Music maker: Chen Muyuan, 8, plays a cakebox-turned guitar. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Children head to national music competition in Beijing with home-made instruments made from recycled materials

Their music is not rubbish, but their instruments are. Ten primary school pupils are striking a chord with their talent and ingenuity. In a group appropriately named Recycle Band, they make melodies from discarded refuse.

Based in Xiamen of East China's Fujian province, the band is establishing a name for itself and has been invited to perform at a major national event: the Midi Kids Band Competition, for children from 6 to 17 years old, in Beijing in September and October.

The annual event is organised by Beijing Midi School of Music, one of the first contemporary music schools in China.

Gao showed the children how to make percussion instruments out of bottles and boxes

The young members of the Recycle Band have known each other since kindergarten while living with their families in the faculty dormitory of Xiamen University.

Adults helped realise the children's dreams. Chen Yixin, a die-hard music lover, guided them to establish the band, in which his 8-year-old son, Chen Muyuan, plays percussion.

And now for the rubbish that gave the band its beat. Back in 2017, a corner of the lawn near the dormitory building was piled with refuse that had been discarded by families redecorating their homes.

Gao Ye, a student of contemporary art at the university, along with Chen Yixin noticed the mess and decided to decorate the lawn with items made from the rubbish.

The lawn soon became a popular spot for the children living on campus. College students too appreciated it. It became a favoured spot to socialise and soon films were being screened there and other activities were held.

Gao, who is good with his hands, turned some of the rubbish into musical instruments and showed the inquisitive children how to make percussion instruments out of bottles and boxes.

"These kids were so happy that they could help make these instruments, and they began to hit them with little sticks, so we thought, 'Why not form a band?' " Chen said.

Traditional music education is usually boring for kids, this is different. Making instruments and playing music with friends excited them

"The children are all neighbours and friends, and they love to play music together," said Chen, whose grandfather was a teacher at the university and he himself runs a local hostel.

The children were then divided into three groups based on the sound they made from the "musical instruments". This in turn attracted more attention and soon music majors from the college, including a violin player, lent their expertise. The children simply loved playing music together, as Chen observed.

"My son learned to play drums but traditional music education is usually boring for kids," he said. "This is different. Making instruments themselves and playing music with friends excited them."

In January 2018 the band gave a debut show at the university and then the children performed on Gulangyu Island, a popular Xiamen tourist site, earlier this year.

Team member Muyuan said: "I like the rhythm of the percussions."

Jiang Donglin is another band veteran, not bad for an 8-year-old. He joined the band at the outset and quickly learned how to make music from a plastic bottle, cork and cardboard.

"I glued different parts of the instrument together and each part sounds differently when I strike," he said.

Chen thought it a pity after the band’s initiator Gao Ye graduated from Xiamen University this summer.

He later invited his friend from Serbia, Nemanja Radovanovic, to join in the band as music teacher.

Radovanovic, 33, a graphic designer specialising in illustration, animation and clothing design, works as a freelance artist. He has played clarinet and bass guitar since he was a child and he is also "a big supporter of recycling", so he took the job.

"We make new instruments from nothing and use different things to make sounds," he said. "The kids saw that it is possible to make music without real instruments by just using imagination."

Once he found an empty cake box and made a guitar, and the children were amazed. Together they also made flutes, drums and xylophones out of discarded bamboo.