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Chinese farmer fiddles around
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The world always has a passion for music. But where does music come from, if not the stage or studio? The answer is, from ordinary life.
Jiang Yuzheng lives in a tiny village an hour from Beijing. He is a farmer and carpenter. And an unlikely musician.
When he's not working the fields, Jiang turns his attention to his life's passion--inventing and making his own musical instruments.
Jiang Yuzheng said, "I've always been fascinated by why a pipe makes a sound when you blow into it, or why a pulling bow produces sound. If I wasn't curious I would never have become interested in it. My curiosity became an interest; my interest became a love, and finally I found my creativity."
Jiang started to read and play music when he was 14. Four years later he began making his own instruments.
His unconventional contraptions are made from anything....from scrap wood to dried vegetables. The only condition is that they are free.
Jiang has made more than one hundred instruments over the past four decades. And he can play a range of them.....from the bamboo fiddle to the horn to the harmonica.
Neighbors joined him in 2006 to form a village folk band. They perform only with his home-made instruments, on national holidays and traditional Chinese festivals.
Jiang Aizhen, Band Member, said, "Housewives like us especially enjoy being a part of the band. Those who used to play Mah-jong before stopped gambling after joining it."
Feng Huarui, Band Member, said, "We have become much more motivated in our singing since we had the band to accompany us. And now we all love to sing."
Jiang says he has no plans yet to take his band on tour. What the aging musician does want is to teach other villagers to play his instruments, so that his unique brand of folk music can live on through the generations.
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