Rock 'n' roll is expansive? freely? Girls don't yet understand the meaning of these words, and they always use the simplest word to describe, that is, happiness, which is what they can feel.
Wen | Dai Minjie
Editor| Chu Ming
Photography | Deng Zhuo
Every angel loves beauty
The 12-year-old band's lead singer stands in the center of the stage with a clear voice, and this song "A Song for You" has been rehearsed countless times. The difference is that the original song of the song also stood among the five band members wearing school uniforms, and the drummer of the band sat next to the girl who played the drum and gave the protagonist to the girls. Gao Hu, the 46-year-old lead singer in a denim shirt, stepped across the horse and lowered his body, just as tall as the girls. The girl band from this mountain village elementary school ushered in a real rock band.
Unlike every previous performance, Gao Hu described it as a party.
This is the highest primary school in Guizhou Province, Haiga Primary School, also known as Yunshang School.
In June, the band saw a fast-hand video of girls singing, drumming, guitar and bass in a makeshift classroom. Lead singer Gao Hu was impressed by the girls' clean eyes and shy smiles, and they forwarded the video, hoping to have the opportunity to sing a song for you.
At the end of July, the band came to the girl. The road is tortuous, the car is moving forward on the mountain road, the navigation sound is continuous, reminding the front of the sharp turn, and the window is a rolling mountain range, dotted with several houses. Children in pairs of threes and twos carry baskets down the mountain for two or three hours.
In 2018, students from the first to sixth grades of Haiga Primary School had the opportunity to come to the rehearsal room during the lunch break and get exposed to guitars, basses, drum kits, tambourines... Feel free to choose the instrument you are interested in to learn. In September 2018 and September 2019, Haiga Primary School formed the Encounter Band and the Unknown Boy Band, with 5 girls.
Offstage, Gu Ya held his mobile phone to broadcast live. He is a 33-year-old teacher at Haiga Elementary School, and it was he who formed the band of the two girls and posted the video online to get attention. At this moment, in his shots, the band and the girls play together, on the fast hand, more and more viewers joined the live broadcast room, a total of hundreds of thousands of people watched the performance from afar, someone wrote a comment: tears in their eyes, they love music, and higher than music.
Off camera, the girls' parents were not present. They work as construction workers and waiters in the city, or live more than an hour away from the mountain roads, with farm work to do and cattle to feed.
But the sound of music attracted children and villagers nearby. The cement road outside Haiga Elementary School is where nearby children play, sitting in a line on the ground and grabbing the ears of the people in front of them, shaking the train together. Someone pranked tightly, and the people in front of them cried, turned around and waved their fists with the people behind them, and wrestled, and there was always one person crying. But at this moment, the children lined up in two lines under the stage, quietly standing with their hands behind their backs.
The four-year-old boy stood by the door, looking at the stage in a daze, his mouth moving, and his grandmother asked him: Is it good to hear? He replied, jumped up and replied: Good to hear! The peasant woman who had returned from herding cattle heard the song, grabbed the dandelion leaves picked on the way down the mountain, and went straight to the school. Entering the rehearsal room, she found her three granddaughters and one grandchild already standing under the stage, waving their little hands.
The boy in the thin blue down still has frostbite on the back of his hand in winter. He bounced to the music, with a pair of adult sneakers on his feet, and the laces were tightly tied from the ankle to the calf so that it would not fall off. He said he was 12 years old and a third-grader at Haiga Elementary School. He had been in hiding for two years, but was persuaded by the principal and teacher to come back to study, because they said that after reading the book, they could become a policeman, a doctor, and a nurse. When he came to school, he began to learn to fight drums. He looked forward to the start of school and continued to play drums.
Every angel loves beauty... Lead singer Gao Hu approached lead singer Xingyu, and in her ear, the two sang the lyrics together.
After stepping off the stage, 12-year-old lead singer Xingyu tilted his head, what does this lyric mean? She didn't know. She poked the sisters in the band next to her to answer, and everyone said they didn't know.
But it's one of their favorite lyrics, and they think it's beautiful.
Band of Pains and girls for a group photo
Don't be afraid
Before the live broadcast began, Gao Hu, the lead singer of the band, led the lead singers of the two bands to the second floor. The Encounter Band is the first band of Haiga Elementary School, they graduated from elementary school for one year, and unknown teenagers are the second band, graduating this summer. Lead singer Xingli and lead singer Xingyu are sisters.
In the open space on the second floor, the three lead singers are far away from the hustle and bustle downstairs and kick shuttlecocks together. It was a way for Gao Hu to relax before he took the stage, and he taught the girls to open their bodies and greet the stage. The three men first kicked the shuttlecock quietly for a while. The shuttlecock fell, And Gao Hu shook his body, so that the girls could move freely on the stage, mistakes are always inevitable, don't be afraid.
Gao Hu talked about his first performance, from the first singing to the end of the performance, he closed his eyes the whole time and did not dare to open. The two lead singers laughed knowingly, and they remembered themselves.
Sister Xingli remembers that before joining the band, she was only the one who listened to the songs in the class performance, and never thought of standing on the stage. At that time, Teacher Gu took the children to audition, and it was she who was selected, and my talent was discovered. At the beginning of practicing songs, Teacher Gu made it difficult for her to open her mouth, and she was afraid that she would be heard. Teacher Gu took her to the piano, played while teaching her to sing, and she gradually opened her mouth. When she got on stage, her limbs stiffened and her shoulders shrugged high. My sister too, moved back while singing, almost tripping over the guitar line.
Xingli's band is the first sixth grade member since the establishment of Haiga Primary School. When Principal Zheng Long came to Haiga Primary School in 2002, there was only 1 teacher in the school and 8 students. In 2014, Zheng Long concurrently served as the principal of a primary school on the mountainside. That year, Gu Ya, who was carrying a guitar, came to school to report. 12 years ago, Zheng Long also came to Haiga with a guitar on his back, and two people who loved music met together. They applied for funding, bought basses, drum kits, and Gu Ya's friend sent a few guitars to teach the children musical instruments.
Gu Ya and the principal play music together
After the two became acquainted, Zheng Long told Gu Ya that his heart was in the primary school on the mountain. There is no teacher there, the student loss is serious, and his wish is to make it a complete primary school (primary school in grades one to six). He asked Gu Ya if he would like to go together? Gu Ya had been to Haiga a few times and knew that there was a greater need for a teacher there, and he agreed.
In the first year of Haiga Elementary School, they were busy with practical problems, going door to door to persuade parents to send their children to school, which was a dirt road, very thin, and the teachers slowly climbed with wooden sticks and pestles. More than sixty students were persuaded, the school was run, there was no water, the teachers went to the reservoir in the middle of the night to collect water, arranged for the teachers to look at the water pipe all the way, and did not let others pick up halfway.
After straightening out the routine, there is music. Zheng Long and Gu Ya found that compared with the students on the mountainside, the children here are farther away from the township, have less contact with the outside world, and are more introverted. Except for class hours, the campus was silent. But when Gu Ya practiced, there were always a few small heads lying on the window looking curiously. The teachers raised money together, bought more musical instruments, and spread out all the music education at Haiga Primary School. The children saw the guitar and reacted the same as Gu Ya when they were young, shouting the lute at the guitar.
Gu Ya was born in another mountain village in Liupanshui City, Guizhou Province, in the fifth grade of primary school, and when he saw his uncle who had returned home from a part-time job bringing back a guitar, he unconsciously plucked the strings with his hands and made a nice sound. He began to look forward to having a guitar, his parents farming the land to send their three children to school, and a guitar to spend a month's income on them. Gu Ya fought with her parents for several years, and finally after selling the pig at home, she owned a guitar. Without a teacher, he had to teach himself, and after a few years, he would only play three chords.
Every song is like a book, Gu Ya thought, if someone taught at that time, he could learn more songs, my mind might be different. The first song the girls learned was "Ordinary Road" - we are all on our ordinary life path, but through hard work, we can have more brilliance, which Gu Ya wants to teach girls.
Principal Zheng remembers that when his sister Xingyu transferred to Haiga Primary School, she sat alone in the corner all day. At that time, her father went out to work, and when he came and went, his mother left again. The little girl rarely changed her clothes, her nails were long, her hair was messy, and her classmates ostracized her and did not play with her.
Now she stands in the center of the stage, as the lead singer of the band, rehearsing more, and she no longer steps back, her body is fixed, and she gently beats the beat with her feet. After stepping down, she became friends with the members, giggling and joking with us in private: I like Wang Yuan! Gao Hu is too old for me!
After kicking the shuttlecock with Gao Hu, there was a brief silence between the three of them. On the second floor, the trees floated in the shade outside the wall, and the birds chirped, and her sister Xingli asked Gao Hu why the band was called Pain Yang. Gao Hu said that music let me find a direction, like a lighthouse in front of a ship traveling in the sea, he said a lot of his own stories, that unsatisfactory young years, music is a beautiful pursuit. The sisters put their hands behind their backs, listened intently, and nodded.
After two days, mentioning the nearly thirty-minute conversation with Gao Hu, my sister Xingli thought for a moment, don't lean back, and gently pat the position of the heart, I remember it, but I can't describe what it was.
Xiong Ting, a small guitarist, remembers that one day she was unwell, lying in bed, and her younger siblings soiled the floor and did not clean. She got up and slapped her on the butt one by one. Her mother went out to work, and Xiong Ting was the eldest sister in the family. Every day, she folds quilts, cooks dishes and digs potatoes, helps her younger siblings with their homework, and sometimes goes up the mountain to herd cattle. Xiong Ting's home is a two-story white brick house, but when the door is opened, the house is not decorated and is dark on all sides. There was a bed in the house, a bunk bed, Xiong Ting slept with her 2 sisters, the younger brothers slept on the bottom bunk, and she put the guitar borrowed from the school on the upper bunk that the younger siblings could not touch. After cleaning up her siblings that day, she took the guitar from the top bunk and sat on the bed and played a song called "Bugs Fly".
The feeling of anger disappeared. In a life of toil, the 12-year-old girl said it was a happy moment brought by music.
The band and the girls rehearsed
Not just music, but life
On this day's live broadcast, Xiong Ting's two younger sisters and two younger brothers also came to the scene. The sister who helped them make their beds, get dressed, cook and wash the floor every day stood on the left side of the stage, holding the turquoise electric guitar in her hand, gently shaking her body, and the younger siblings were stunned.
The second sister said timidly: I will play the guitar in the future. At home, Xiong Ting has taught her to play a song called "Ordinary Road".
The girls bloom in the music. But when it comes to the changes in the girls over the years, Gu Ya knows that if it is all brought by music, I don't think so myself.
In addition to music, Gu Ya and Zheng Long entered the lives of girls and gave more realistic care. Home visits are a rule at Haiga Elementary School. Sometimes the principal and Gu Ya would take a holiday signal bomb, saying in advance that they were going to visit their homes, and when the school bell rang, none of the children disappeared, and they rushed home to clean up, so they didn't go. More often, it was a real home visit, and on a whim, the two of them set off, walked all the way, and went in when they met the student's home.
Gu Ya and the children's group photo
That day they walked to the home of lead singer sisters Xingli and Xingyu, more than an hour away. Opening the door, the floor was piled with snack bags, and the noodle bowls on the stove were moldy in the corners. The sisters stood on either side, bowing their heads and not daring to speak. Gu Ya was angry and let them sit, he came to wash the dishes and sweep the floor, the sisters quickly grabbed the broom, we came, we came. Their mother remarried many years ago, there was no news, their father went out to work, and the girls and brothers needed to take care of themselves, which was not easy for them.
Sister Xingli remembers that there was another time teacher Gu came to visit her home, her father happened to be at home, teacher Gu sat on the steps at the door of the house and played guitar, and she sang softly next to her. There was very little communication with her father, but at that moment, she could feel her father's happiness, and his father also had a good voice and could sing beautiful songs, and she thought that the sisters must have inherited their father.
Zheng Long and Gu Ya also let the children into their lives, we checked them, they also checked us, students can go to check the teacher's dormitory, whether the quilt is folded, the floor is dirty or not. Through band performances, they took the girls to live in their homes in their own city. Every time she went, Gu Ya's wife arranged for the girls to take a bath, change into clean clothes, and the girls were safe and quiet. The couple took them out for burgers, a zoo, a playground and a movie.
Music is just a tool, and we borrow music to reach them, but it just so happens that music is what Gu Ya is good at. He said that if he was an art teacher, he would take them to sketch, and if he was a physical education teacher, he would take the children to innovate sports.
Zheng Long and Gu Ya tried their best to create opportunities for the children. Last year, only 5 children had the opportunity to go to Guiyang to participate in summer camps, and special car transfers were made. Zheng Long felt that 5 was too few, and brought more than a dozen children, he hoped that more and more children would go out to see, he took a team to Guiyang by train. Guiyang became the farthest place ever visited by the unknown teenage members. Their pictures hung on the walls of the school, tanned but smiling brightly.
Gu Ya always talked to the children about their dreams, and the first time they said these two words, the children stayed still and did not understand. He shared his experience, once a child who only had a pair of plastic rain boots to wear in the harsh winter, and never thought of going out of the mountains. He encouraged the children: go over the mountain, go out and look, see the outside world, the sky outside. Put the hoe down and stop being like your parents, facing the loess with your back to the sky, or going to the city site to move cement. The children gradually understood. On a careful wish wall on the classroom wall, post-it notes wrote the wishes of the children, and the most common thing that appeared was: I hope that I can get out of this mountain in the future.
Gu Ya still remembered his curiosity about eating hamburgers for the first time when he was a child, and he heard that it was layer after layer, and he had sandwiched something, and the first time he was deeply impressed, he could never forget it. Therefore, many times, he uses his status as a rural baby to see the needs of girls.
When he first took the girls to rehearsals, a visitor came to visit the school, and Gu Ya asked him to watch the girls perform. After I didn't want to watch it, the other party said: Rural babies dancing Yi dances, bamboo pole dances, toast songs are almost the same, you have to do these drums and Western instruments like in the city, how can you get others.
This is naked discrimination, Gu Ya riveted enough, must let the children continue to learn.
That time is yours, you are the most powerful, even the spiders come to see you, Gu Ya encouraged the girls on the stage over and over again. It's a process of slowly letting go of yourself, becoming more relaxed, and perhaps having the opportunity to prove that you are talented and important, and that learning music is never just about learning music, it's also about cognition and attitude.
Farm work and rehearsals
On the stage, guitarists Xiong Ting and Long Meng took a few steps forward, put their feet on the sound in front of the stage, and continued to play sideways.
This is the action that Gu Ya repeatedly asked the two guitarists to make during the band's rehearsal. At first, the girls felt hesitant and did not dare to move forward.
Don't feel that you can't do anything if you are a girl, Gu Ya shouted at the stage, this action is not deliberate rock, but to let the girls know that they can do it.
The girl put her foot on the stereo in front of the stage to play
Both bands at Haiga Elementary School are girls. The first band was chosen by Gu Ya, and children with good grades could enter the band, and playing the band could not delay their studies. When it came to the second band, Gu Ya asked everyone to raise their hands to volunteer, the girls in the class all raised their hands, and the boys shouted oh, it was too difficult. Gu Ya felt that they must have seen the rehearsal of the previous band every day, and it felt too bitter. Drummer Yumei said that boys think it is easiest to learn tambourine and have run to learn tambourine.
Yumei took a fancy to the drum at first glance, very handsome. While playing the drums, she chewed gum and sang loudly, the corners of her mouth pulled open, and there was an infectious smile. She didn't know what she was like before, but now I'm a very handsome girl. Since she was a child, she has followed her parents down to the ground to dig potatoes and tear buds, carrying a tall hoe and a basket half the size of her.
The guitarist sister's grandmother lived in a low place with a few boys, but because her father left some decoration tools, the family on the mountain needed someone to guard, and the two girls were arranged to live on the mountain. Sometimes the uncle drove a motorcycle to bring the boys to school, but after two hours of mountain walking, the two girls still walked.
Some of the girls' mothers were also students of Zheng Long, when Zheng Long first came to Haiga, the tuition fee was thirty-five, but in order to encourage girls to go to school, girls only charged ten yuan, but they still married in their teens and had more than three children. Nowadays, if anyone's family does not allow girls to go to school, Zheng Long will persuade them to complete compulsory education, at least not in these years.
A girl's father was abusive, and her mother left to work as a waiter in the city. If the girl missed her, when Zheng Long and Gu Ya returned to their home in the city, they took her and asked her to go to her mother for a weekend. Zheng Long won the girl's support and gave the girl 200 yuan first. After several months, the girl did not ask him for the rest of the money.
Zheng Long asked her, is there any money? 200 yuan how did you spend so long? Where does the money come from? He was worried that when the girls ran out of money, someone else would give them some small favors and make the girls worse. He always said that if you encounter any difficulties, you can only tell me, and if you don't have money, you tell me, and I will find a way.
Once Zheng Long went to Xiong Ting's home visit. He asked Xiong Ting's father how many cows were still raised in the family? The other side answered both ends. Zheng Long said that he must keep a cow for Xiong Ting to study. Although there is no tuition fee, Xiong Ting wants to go to junior high school in the town, the back and forth fare, food costs, girls grow up, daily necessities must be bought. Because the little girl is afraid of these problems.
During the rehearsal break, Zheng Long and the girls ate snacks under the window together. When eating a large bag of spicy strips, Zheng Long tore off a small piece for the girl, and the girl also gave a small piece in return. Seeing him open a pack of chewing gum, the girls took the initiative to spread their palms one by one, and he put them on one by one.
On the way to dinner together, the girls walked beside Zheng Long and wanted to hold his hand. He dodged: He didn't understand things before, yes, now that he's grown up, no. He reminded the girls that when they enter junior high school, they should keep their distance from boys and teachers. I'm your daughter can I hold you? The girls sometimes called him Daddy. Zheng Long compromised, pull it up.
This summer, Teacher Gu let the girls come to the school every day to rehearse, and there are always people who come to visit the school. The girls didn't know who the people came and went, just a little tired and had to come to school every day. After sending away a wave of foreign visitors, Gu Ya said that on the holiday, Yumei would have to walk an hour to work in the field, and she said: Don't don't, tomorrow will come to school!
Yumei was the person who posted the most post-it notes on the Little Wish Wall, when Grandpa was sick, she hoped that Grandpa would get better soon, and she hoped that she would have a lot of money to treat Grandpa's illness. When I met Yumei on the first day, my grandfather had passed away, and she had a new wish: if, I was thinking, if I could fight in the future... At present, all she can think of is to finish junior high school and high school, and during college, she has a set of drum kits.
Later, as we became acquainted, she said that she didn't just want drum kits, she wanted to be a musician.
Previously, she had told Gu Ya and Zheng Long about this dream, but she remembered that after they listened, they did not speak.
The girls are in rehearsal
Unknown
The day after the performance, Gu Ya received an invitation from a famous music school to provide girls with learning opportunities and advised them to learn music as soon as possible. Gu Ya found the transcripts of the five members of the band and drew five red circles on them, some of which were first place, and some were near the bottom.
He decided not to tell the girls first, not to tell them that there was a second way to go.
In the past music class, Gu Ya would draw guitars and mixers on the blackboard, while teaching children music theory knowledge, knowing brands and models, and also marking prices, from hundreds to tens of thousands, he wanted to remind children not to forget what they should do at present, still study well. Teaching girls music is hoping that they will have their own hobbies and strengths, but now, Gu Ya is worried that the girls will blindly want to play the piano and drums, which will affect their learning.
It is very realistic to say that we really do not have this kind of resources, we do not have this ability to persist. The girls in the first band had gone to junior high school and hadn't had a chance to touch the instrument. Before the start of the school year, Zheng Long negotiated with the junior high school to put five girls in the same class, hoping to ask a teacher to continue to teach them music, or Gu Ya to teach it. But they were all rejected by junior high schools. If you go to town to learn music, you have to walk for more than an hour, and you will charge one or two hundred yuan for a class, which is unimaginable for families who work in agriculture or part-time.
When Gu Ya recorded a primary school graduation video for the Yu Band, each girl talked about her future dreams, guitarist Long Meng had a round face, saying that she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up, and lead singer Xingli also said to the camera that her dream in the future was to become a music teacher.
But dreams about music have been planted in the hearts of girls.
At the end of July, the lead singer Xingli flipped through the second sister's volunteer book for the university and turned over all the music-related majors. The next day she told us that the cheapest price of the conservatory is 7500 yuan a year, and there are 12000 yuan, 15000 yuan... Guitarist Long Meng and Xingli are good friends, she quietly listens to the price next to her, she also said in the video that she wants to be a teacher, because making music is a bit too outrageous, so she said that she wanted to be a teacher.
Xingli retorted: Musicians are outrageous, and making music is not outrageous.
But tuition is very expensive.
Xingli nodded, the tuition is really too expensive, I didn't dare to look at it yesterday.
After graduating from junior high school 18 years ago, Gu Ya also held such a volunteer book and chose a music major closest to home, full of expectations to learn guitar. It was a normal school, the classes in the school were art and dance, and anyway, you were going to teach the children in the future, and Gu Ya knew that he would become a teacher in the future.
He skipped school, formed bands, lived in the basement, and was nearly expelled, thinking he could make music. After graduating with a one-year delay, he continued to play bands, taking on commercial performances opened by supermarkets and barber shops, and the piano shop he opened did not make money, and never really settled down in life.
After a few years, finally, his band performed at a professional music festival, and he saw the hope of the band and wanted to go to Beijing to see. The girlfriend who has been together for many years does not want him to go, and his parents also say, you are the only man in the family, what if we are old when you are gone? Gu Ya grew up fighting and skipping class, never let his parents live in peace, others always said that he was abolished, it was his parents who always supported and took care of him. Choose a dream, or choose reality?
That year, Gu Yaxian chose reality, he participated in the special teacher's application and became a primary school teacher.
Even if girls overcome all difficulties to learn music, the road to becoming professional musicians is doomed to be bumpy. Gu Ya walked by, he knew how difficult it was. He thought that when the girls graduated from junior high school, if they couldn't get out of the mountains through academic performance, music might be a way back, but now, they couldn't be given other paths.
The band lived in the same dormitory, and they did not have an instrument, and they sang "Childhood" and "Singing and Smiling" in the dormitory every night... Singing and roaring, like crazy people, they laughed and laughed.
The band name Unknown Boy was proposed by drummer Yumei, and Gu Ya said that each band name should have a meaning. Five girls gathered around and thought, you say one sentence to me, until someone said:
Because we don't know how far we can go in the future, everything is unknown.
"Rock 'n' Roll Dream in the Mountains": A Cloud Concert of a Pain Band and Mountain Rock Teenagers_Tencent Video
The documentary comes from the figure filming team