Digital Music: A “Hyperlink” on the Road to Rural Revitalization ()
1. Background
In the new period of China’s characteristic construction work, China’s rural areas are still a vast world that can do a lot. Although there is no ready-made experience for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, we already have the political superiority of the party’s leadership and advanced development. The superiority of the system, the support of huge economic and national strength, the entrepreneurial spirit of a village with hundreds of millions of people, the long-standing agricultural civilization, and the strong market demand, etc. , are sufficient conditions and strengths to carry out rural revival. It can be said that the rural revival movement promoted in many rural areas in China is a great initiative that has never been done before and will never come again. It reflects the direction of socialist modernization in which all the people in the world are rich together, and it is the socialist modernization in which rural material civilization and spiritual civilization are harmonious. The material civilization and spiritual civilization in the countryside are not a simple mechanical combination, but are mutually coordinated and promoted, and they are an organic whole that together constitute the rural civilization.
2. Digital Music
2.1. Digital Music and Its Industry Chain
Digital music, as the name suggests, refers to music stored in digital format and transmitted on the Internet as a platform. From the perspective of industry research, according to the music industry promotion committee of the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association and the Communication University of China’s classification and definition standards for the music industry, digital music consists of four major projects: online music, mobile karaoke, short video, and pan-entertainment live broadcast.
The digital music industry chain is mainly divided into five major sectors: music creators, music recorders, music copyright owners, music distributors, and users. The corresponding four major industries, content production, copyright services, publicity and distribution, and user use, present an intersecting development trend.
2.2. The Development History of China’s Digital Music Industry
In 1999, the establishment of music websites such as 9Sky (http://www.9sky.com/) marked the beginning of the budding stage of China’s digital music industry. Around 2004, with the launch of China Mobile’s CRBT service, the establishment of music platforms such as Kuwo and Kugou, and the rise of 3G services, the domestic digital music industry ushered in its first rapid growth, and digital music has entered the stage of industrialization in China. Later, “Jianwang Action”, the Ministry of Culture’s Notice on Strengthening and Improving the Examination of Online Music Content and other activities made China take an important step in combating online piracy. As of 2010, all major websites in China’s digital music market have purchased and provided authentic music. In June 2011, the Network Music Industry Development Alliance was established. In 2015, the government launched another crackdown on piracy and infringement of digital music, and China’s digital music officially entered the era of legalization and commercialization.
With the breakthrough of streaming media distribution technology and the competition of music platforms, the rapid development of my country’s digital music market has been catalyzed. Today, the digital music industry has established its important position in my country’s digital content industry. The traditional music industry, telecom operators and upstarts in digital technology are all competing to enter this field. A number of representative enterprises with a certain scale and their own competitive advantages have emerged one after another. Under the conditions of the Chinese market, they have made a lot of explorations and attempts on the development of the digital music industry.
3. Digital Music: A New Way to Revitalize the Countryside and Build a Soul
Digital music has five characteristics: immediacy, technology, accuracy, expansibility, and convenience, and its characteristics play an important role in promoting rural revitalization and development. Especially for the three aspects of industry revitalization, talent revitalization, and cultural revitalization [1] . First of all, digital music can take advantage of its expansibility to organically combine with other industries, enrich the industrial chain, realize industrial revitalization, and form a green, safe, high-quality and efficient rural industrial system [2] ; secondly, the immediacy and portability of digital music are important A major advantage of not being controlled by external conditions, it can reduce the loss of talents due to insufficient hardware conditions, effectively solve the problem of rural talent revitalization , and make more talents willing to come, retain, do well, and be able to shine; Finally, the technical and accurate performance of digital music enables rural culture to be more properly interpreted, inherited, and developed, enabling cultural revitalization to run through all fields and the entire process of rural revitalization, providing continuous spiritual power for rural revitalization [3] . In recent years, digital music has made great progress in promoting the revitalization of Zhejiang’s rural areas, mainly focusing on characteristic cultural tourism, cultural revitalization, and industrial transformation.
3.1. Digital Music Boosts the Revitalization of Rural Culture
Rural revitalization requires both shape and soul, and the revitalization of rural culture is the root and soul of rural revitalization. Promoting the revitalization of rural culture and allowing people to enjoy a more fulfilling, richer, and higher-quality spiritual and cultural life will help boost the mental outlook of the majority of farmers and stimulate the endogenous motivation for rural revitalization. On June 11, 2022, Douyin released the “2021 Douyin Data Report”. It can be learned that in the past year, country-related videos have been liked more than 2.4 billion times. Among them, videos related to the song “Mohe Dance Hall” have been played more than 42 times. 100 million words, over 20.95 million people watched the Mohe slow live broadcast. It can be seen that through the digital communication of such new media platforms, the influence of rural culture is expanding. Promoting rural characteristic culture, rationally combining and utilizing the current popular digital music forms, and integrating rural civilization into digital music can promote the inheritance and development of rural culture, and promote the multi-form and multi-angle integration of culture [4] .
3.2. Digital Music Lights up Rural Cultural Tourism
Music is the portrayal of the human heart, the language that shoots from the soul to the soul, and the condensation and carrier of human emotions. Therefore, the music culture of a land must be able to reflect the cultural heritage and customs of the region. In 2022, 6 departments including the Ministry of Culture and Tourism will jointly issue the “Opinions on Promoting Cultural Industry Empowering Rural Revitalization”, and the integration of culture and tourism will be included in the key areas of cultural industry empowering rural revitalization, and from rural tourism product development, brand building, etc. On the one hand, further clarify the development direction of rural tourism. In recent years, the tourism industry has continuously used digital technology to create digital music with unique rural characteristics and spread the local civilization and culture. This has undoubtedly driven the rise of the cultural tourism economy and contributed to the construction of rural revitalization. Relying on digital music to create a characteristic rural cultural tourism image and develop a characteristic rural cultural tourism industry, we can also start with local folk activities, traditional folk arts, and ethnic characteristics. The dozen or so characteristic towns in Zhejiang Province are combined with local Cultural towns created by characteristic elements, such as Suichang Tang Xianzu Opera Town, Fuyang Xindeng Yue Opera Town, etc., all use digital music as a medium to regularly hold various special music festivals to attract traffic and earn profits. Or historical and cultural characteristics as an entry point, the use of digital technology to create a unique cultural tourism industry for the development of digital music stages will help create Zhejiang’s unique music charm, highlight Zhejiang’s individual advantages, create greater economic breakthroughs, and build momentum for rural revitalization energy storage.
3.3. Digital Music Empowers Rural Industry Iteration
“Opinions on Promoting Cultural Industry to Empower Rural Revitalization” clearly points out that it is necessary to promote digital culture to empower rural revitalization, and puts forward specific requirements for the development of digital cultural products, the use of various industrial formats, brand image building, and characteristic sales [5] . In the process of digital cultural industry empowering rural revitalization, digital music companies have significant advantages in technology, capital, and platform resources. Therefore, the revitalization of rural industries can rely on digital music companies to build rural cultural production and dissemination platforms, and increase rural digital boutiques. Content creation, development of immersive experience projects, promotion of the activation of excellent traditional cultural resources and brand IP creation, etc., to promote the adjustment and improvement of rural industrial structure. In addition, due to the advantages of digital music, such as small space and time constraints, high flexibility, and strong applicability, even in various villages with inconvenient transportation and low economy, relying on the operation of the online digital music industry and professional talents, it can also be realized. The brand building of rural characteristic music and the dissemination of rural civilization and culture, from this perspective, digital music has universal applicability in the vast countryside. In addition, compared with traditional music creation methods, digital music, with its convenient and fast features, can gather various application plug-ins and sound sources in one computer, and music producers can use digital technology to directly complete the music through the sound sources and tools on the computer. Works and release platforms, which greatly reduce the time and expense of music creation, realize the effective creation, creation and dissemination of works, and quickly form a consumption chain. It can be seen that digital music can quickly improve the rural industrial structure, realize the innovation of rural spiritual civilization carriers, and improve the quality and efficiency of rural revitalization.
4. Development Status of Country Music Culture Industry
The music culture industry is divided into online and offline music industries according to different carriers. The development direction of the offline music industry in rural areas is relatively single, focusing on music education and cultural tourism. The online music industry is the digital music industry. Under the premise of the Internet information age, streaming media technology has been introduced into my country to spread its branches and leaves. Music uses digital as a carrier to appear frequently on many music platforms and media. Integrate into people’s daily entertainment life.
The rural offline music industry in Zhejiang is mainly composed of music education, the combination of music and cultural tourism, and the production of musical instruments. Taking Suichang as an example, the population engaged in the music and cultural industry only accounts for 0.03% of the total rural population, and only about 800 of the county’s 130,000 population are engaged in cultural work, but local cultural expenditures account for 19% of residents’ consumption expenditures.1 It can be seen that the existing production scale cannot meet the needs of rural people’s spiritual development. There are many cases of combining music culture and tourism in the province. At present, there are 12 music towns and 2 fixed music festivals in rural areas, helping rural areas to generate income and prosperity. In addition, there are musical instrument production places in the province, such as Luoshe in Deqing, Huzhou Luoshe town is currently the largest piano manufacturing center in the Yangtze River Delta, known as the “Hometown of Pianos in China”, with an annual output of more than 50,000 pianos and a total output value of more than 500 million yuan. [6] Zijing Village, with Zhongtai flute as the core of its industry, has also made “bamboo” articles in recent years. The annual output value of the bamboo flute industry is 340 million yuan [7] . However, due to the impact of the epidemic, China’s offline music has suffered heavy losses. In addition, the insufficient and unbalanced development of offline music industry resources has led to problems such as the low quality of music education and the mere formality of the cultural and tourism industry.
Today, online digital music has become the main force of the economic development of the entire music industry, and the overall trend is positive. It is estimated that the digital music market will grow to 42.89 billion yuan in 2021, and online music paying users will reach 76.2 million, a year-on-year increase of 36.1%, a net increase of 5 million month-on-month.2 However, the survey found that musicians tend to gather in developed cities. In 2022, the proportion of musicians in county-level cities and prefecture-level cities nationwide is only 29.89%, which is a decrease of 2.91% compared to 2020.3 Most of the original musicians in Zhejiang Province live in the urban areas of Hangzhou, Ningbo, Taizhou and other cities, and there is a shortage of original musicians in rural areas; in addition, according to incomplete statistics, the main positions of the offline music industry in Zhejiang Province are mainly around Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou and other economically developed urban areas have fewer music activities in rural areas due to economic and transportation constraints. At present, in the rural areas of our province, digital music is mainly driven by consumption. Due to the lack of support from technical personnel, production and supply are relatively weak. Affected by the epidemic, from 2019 to 2022, the proportion of rural per capita cultural and entertainment consumption expenditure in Zhejiang Province to the total rural per capita expenditure has declined, but the proportion of the province’s overall cultural and entertainment consumption expenditure is still increasing steadily, from 41%increased to 55%.4 It can be seen that developed urban areas have already enjoyed the fruits of digital music economic development. Although digital music in rural areas started late, they can rely on urban development experience to explore the development of digital music with rural characteristics. Boost rural revitalization and development.
5. Prospering the Village with Numbers of Sounds: Playing a New Chapter in Future Rural Construction (Path)
5.1. Excavate Connotation, Highlight Characteristics, and Activate Digital Music
How to protect and inherit our country’s local traditional music culture and maintain the ecological balance of regional music culture has become the focus of attention of scholars in the cultural and art circles in recent years [8] . In the digital age, local villages and towns can use digital technology to compose and create local traditional music. Through the excavation of their musical cultural heritage, digital music can be revitalized in the rejuvenation of traditional music, and the innovative creation, inheritance and development of regional traditional music can be realized. There are two main ways to activate digital music in towns and towns in Zhejiang to help revitalize the countryside.
Create a digital brand of traditional music, make full use of the rich music cultural resources such as traditional operas, local operas and folk songs with regional characteristics in Zhejiang, combine digital technology to promote the production, reconstruction, dissemination and consumption of Zhejiang characteristic music resources, and create a rural version of “Impression・West Lake” “and other digital music brands, helping to create a cultural identity that highlights Zhejiang’s heritage and a provincial brand of "Poems and Paintings in Jiangnan, Vibrant Zhejiang” [9] .
Innovate a new model of talent training. Facing the current situation of many types of traditional music in Zhejiang and a wide range of inheritors, it is possible to establish folk inheritance organizations and select music lovers who are proficient in Zhejiang traditional music, etc., to form preliminary folk traditional music talents, classes, and regularly hold Zhejiang traditional music culture forums to bring the whole to the part. Digital media can also be used for live broadcast, and local inheritance organizations are actively encouraged to perform, gradually forming the focus of the literary and art industry.
5.2. Integrity and Innovation, Digital Empowerment, and Strengthening Integrated Development
Give full play to the leading role of the leading digital music industry, and promote the development of an industrial chain that organically combines traditional culture and digital music. Encourage top companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, Netease Cloud, and ByteDance to use their advantages to spread and create digital music cultural products related to farming culture, folk arts, local customs, and rural scenery, so as to “live” local culture. And take advantage of the expansive characteristics of digital music, actively integrate with other industries, enrich the industrial chain, and form a green, safe, high-quality and efficient rural industrial system.
QQ Music and the Dunhuang Research Institute jointly launched the “Ancient Music Acoustic ‘Awareness’ Project”, inviting a group of singers and artists to become digital supporters of Dunhuang music, and connect with Dunhuang ancient music from multiple dimensions such as ethnicity, electronic music, folk songs, and pop. Combined, the use of digital music to disseminate Dunhuang music in a fun way promotes the inheritance and development of Dunhuang music. The digital music platform in the province can learn from the new ideas of Qyin digital music cultural preservation, and seek a new development model for the inheritance and display of characteristic folk culture and local customs in various parts of our province.
5.3. Integrate Resources, Coordinate Assistance, and Optimize the Path Mechanism
Promote multi-industry integration and innovation, and develop cultural and creative industries to help farmers. Make full use of new formats such as animation music, online performances, and Internet video services to further explore and revitalize the cultural resources of excellent traditional arts, effectively promote the development of local culture, the development of cultural and creative products in the Forbidden City, and the establishment of the brand image of famous agricultural products, and help Zhejiang Digital Culture High The construction of quality will become a “fan” for the rural areas of Zhejiang .
Taking Xiaoshan as an example, it will rely on its geographical, cultural and resource advantages to develop a digital content-based cultural and creative industry, build a music financial smart city, and integrate traditional music, e-sports, copyright, cultural and creative and digital content. Realize the efficient combination of “traditional music + technology + finance”, and gradually form two industrial chains, horizontal and vertical. Vertical industry chain: traditional music, recording, printing, publishing, education, extension products, etc., horizontal value chain: “traditional music+” movies, animation, Internet, exhibitions, cultural activities, etc. It has transformed the economy and brought vitality to the development of traditional music.
6. Conclusions
As a rapidly developing emerging industry, the digital music industry has the functions of promoting cultural inheritance and protection and promoting the transformation and upgrading of the digital economy. Taking it as an effective link to realize rural revitalization, it can adapt to local conditions and help Zhejiang to build a demonstration zone for high-quality development and common prosperity. As a demonstration window for common prosperity, Zhejiang Province must have diversified and advanced methods of economic development. The development of the digital music industry is one of the new ways of economic development and rural revitalization in Zhejiang Province, and also an important way to strengthen inter-provincial exchanges and international cooperation. Facing the development of the digital music industry and the construction of a sound economic ecology, we must actively meet greater opportunities and challenges.
Digital music has great potential to empower rural revitalization. It responds to the requirements of digital China and is an important part of promoting digital rural construction. Continuing to promote the integration and innovation of digital music technology and rural applications is conducive to giving full play to the driving role of informatization in rural revitalization and realizing the new needs of rural people for a better digital life.
Proceeding from reality, it is our mission to contribute a meager strength. By visiting many areas in Zhejiang Province, we explored the actual development of the digital music industry in the rural revitalization. Looking for the actual display of the digital music industry and seeking methods for the development of related industries, the efforts are full and the results are visible.
Fund Project
Zhejiang Normal University’s 2022 National College Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program Achievements (Project No.: 202210345009).
NOTES
1Data source: Suichang Statistical Yearbook 2021. http://www.suichang.gov.cn/col/col1229364854/index.html
2Data source: IFPI2020Global Music Report.
3Data source: 2021Chinese Musician Report by Zhang Fengyan Working Group from Communication University of China.
4Data source: Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Statistics.