Recently a cheering crowd of over 20,000 people holding glow sticks filled Taoyuan City’s Linkou Sports Arena. No, they weren’t cheering for the popular local rock band May Day, but for the ensemble performers of “Life Jazz.”
Life Jazz is Taiwan’s most active band made up of visually impaired members. It plays in over 30 concert venues a year and has participated in events organized by corporations including ASUS, Hsin Tung Yang, Amway, Lung Yen Group, among others and has traveled to Shanghai and Hong Kong. What makes it stand out from other ensemble groups is that Life Jazz’s saxophonist, drummer and bassist are all physically blind.
Ensemble member Huang Yu-hsiang starred in the movie “Touch of the Light” and performed alongside with blind Golden Melody Award winner, singer Hsiao Huang-chi.
Saxophonist > Went against his father’s opposition toward pursuing a music career; used touch to determine the shape of instructor’s mouth for playing the instrument, putting off school for one year to practice.
Starting with audiences of less than twenty in local cafes Life Jazz became the first visually impaired ensemble to play at large scale performance in front of thousands at Linkou Sports Arena, all the while sharing the stage with May Day. In order to get to where they are today, each member has had to put in much more effort than those without physical limitations.
Ensemble leader Wu Bo-yi is the spiritual figure of the group. Suffering from congenital cataracts since childhood, Wu lost all vision to his right eye, while keeping only 0.03 visual acuity in his left. In order to save his vision, Wu’s father took him to the hospital for multiple surgical procedures. But because his intraocular lenses were implanted too early, they constantly come into contact with his inner eye. He describes the frequent bouts of pain from the resulting friction “like wearing a pair of shoes that don’t fit you for the rest of your life.”
But thankfully for him, in his most lonesome and vulnerable moments Wu discovered music and knows that it would always be a loyal companion.
Due to frequent visits to the hospital in the past, Wu has become fearful of them and avoids them at all costs. One day however when forced to receive treatment at a hospital, he heard the sound of a piano and became still and started to listen. “From that moment, because of music, hospitals became cozier and less frightening,” he says.
Entering high school for the visually impaired at 16, Wu began his formal musical education where he picked up his first instrument, the saxophone. “When I first picked up the instrument, it seemed to be shaped like a shrimp. From then he started joking that he was a “blind man blowing into a shrimp.”
The instructors at the school encouraged students to focus their efforts on becoming masseuses in order to be able to find work more easily – a suggestion that most of Wu’s peers decided to take. As for himself, Wu opted for a different path, sending in an application to Chinese Culture University’s music department in order to obtain one of the coveted spaces afforded by his high school’s cooperation with the department. “My father was resolutely opposed to the idea because he was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make a living off of a music career,” he recalls.
His stubbornness to challenge his fate being so strong, Wu’s father was forced to capitulate. “During the first class ensemble session, I heard my classmates playing in such a professional manner as if it was something off a classical music record.” He was so intimidated that he could not play in front of his peers.
When playing a woodwind instrument, the shape of one’s mouth is especially important. Wu could only “observe” by touching his instructors mouth in order to feel the correct shaping of the mouth. Of course in the process of practicing he could not rely on his sight to observe the shape of his own mouth, leading to awful sounding notes when the shaping wasn’t correct.
From that moment, he decided to take one year off from his classes to practice, seven days a week for eight hours a day. Blowing air into an instrument for the whole day is not much different than blowing air into a balloon for long periods of time – he often felt dizzy, but he didn’t give up. One year later after returning to university, not only did he make up for lost time, but he also placed first in the woodwind section during the graduation concert.
Wu Bo-yi became an all around musician for Hsiao Huang-chi while studying at university. Aside from the two, the ensemble included drummer Lu Si-yung and bassist Hung Hong-hsiang, both also graduates from the same high school for the blind. After Hsiao signed a separate recording deal as a soloist, not only did the remaining members give him their best wishes, they formed another ensemble, searched for gigs to play and did cover’s of Hsiao’s “You’re my eyes” – the song that made him famous.
Guitarist, director > A sighted man joins the band:
Although seeing only darkness, their playing style conveys optimism
Once during a performance at a café, a respectable looking member of the audience suddenly took a guitar onstage and serendipitously started to play with the ensemble. It turns out that he was also had a time in the limelight during the 1980s as a guitarist in the band “Red Ants.” Today, Lee Hsu-ying is a practicing ophthalmologist.
“Before I met them, I hadn’t performed on stage for more than ten years,” Lee recounted. As an eye doctor, it was only after joining Life Jazz did he become more familiar with the blind and understand their perspective. For example, for them to memorize a piece of music on the piano, they have to memorize each finger position on each key, one key at a time. Although the hours at the surgery keep him busy, Lee tries to make it to as many performances as he can, becoming a regular member of the ensemble.
The ensemble’s artistic director Yu Wen-chun, is an insurance dealer who became the first sighted member of the group, joining before Lee. “I once fell very ill during high school. I couldn’t even move off of my bed and thought to myself: I’m probably not going to live very long,” Yu said. That event has always stayed with her until she heard the performance of Wu Bo-yi and the ensemble which was so full of life that it moved her immensely. “It’s like the light has been shut off for them their entire lives, and it won’t ever change, but the music they play is so full of optimism,” she says.
Even as visually impaired musicians, the group’s music avoids sorrow, with lively and bright rhythms. Closing ones eyes to listen, their tunes are just as good as those of a professional group. What’s more, they have created the context to share with audience members their uplifting life stories of optimism during their performances.
“When I create music, I always use instances from my own life experience,” Wu explains. His piece “Starlight” recounts a stargazing trip he took with his friends. On that night while his friends could see so many twinkling lights in the night sky, “it was pitch black for me,” Wu said. “Although I couldn’t see the starlight, I know that they're out there. To see them would be like a dream to me.”
One time while performing on stage, Yu felt so inspired by the music that she dimmed the lights and asked the members of the audience to take out their mobile phones to create a sea of lights. Although Wu only has minimal sight in his left eye making the person standing close by seem like just a blur, he saw the waves of light generated by the crowd this time, just as if he were really surrounded by the twinkling lights of a starry night.
Drummer and pianist > In sync through deep listening
“If someone practices three times, I’ll do it ten times.”
Blind musicians have it much tougher than those who can see when it comes to training. For Lu Si-yung who wanted to be a drummer at age 11, traveled throughout the island in search of an instructor, eventually become a disciple of Taiwan’s “drummer king” Huang Rui-feng. Because Lu cannot see the surface of the drum, he spends upwards of 20 minutes each session adjusting his seat and wiping the surface of the cymbals, a task that takes most five minutes. To gain familiarity with drumming techniques and overcome the physical barriers to playing the instrument, Huang said he once practiced for so long into the night that his reporters called the police.
The same pattern of hard work and arduous practice falls upon Hung Hong-hsiang, who besides drums also plays the piano, bass and other instruments. “We aren’t like ordinary people who can read music and learn to techniques by watching performances. We can only depend on our listening to differentiate,” he said. When he initially started learning bass, he wasn’t sure about the proper finger picking techniques. Hung had to press each string individually to learn the scales. As an apprentice he was laughed at by instructors for using the “magic one finger method.”
Because each of the ensemble cannot see on another during performances and therefore lack visual cues and signals to coordinate amongst one another to adjust their pacing, they must continue to practice over and over to develop a workable rhythm with each other. “When others practice three times, I practice ten times, each of those ten times the rest of the ensemble is there practicing as well,” Lu says. Despite the frequency of rehearsal, mistakes still happen during performances.
“Many times I’ve fallen from the stage,” he says due to the pure joy he pours into the performance. “One time while hitting the drums I lost my balance and fell off the stage. The others continued playing and I was afraid that if I stood up and returned it would hurt the performance. So I stayed on the floor, in spite of the pain, until the piece was finished before standing up again.”
Despite injury and pain, the resolve to pursue their passion for music has also won the ensemble an outpouring of support. Ho Hsi-chuan, the president of the People Can Learn Foundation who hails from the construction sector became familiar with the ensemble through his study of African drums. Ho introduced the ensemble to local schools where they put on performances to share their music. Life Coach Training Service consultant Chen Yen-hung also ran up to the back of the stage after listening to a performance offering to help the ensemble coordinate future performances.
A middle-aged band- Average age of band member: 40
“We don’t want to be average, we want perfection.”
Life Jazz’s players have an average age of 40 to 45 years, making it a “middle-aged band.” Having embarked on this journey, they are undoubtedly aware that they cannot depend on sympathy alone, and that sophistication and professionalism are the only ways forward toward success. “Many people think that when physically impaired performers go on stage, they only need to be average (or 60 percent). That’s not what we want though. What we strive to achieve is near perfection,” Yu says.
“We’re not looking for sympathy but rather respect based on our skills,” Wu emphasizes. Although they each bring wounds of the past with them, the Life Jazz ensemble demonstrates that there should be no limits to life when it comes to achieving one’s wishes: even if one cannot see, even if the challenges are great, one can pursue a passion for music that moves the soul – with one courageous step at a time.