“Learning the saxophone isn’t easy, and I’ve taken many detours.” “Here we don’t have teachers,” said Chen Jinsheng, 56, a farmer who plays in a small saxophone band. “Chinese songs are more familiar and easy to play.” Many of the players are self-taught or follow along with online tutorials. “It’s beautiful but too difficult,” said Wang Bingjun, a worker at the Tianjin Shengdi factory. So is “Going Home,” the 1989 Kenny G song that is widely played in Chinese shopping malls, schools and train stations as they close down. ![]() “Spring Comes to the North,” a Japanese folk song, is a favorite. The repertoire in Sidangkou leans toward traditional Chinese songs and patriotic tunes, although there are some exceptions. ![]() ![]() “No matter how angry I am, it calms me down.” “It’s just so beautiful, I don’t know how to describe it,” said Zhao Baiquan, 55. They join friends to play together outdoors, often with orchestral tracks blaring in the background. Others have found playing the instrument to be a source of relaxation. “It’s a miracle that even rural people who are used to holding hoes in our hands can make Western instruments,” he said. “I wake up seeing saxophones and go to sleep seeing saxophones.”įu said he was proud of Sidangkou. “It’s my career it’s my life,” said Fu, a factory worker. He quickly fell in love with the sound of the saxophone and started formal studies. By the mid-2000s, saxophone fever had broken out.įu Guangcheng came to Sidangkou in 1995 to work as a polisher on an assembly line. Sidangkou, which is near Tianjin, a large northeastern city, began producing saxophones in the 1990s, as China became a powerhouse exporter and Western cultural influences become more prominent.Īssembly line workers began trying their hand at the instrument, mimicking famous players they saw on television. Yet nothing seems to have captured the imagination of people here like the saxophone. Factories in the region produce thousands of oboes, trumpets and tubas each year. “It’s part of our lives now.”įor more than a century, the region around Sidangkou has been a hub of musical instrument manufacturing, including traditional Chinese instruments like the sheng, a reed pipe, and the di, a bamboo flute. “It’s vibrant and delightful,” said Wang Yuchun, the president of one of the largest producers, Tianjin Shengdi Musical Instrument Co. The village exports nearly 90 percent of them, primarily to the United States, where they are sold for more than $100 each. ![]() Sidangkou, which calls itself China’s “saxophone capital,” produces about 10,000 saxophones per month at more than 70 factories, according to Chinese news media. After the Communist revolution of 1949, officials denounced the instrument for producing the “decadent music of capitalists.”īut here in this town, the saxophone is king. The saxophone has never had a large following in China, in part because it was long associated with jazz, individuality and free expression. Shopkeepers set their ringtones to the wistful songs of Kenny G. Children play in all-saxophone bands at school. This is the music of Sidangkou, a northern Chinese village of 4,000, where one sound rules above all else: the saxophone.įarmers take the instrument into fields to belt out patriotic tunes against the sunset.
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