Tracing the Roots and Exploring Music DNA——Interview with Tang Hanshen, Curator of Hong Kong Recording Museum

　　China News Agency, Hong Kong, December 5th, title: Tracing the Roots and Exploring the DNA of Music——Interview with Tang Hanshen, Director of the Hong Kong Recording Museum

　　China News Agency reporter Han Xingtong

　　The doorbell rang and the music stopped abruptly.

Deng Hanshen quickly pushed the door open, greeted the China News Agency reporter who had made an appointment with a smile, turned around and pressed the play button again.

In this slightly cramped space filled with precious old objects such as vinyl records, tapes, and gramophones, the Beatles gently sang the famous song "Yesterday".

　　"What you are listening to is the first version of the master tape, and I will compare it with the MP3 version on the market." After listening to it again, Deng Hanshen came from behind the counter with confident and expectant eyes, "Is it very different?" It is indeed different, The difference is not only in three-dimensionality and clarity, but the master tape contains the most authentic sound of an era, and presents it to the ear with flaws, allowing people to travel to the recording studio through the melody and lyrics, listen to the artist's ideas, and the music from that era. The sigh of the century.

　　This is Deng Hanshen's regular action for every museum visitor. In the past ten years, he has received visitors from more than 100 cities around the world. They sat on the same sofa and cried while listening to the same song.

　　Since the 1940s, record companies began to use master tapes to make recordings. "Master tapes are very close to the real body of a musical work on the first day of its birth, and are very precious. The age of music birth has its cultural color and the smell of its recordings. , and these are all in the master tape.” In the Recording Museum, Deng Hanshen collected about 20,000 pieces of various vinyl and tapes including master tapes, covering classical, pop, jazz and other categories, among which the Beatles His works are one of the largest collections. In addition, there are also famous works by Teresa Teng and others.

　　About a year ago, a principal violinist of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra visited the museum when he returned to Hong Kong to visit relatives. After learning the identity of the other party, Deng Hanshen specially found for him the treasured 1959 Soviet violinist Leonid Kogan. Violin Concerto" master tape.

"After listening to it, he suddenly realized, and he said: 'I have been playing wrongly and teaching wrongly for so many years.' It turns out that the beginning and end of this movement should be played differently." This made Deng Hanshen discover that collecting the master tape is a In addition to niche interests, it turns out that there is also the importance of enlightenment, so as to prevent music from being diluted and misunderstood from generation to generation.

　　Deng Hanshen went all the way back to the source through master tapes, vinyl, and tapes, and explored the DNA of a piece of music, restored it to a fixed frame, and then released it to the public.

　　To achieve this goal in life, he developed an app that includes an entire museum of master tapes and discs.

"Imagine, 300 years later, a music student asked the teacher if he could listen to the Beatles in 1965. Would the teacher give him a book? Go to the library? But now someone puts it It’s recorded, and you can hear it as long as you press the button.” Deng Hanshen is deeply proud of being the one who saved the lost master tape.

　　This volunteering has been rooted in my heart for a long time. Deng Hanshen lived in a tenement building in the downtown area when he was young. His two older brothers and colleagues formed a rock band. Every weekend, the intense music leaking from the windows always attracted passers-by to stop and visit. .

The musical instruments and records piled up in the room have become the toys that accompanied Deng Hanshen's growth.

　　Later, as the collection grew, he opened a record store with the support of his family, selling records, and sharing the hard-earned items with like-minded people.

　　The record store has been open for decades. Taking advantage of the expiry of the lease, he established the record museum with the support of regular customers. He moved the store from the International Finance Center, a landmark shopping mall in Hong Kong, to an old building in a narrow alley in Causeway Bay. City" feeling.

Here, he can finally throw off the shackles easily and focus on one thing - recording the sound of the year.

In this world, he devotes himself to researching the ins and outs of music, recording master tapes, or just quietly holding a cup of warm tea, sitting on the sofa and listening to "Yesterday" in its entirety.

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