Veteran flutist shares his musical vision with children who can’t see
Print Edition
FOR the students of Pang Ying, music unlocks a world they can’t see.
Pang, 53, is principal flute and director of programs at the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra. For a quarter century, he has been teaching music to visually impaired children from the Shanghai Children’s School for the Blind. He conducts the lessons in his spare time and charges no fee.
One of those students, Zhang Zhenyu, is 37 and makes a living as a piano tuner and music studio owner. He was born blind.
“Teaching the flute to blind kids has become a part of my life because making them happy gives me great happiness,” Pang said.
When Shanghai Daily visited Pang one afternoon this month, he was giving a private lesson to Zhang Minhui, a 19-year-old who lost her sight six years ago. Zhang Zhenyu was in the next room tuning a piano.
Pang was sitting with Zhang Minhui, reading from a score to acquaint her with the notes.
Using a scale with small rectangular holes and a stylus — traditional Braille tools — she was swiftly punching dots to record the notes for future use.
The lack of scores published in Braille in China means more work for Pang.
“Reading scores aloud and repetitively to different students must be boring for Teacher Pang, but he has to do that because, after two or three years, the Braille papers are usually worn and no longer usable,” said Zhang Minhui.
In 1992, Pang and a few colleagues from the Shanghai Radio Symphony Orchestra were asked by the Children’s School for the Blind to give music lessons.
At one time, the school had orchestras of both Western and traditional Chinese instruments, but the former was discontinued because of a lack of teachers.
Pang is the only one of the 1992 group still teaching part-time at the school.
“It took blind students a long time to understand the structure of the flute, to hold it correctly and to produce the right sounds,” he said.
Indeed, it can take a blind student seven or eight years to reach the proficiency that a sighted player can achieve with two or three years of lessons, he said.
“And not every blind child is gifted with musical talent,” he said. “But I often tell them that they feel the charm of music with their ears and heart because they tend to be more sensitive to sounds than ordinary people.”
Zhang Minhui said music has become her whole life now.
“I just listen because I can’t see anything,” she said. “Music cheers me up immediately.”
After three years of lessons with Pang, she has passed the city’s level six exam for the flute. There are 10 levels of competency, and Pang said most of his students achieve at least level eight.
During a visit to Shanghai in 2014, world renowned flutist Andrea Griminelli praised one of Pang’s young students as “highly proficient and no different from a sighted player.”
Pang’s students have only to look at history to draw inspiration from some renowned blind musicians, including flutists.
One was German Friedrich Dulon, who died in 1826. Blind at the age of 6, he learned the flute from his father and later from another blind flutist, Joseph Winter.
Dulon, who crossed paths with Mozart, was also a composer. His surviving compositions include a flute concerto, 16 duos and a set of 11 caprices for solo flute.
In more modern times, Rahsaan Kirk, an American jazz musician who went blind as a child, was acclaimed for his performances on the flute and the tenor saxophone.
Learning a musical instrument is not easy, even for those with perfect vision. It’s rigorous work that demands discipline and practice.
“Teacher Pang is stern and corrects even the most minor mistakes in my playing,” said Zhang Minhui, one of Pang’s six current students. “When I first began lessons, I couldn’t bear the constant scolding and often cried.”
But that’s all in the past now. She said she hopes to become a flute teacher herself some day.
Her mother, Ma Hong, who accompanies her daughter to flute lessons, said Pang is more than a teacher.
“He is a friend to whom Minhui entrusts her little secrets,” Ma said. “Minhui is now a much happier girl than several years ago, when her entire expectations of life were destroyed by the illness that left her blind.”
Zhang Zhenyu said it’s hard to describe how Pang’s devotion inspires a blind person to embrace life.
“When you learn to play a musical instrument as a blind person, you also learn that nothing in life is insurmountable,” he said. Zhang Zhenyu also plays the bass, piano and saxophone. He gave his first recital at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center last December, playing Mozart’s “Flute Concerto in D Major.”
“It was the dream of a lifetime to give my own concert,” he said.
Pang, standing in the wings of the stage during the concert, said the performance was not perfect but “perfect enough for him.”
In China, blind people are often channeled into work as masseurs because they can work their hands without sight. But Zhang Zhenyu preferred to get his hands around musical instruments. He now operates a music studio with a few blind friends.
“In my early days, there were few choices for blind people,” he said. “But now, opportunities have opened up, largely because of technological advances like computers and the Internet.”
Zhang Zhenyu said he would like to start an amateur ensemble of visually impaired musicians, and is looking at software options that might be able to automatically turn digitalized music scores into readable material for the blind.
“I am hoping this software will be a great aid to the blind learning instruments,” he said.
Pang said his years working with the visually impaired have changed his whole way of seeing them.
“Most of us tend to feel sorry for blind people and subconsciously relegate them to the margins of our society,” he said. “But they are actually just regular people with physical impediments who deserve the same dignity and opportunities as everyone else.”
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