Sounds that will be recorded and stored for the ages

One of the songs they recorded in Beijing was a 48-minute piece titled Gu Lyu (Rent A Donkey), which tells of a swindler named Li Youneng. Performed in local dialect, the song has the band members playing different roles, including Li as a judge.

"The song is still performed nowadays," says Li, who joined the blind musicians band when he was 15 years old. "My part is the most difficult because the performer needs to master all the musical instruments. These days no more than three people in our county could play that role."

Their recordings will soon be released on the China Database for Traditional Music, an online music database set up by Huayun Culture&Technology Co Ltd in 2018. It has about 2,000 hours of audio and video materials under nine headings, including Chinese folk music, traditional Chinese music, traditional Chinese opera and Chinese folk dance.

On May 25 three blind musicians from Zuoquan county, Liu Hongquan, Wang Shuwei and Zhang Jianzhong, traveled to Beijing to record songs. More blind musicians from around the country will have their songs preserved through the China Database for Traditional Music, says Gong Yujie, a musicologist who has worked with Chinese blind musicians since 2007.

"We will have more than 200 blind musicians from all over the country, including Shanxi province. The provinces of Shaanxi, Henan and Anhui province also plan to join the project, which aims to keep their folk songs alive."