A little background of this song
The song that I picked for this assignment is called “大鱼”, it simply means “big fish” when translated. The vocalist of this song is 周深, and due to his exquisite and high-pitched voice, people often mistake him as a female. He made his appearance and televised debut during the third season of “The Voice of China”. He was eventually eliminated in the 16 to 8 advancement round. And this is his first-ever single since attending that talent show. There’s quite a lot of word painting that goes into the making of this song, I will point out three of the most significant ones below.
Word Painting Moment #1
The first word-painting moment starts at 1:16, at the line that says, “执子手，吹散苍茫茫烟波.” The first half of this sentence before the comma means “Holding your hand.” In this lyrical context, it is symbolizing as to holding the hands of your loved ones. The second half of this sentence says “Blowing away the fading clouds of smoke.” Notice the word “烟波”, or in case, “clouds of smoke”, when the melody got to it, there wasn’t too much going on in the background. Just the piano with one chord, and mostly just the keyboard synthesizers. It creates that cloud of smoke feeling without any lavish polishing. When I hear this sentence, it created the image in my mind that I am blowing candles. As the candlelight goes out, I would stare at the smoke as it slowly rises and eventually disappears into the air.
The second word-painting moment starts at 1:35 and ends at 1:44, at this particular line of lyric, “怕你飞远去，怕你离我而去.” The first half of the lyrics means “Afraid that you will fly far away”, the second part says “Afraid that you might abandon me.” The word “飞” or “fly” in this case is the highest and peak pitch of this entire song, which is also the melodic climax. The legato style of melody in combination with that melodic climax is so beautiful that it paints emotional sorrows in the audience’s mind. This part is also the peak emotional state of this entire song and it slowly moves back to the story-telling state after that word. Take a listen.
Word Painting Moment #2
The third word-painting moment starts at the very end of the song, at 4:04. There aren’t many lyrics, if at all. The only lyric is the word “啊”, which translates into our English word “Ah.” It is just an emotional and simple mood-driven word. Notice that there is a second voice in the background acting as harmony to his voice. This part of the song takes advantage of everything that has built up for the audience from the very beginning and takes it away to imprint a permanent harmonious sentiment of this song in your head.
Word Painting Moment #3
Clover's Tree Hollow 