-- - I am less different from the sound persons, and it is certain that I can accomplish what they can do with double effort as well.

--- - I would encourage myself with that sentence whenever I meet difficulty in my life and work.

All my description here comes from my personal experience to start on my way of business. The following paragraphs are all true stories.

I will extend this article once a year. I will write it  with the whole life of a blind one. You should believe that the sunlight, colour and all things on the earth in the mind of a blind are prettier than to the eyes of any sound one. I believe everyone of the blind would have a legend life belonging  to his or her own.

---By Chen Yan


A blind person also has her days of a young girl. It is well-known that the blind ones have sharp hearing, and that is why I love music since my childhood. I  have learnt   how to play varieties of musical instruments. At the blind school I had always been a member of the musical band. I became interested in the piano at middle school. I had  never heard a musical instrument with so rich expressive force, which could be played with splendid notes, as well as those distressed ones. The king of musical instruments  moved me deeply, and also conquered me.


Skill Learning

I got a good news when we closed to graduation that the China Disabled Persons' Federation was planning to pave a new way of employment for the blind people by investing 500,000 Chinese Yuan to introduce the piano tuning technique of the blind that had a history of more than 100 years in Euro-American areas. I asked my teacher why the China Disabled Persons' Federation had to cost so much to introduce the Euro-American technology? The teacher said that the piano tuning technique available in China was introduced along with the piano manufacturing industry in 1930s, but what the China Disabled Persons' Federation would introduce for you was the Euro-American technology of the beginning in 1990s by inviting the teachers for training from abroad. It would save a lot of money to teach you by the domestic tuners, in that way your skill would be similar with that of the sound ones and who would like to ask for your service? I had not heard any more since what my teacher said touched me deeply and I quickly   realized no matter what I study and what to do, I had to have a better skill than others so that I could be recognized by society. As a result of my effort, I was admitted to major piano tuning by examinations as one of the students in the first class of blind piano tuning in China.


Teachers

I still remember the scene on the first class. Mr. Li, as our teacher, had been trained  by American teachers. Li said to us, you should learn accurate tuning skill as well as how to repair a piano. A piano has the elements more than 8000, you will not only be aware of the distribution of the  elements, but also be able to take apart, assemble and repair the piano skillfully. For the first class majoring piano tuning  in the blind school, the leaders of  all levels of our school and our   teacher Li Renwei repeatedly said to us, "After graduation, what you will undertake is a difficult and honorable task. You should pave a new way for the employment of blind persons. When you have done well, more blind ones will be benefited.  If you failed, this way would be hard to go for anyone else. The blind persons of nation-wide are paying close attention to you". At that time, I was very simple as to think that it would not be quite difficult. If only I am mastery at the technology and have everything in my hand, should I worry about an employer?

Just in the first week, I was aware that the study of piano tuning  is not so easily as I had imagined. I did regret and thought it might be better to learn the massage in traditional Chinese medicine. There are only 206 pieces of bones plus 600 and more acupoints in human body. We do not think really that the structure of a piano might be more complicated than the acupoints of human body! It would not be so difficult to learn just how to tune and the structure of a piano. Nevertheless, we have to learn   how to repair a piano. The basic course of piano fixing is a class in crafting. We had to study how to level a piece of wood with a plane, to make a hole into the wood with a drill, drive a screw into the wood, hammer a nail vertically  into the wood with no bit to be askew. It was quite impossible to  imagine that the teacher asked us to make a group of piano keys in a week, which should be the same as the real ones. That  was almost to make me get the Arabian lamp! Every of us would be afraid of the craftwork classes. On hammering a nail I often hit my hand and my hand would be  pricked by the screwdriver when I was screwing. My hands were covered with a lot of  wound ever since we had the classes of craftwork. It was beyond our thiuking that you have to learn how to do woodwork  in addition to the splendid music for piano tuning. You could imagine  how difficult it would be for the blind ones. I did have an idea to give up, and my classmates had the same idea.

    Mr. Li as our teacher was aware of our opinion. On a class for craftwork, he said to us, "Now let me tell you a story."

  I was very glad to hear it and thought that my hand would be avoid of pounding on that class.

    Li said, "I learned to play a trumpet and was appointed to work in a Ping opera troupe after graduation. Nevertheless the trumpet was not in need any more by the end of the 1970s and I lost my job in result.  One of my fellows said that the blind persons is good at hearing and it had been said that some of the blind persons work in piano tuning abroad. 'You might learn it as well.' I thought he was right and bought a few copies of the textbooks on piano tuning at once. I asked others to read aloud for me and I had it recorded on a tape-recorder. Yet the graphs are not readable and there are so many parts on a piano, I could hardly find a way out just by reciting the content of a book. I invited a veteran master to my home from a piano manufactory by some relations in a roundabout way with the desire   asking him to help me in tutoring. Then I served him with all delicious food in my home. He gave me two sentences when he learned my intention, 'I advise you not to struggle with yourself. It would be difficult to repair a piano for a tuner without better sight. Let alone for those with no sight at all. With that he left me. I said nothing any more but made more effort to study thereafter. I did not believe it impossible for a blind person to be familiar with  piano tuning by study. I overcomed a lot of difficulties unimaginable for others and had a command of  traditional skill of tuning at last.  With the tutor of the American teacher afterwards, I came to have a mastery of the most advanced skill of piano tuning. When I studied piano tuning, I would practice all the time in the piano room except eating and sleeping, nearly for 14 hours one day. How could I be so reluctant as you are from hardworking? Then I could find no tutor who'd like to help me in learning the   technology. Who can be so lucky as you are? You should treasure the opportunity of studying. You are the first class of the blind in piano tuning and the blind persons nation-wide are expecting your success! "

With those words I came to understand whether we could  master the skill by learning is not only a matter of ourselves, but concerns the the blind persons nation-wide. Since then I never flinch again. A week later I did finished a group of keys, including the black and the white ones of 12 altogether, and just like the real ones on a piano. With the keys made I understood another  truth  that you would gain bits or mass as long as you work hard.

Just to think back I do not remember how many difficulties we  overcame at that time. In the courses thereafter we met a lot of  skills that I thought impossible to master and the baffling problems that might not be surmounted for us.   With the help of the firm faith in my mind I insisted to the last. By the end of the three  years in learning, I came to have a better mastery of the most  advanced technology of piano tuning in western countries and all the skills for piano maintenance.

Then we thought what we had leant was the advanced technology and certainly we could go to work for many units after graduation, hence it would be easy for us to find a job. Nvertheless it was unexpcted  that we came across some troubles when we began our practice. Nobody invited us to tune a piano even free of charge, with the fear that we might damage a piano in tuning, and the reason was a myth that a piano tuning could be done by blind person. Mr. Li had not expected that it would be so difficult to popularize the blind piano tuning in China. After some contacts in many ways by our school, Mr. Wang Xing long, teacher of China Conservatory of Music  accepted us, when he was the secretary-in-general of the Piano Tuning Society under China Musicians' Association. It was our dream to have a way for practice in a conservatory. Just then however we wondered why Mr. Wang dared to admit us to practice at the  conservatory. Afterwards we learnt that he had seen the tuning work by some blind persons when he studied in Austria, so he was  willing to take us.

At the  conservatory we touched a lot of pianos with various  brands. The skills we learned were well utilized  and we had got full excercises there. A few months later, Mr. Wang introduced us to practice in a normal school for  children. The pianos there were not so easy to be tuned as those of the  conservatory. Many of them had been broken and meshed, with snake skins, big insects and mouse den inside. Fruthermore there were  little mouse  in some of them! Nobody could imagine why those things might be inside the piano. I was too scared to put  my hand on it and we did have more experience there. Some pianos were so heavily damaged that there was no part required no repair. Too many troubles came to us since thousands of elements had to be  repaired. Many of us asked Mr. Li if we could only work for tuning with the mechanical faults unrepaired. Li said they must be repaired, and if you gave up whenever you met with hardship, what to  do when you go to tune for your household customers with such a piano  in the days to come? Would  you deceive the owner with the faults remained or rather want me to do the repair work then?

He said to all of us, "When you graduate and go to society in future, you should treat each piano carefully. It's not all right for you with the only advanced technology but you should take  each piano so well as that of a professional music player. Provided a sound piano tuner deceived a piano user, who may well change another  tuner next time, but if a blind tuner deceived a user, that user will never invite a blind person for tuning again in future. He or she would think that the blind persons do not know how to tune a piano at all."

Hearing what the teacher said above all, I think we have no other choice than repairing! However, it is hard to do than thinking. It took me a whole week to repair a badly broken piano. I repaired nearly all the elements a time. The temperament was  200 and more cents lower than the standard sound. I had tuned 7 or 8 times before the sound was stabilized, as if a new piano had been made. However, I had got a sense of victory in my mind when I repaired a broken piano so well that the splendid music could be played. All of a sudden an idea came to my mind that I may change my fate probably with my effort as well as I could change a piano with the skill in my hands. So I practised with greater efforts and made the progress from tuning one piano a week to fixing and tuning a broken piano  one day. Mr. Li said that I had already become a qualified piano tuner. I really understood a truth from the period of practice that your potential is unlimited and so long as you work hard, you will be sure to have a success one day.



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