DESPITE being born blind, Ye Jiaqi has overcome the odds to become a talented pianist. Xu Wenwen speaks to the 16-year-old, her dedicated teacher and also her mother who insists Ye's achievements aren't a special gift but are simply down to hard work.

Ye Jiaqi lifts her piano lid and plays Mozart's sonata. The brisk melody flows from her deft hands, even though she cannot see the black-and-white keyboard.

The 16-year-old was born blind and was once considered as a cumbersome burden on her family. However, music, and the piano in particular, has transformed her life, turning Ye from "family burden" into "family glory."

The exclusive golden prize of the Shanghai International Youth Piano Competition, the golden prize of the Chinese National Arts Festival for Disabled Children and the second prize of the China Music International Competition are among the many awards won by this blind child who started her journey as a pianist in 2003.

In China there are hundreds of thousands of children learning the piano today, but what Ye has achieved - as a blind girl from a rural area - obviously exceeds her peers.

Passion for music

Born in the countryside of Sanmen, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, Ye is the daughter of two ordinary workers.

In 2002, her family moved to Fuyang, Hangzhou where she could attend the Zhejiang School for the Blind. It was here that Ye began to get in touch with music by learning erhu (Chinese two-stringed bowed instrument).

In 2003, her mother Ye Shuanglin bought the girl a piano and took her to a local piano teacher. She, unlike many other Chinese parents who long for their children's success in playing the piano, only wanted to let her daughter "be the same as normal children and to have something to do after school."

Although she was learning to play two instruments, Ye's passion for music wasn't ignited immediately as she said, "I couldn't understand the music and I thought learning was very tedious."

"Many people assume blind people learn music quickly because they are gifted, but my daughter's success derives from her hard work," says the mother.

As time went by, Ye's passion for music was gradually aroused and her love of the piano really blossomed in 2004, when she met her second teacher Xu Jie.

Xu was the classmate of Ye's first piano teacher and is the vice professor of piano at Hangzhou Normal University, while Ye is her first blind student.

"I was afraid I wouldn't be able to teach a blind person at first," Xu recalls, "but my classmate, her first teacher, kept telling me 'she learns fast,' so I dared to try."

As Xu expected, the beginning was tough and the biggest problem was that Ye was afraid to communicate with strangers.

"I found the priority was not to teach her how to play, but how to communicate and relax," says Xu. "Tender words, laughter and comfortable caressing all worked."

For instance, the then nine-year-old Ye would not face people when talking, so Xu would intentionally sit behind her and talk to her, asking Ye to turn her head to talk to others; in addition, in order to relax her nerves, Xu would talk to her when Ye played simple melodies.

Ye was also too cautious to move and act, so she looked rigid and nervous when playing. To remedy this, her teacher taught her to relax when playing by pushing her shoulders and body to sway with the flow of music.

"I used to play piano with only my fingers and I wondered whether those other movements in playing were too exaggerated, but today I feel comfortable with that and I play it with my whole body," Ye says.

Xu adopts perceptual methods in teaching music. To inspire Ye what a grand melody should sound like, Xu took her to the seashore to listen to the roar of sea waves; to help her know what a sweet lovely song would be, Xu used chocolate to demonstrate the "melting, sweet feeling," and to make her recognize staccato, Xu used jelly candies.

Since Ye couldn't read sheet music, she listens to music on CDs and tapes before playing, and then her mother takes charge of telling her the notes on the staves one by one and Ye combines them.

"Through Ye, I finally know that people's potential is infinite," says Xu. "Compared with normal people, she can do the same or an even better job because she projects her thoughts and feelings into the music."

What the teacher has given to the young girl has not only refreshed her music journey, but also enlivened Ye's life.

Due to her blindness, Ye used to be shy, overcautious and self-abased. She was reluctant to talk to people other than her family and classmates.

Happiness

However, professor Xu's classes changed her life. Ye's mother says that her daughter smiles much more since learning from Xu, and Ye says she "has gained abundant happiness, the happiness of music and the happiness of life."

"Happiness" means a lot to Ye's family, who can hardly make ends meet.

Since Ye's mother quit her job to accompany her daughter, the burden is on Ye's father, but he currently has no permanent job. The family's livelihood is partially supported by Ye's uncle and aunt.

"I have witnessed how much happiness the piano has brought to my daughter, and I will never give up," Ye's mother says. "Although I couldn't give her bright eyes, I can't make her lose everything."

Ye hasn't failed her parents and teachers. In addition to the prizes and awards, she is also appreciated by an American pianist who has shown willing to take her as student.

That was in 2007 when Ye attended a competition, in which one of the judges was Tara Hofmeister, the noted American pianist and distinguished professor of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, who commented that "Ye's talent for Western music exceeds many other Chinese children," said Xu.

However, because of the inconvenience of studying in Beijing, the family is not sure whether to take up Hofmeister's offer, though in four years she will attend the college entrance examination.

"My daughter is lucky enough because she has met Xu," says Ye Shuanglin.

"As to her future, I just want to follow destiny as long as she is happy, and I am satisfied if she is."