu Lu, John Wilton, Hiroyuki Ura (who have also participated in this project) can also think about it in this way.
Lastly, concerning this recording, some other friends have been asked to write something more about it, however this is for yet another project.
这是一个很简单的项目。我邀请一些乐手朋友，请他们在一个户外的开放空间（自己选一个喜欢的地方，哪里都行），演奏一些东西并录下来。时间是30分钟。具体是演奏什么，又是以怎样的方式，在此我不想说。每个人的要求都是相同的，都是短短几句文字。收集到录音后，我会把这些素材叠混在一起，录成磁带。
地球上的30分钟，就是这个名字了。虽然听起来好像有些过于宏大，不过我想，也没有关系吧。我应该是在骑自行车的时候想出这些的，时间大概也花了30分钟。
我想到了一些可能会对此有兴趣的乐手，他们在世界各地。其中有我非常熟悉的朋友，但更多的人我们可能只是在演出的时候见过几次，不过一见如故：我组织了他们的演出，他们组织了我的演出；或者我只是当观众，去看了他们的演出；或者是错过了演出，但还是见面聊天吃饭…我列举了这些是想说，他们都是我真正见过面的人。我想这一点很重要。
我发出邀请，大家都痛快地答应了。然后就是漫长的等待。其实一个多月的时间真的不能算是“漫长”，只是我本以为这会是一个更快的事，半个下午就可以录完。但事实上或许并不是这样。总会有各种各样的意外：大风，山火，雨季…还有日常中的不确定。大家都很忙，每人都有很多的工作和项目。
2019年1月，收到了最后一份录音，然后开始混音。其实我只用了一个下午就混完了。我所做的只是对不同音轨的音量进行平衡，以及对一些多于30分钟的录音进行修剪，去掉了开头和结尾。我把四个乐手的录音混成了一首，另外四人的混成了另一首。它们最终成为磁带的两面。
可以写一写这八位乐手的录音环境。李松是在西安的一个公园里；朱松杰是在上海的黄浦江边；池田陽子是在东京的一个公园；劉芳一是在高雄的码头；Kevin Corcoran 是在加州的一片荒野，临近太平洋的一个地方；Paolo Gàiba Riva 是在越南一个城市中心的桥上，我通过他发我的经纬度找到了这里，他那时正在东南亚巡演；Andrew Fedorovitch 可能是在他悉尼家的后院，他没有告诉我，我也没问；只有蒙特利尔的 Craig Pedersen 是在房间录的，加拿大的冬天实在太冷了，没有人会想去户外待着。
我说不清楚为什么要做这件事。无疑，在环境中的演奏很吸引我，但或许音乐人之间的网络，也可以在此被再提及一次。他们都是非常好的乐手，除此之外，他们也都是非常活跃的人，是当地重要的活动组织者参与者推广者。我希望同他们（以及那些我曾经去过，或是未曾去过的地方）保有更多的联系，至少介绍大家互相认识一下。希望他们以及刘璐、翰忠、浦裕幸（他们也参与了这个项目）也可以这样想。
后来，围绕这些录音，我们又邀请了一些朋友写了一些东西。不过这是另一个项目的事了。
Music by Zhu Wenbo
Realized by Andrew Fedorovitch, Craig Pedersen, Fangyi Liu, Kevin Corcoran, Li Song, Paolo Gàiba Riva, Yoko Ikeda, Zhu Songjie
Andrew Fedorovitch - alto saxophone
Craig Pedersen - trumpet
Kevin Corcoran - cymbal
Paolo Gàiba Riva - clarinet mouthpiece
Yoko Ikeda - viola
Zhu Songjie - radio
Fangyi Liu - musical saw
Li Song - computer
Text by Zhu Wenbo
English translation by John Wilton
Mastered by Hiroyuki Ura
Design by Liu Lu
