Violy · People
Violy · People is a Violy interview series that sets out to speak with 99 artists from China and abroad, bring fresh artistic ideas into conversation, and explore an artistic world where feeling and inner inspiration meet.
Our guest this time: Liang Yingbiao, a cello teacher in Guangzhou and a popular creator on Xiaohongshu, the Chinese social platform.
A few days before this article was published, our host, known as Yuanzhang, spoke on a livestream with Liang Yingbiao, a well-known Guangzhou cello teacher and popular Xiaohongshu creator.
He talked about his musical journey from childhood: choosing between violin and cello (he chose cello); music and football when moving on to secondary school (he chose football); administration and performance (he chose administration); and public-sector and independent work (he chose independent work).
He has faced several choices along the way, but ultimately, each has led him back to music.
Besides those musical choices, Yuanzhang and Liang discussed how children can keep learning an instrument, what makes a teacher trustworthy, and what AI can do for music learning.
After Six Years of Violin, He Could Not Keep Going—Time for a Change!
Yuanzhang: How did you first encounter music?
Liang Yingbiao: I started learning violin at four. My parents took me to a children’s palace—a youth activity and education center—to choose a class. Learning an instrument was still a relatively uncommon choice at the time, and I chose violin. I gradually moved from large group classes to smaller ones, studying with different teachers. Six years went by that way.
Eventually, I hit a plateau. There was a piece I still could not play all the way through after more than three months. At every lesson, my teacher would talk to me earnestly, but I had lost enthusiasm for playing.
One day, my mentor, Gu Yinglong, asked me, “Have you considered switching to cello and giving it a try?” At first, I said no. I thought, why should I have to change instruments just because I was not doing well on violin? But he still encouraged me to try it first.
The first time I went to the orchestra to try a cello, the teacher lent me one. As my mother and I walked down an alley, with me carrying it on my back, someone saw us and asked why my mother was not helping such a small child carry such a large instrument. I still remember that scene.
Yuanzhang: What changed after you switched instruments?
Liang Yingbiao: Perhaps my aptitude for violin was fairly ordinary, but I picked up cello more quickly. Of course, those six years of violin were not wasted. Some of the fundamentals of string playing carry over.
Gradually, I gained confidence. After studying for a while, I joined an orchestra again, rehearsing and growing with everyone else.
Practicing alone feels very different from making music with a group.
Yuanzhang: Later, you also made a choice between football and music?
Liang Yingbiao: Yes. I played football as a child too. When it was time to enter junior secondary school, I was accepted both by a conservatory-affiliated secondary school and by a regular secondary school that recruited students with football talent. In the end, we chose the regular school. I did not take the conservatory-school route at that point.
For senior secondary school, I entered a school with a music focus. During those years, I had many classmates who loved music. We formed our own chamber groups and entered competitions together. I began taking more initiative in studying music. Then I was admitted to Xinghai Conservatory of Music for university and returned to professional music training.
When I was little, sometimes I would simply go home after orchestra class. In senior secondary school, I had a group of friends who talked about music and prepared performances all day. Those relationships were deeper. Even now, some of my fellow musicians are friends I have studied instruments with since childhood.
At 35, He Made the Decisive Choice to Leave the Public Sector
Yuanzhang: After graduating from the conservatory, why did you not go straight into a professional orchestra?
Liang Yingbiao: During university, I was already teaching part-time at the Guangzhou Children’s Palace. In my final year, I brought together classmates and fellow students from my teacher’s studio to put on two concerts introducing children to music. We used stories to connect different pieces. I discovered that helping more children encounter music was very rewarding.
Later, I joined the children’s palace, gradually moving from teaching into organizing activities and management, and also worked in other related roles. I had to learn how to organize public-benefit activities and collaborate with different institutions. I also became involved in filming and online communication. That path lasted more than ten years.
I was not always working directly in cello teaching during that time, but I learned many things beyond professional performance. Looking back now, those experiences help me teach children and communicate with parents.
Yuanzhang: Since your job was relatively stable, why did you decide to leave the public sector at 35?
Liang Yingbiao: At that age, I began wondering whether continuing down the same path would give me the life I wanted. I could see what staying might lead to, and I could also see situations I did not want to repeat.
Of course, my family had concerns. My wife is cautious, and this was not an easy decision for us. I am not saying everyone should quit their job. You have to consider your family’s circumstances and whether you can bear the consequences.
The worst-case scenario I imagined was returning to instrument teaching. After all, I could play and teach, and I could take some performance work. At least I had a skill I could earn a living with. Once I actually left, my income and way of life suddenly changed, and I went through uncertainty too. But I felt that if I did not try at 35, I might have even less courage a few years later.
Yuanzhang: How did you return to teaching after leaving?
Liang Yingbiao: First, I helped run a privately operated children’s palace. After about two years, I increasingly felt this way:
Rather than continually refining and promoting courses for other people, I should return to what I could do with the greatest confidence—teaching an instrument.
During those ten-plus years, I had actually continued teaching students; it just was not my entire job. Later, my student numbers gradually grew. When the pandemic arrived, in-person lessons moved online. I started recording videos to preserve explanations that students easily forgot or needed to watch repeatedly. That became the starting point for my ongoing sharing of teaching content.
Why Children Learning an Instrument Need a Group of Friends
Yuanzhang: You keep mentioning orchestras and chamber music. Just how important are peers for children?
Liang Yingbiao: Many children usually take lessons on their own and go home to practice on their own. When they run into difficulties, they may feel they are the only ones going through them.
When they join an orchestra, they discover that others also need to practice, also make mistakes, and are preparing for the same performance. They rehearse and go onstage together, and make friends through music. Learning an instrument then becomes more than completing a weekly lesson and a homework assignment at home.
A large part of what truly drew me to music in senior secondary school was having those friends around me. That is why I now encourage my students to join orchestras, visit other cities for exchanges, and perform with local children.
Children need their own circle of musical friends so that learning an instrument does not always feel lonely.
Yuanzhang: Do competitions and performances also affect children?
Liang Yingbiao: Good results certainly encourage children, helping them see what comes from serious preparation. But they must not think only about winning.
Going onstage and playing with others should itself be something to enjoy.
We want children to remember more than the prize they received at the end. We also want them to remember the time they spent with music and friends during rehearsals and performances.
A Good Teacher Must Care About More Than That One Hour of Lessons
Yuanzhang: How does choosing a teacher differ for families learning music today compared with the past?
Liang Yingbiao: I think parents now have more information and more choices. They do not just look at how well the teacher plays. They also ask: Can this teacher help my child learn? How should my child practice at home this week? What is the next step as they continue learning?
In recent years, some teachers and music shops have indeed felt that student numbers have fallen. I am reluctant to simply say that families no longer need music. I think parents have become clearer about what they want, and teachers need to change with them.
Yuanzhang: What do you consider the most important criteria for a good teacher?
Liang Yingbiao: I look at three things:
Responsibility, a structured approach, and communication.
Responsibility means not caring only about the forty or fifty minutes of the lesson. Children can send videos of their practice at home, and teachers should try to watch and respond promptly when circumstances allow.
Some mistakes can be corrected in the same week they are discovered. If you wait until the next lesson, the child may already have practiced the mistake until it has become a habit.
A structured approach means knowing what to teach at each stage.
Someone may play very well themselves without being able to explain clearly how a movement works, much less know how to help a child who cannot yet do it learn it.
I am also building a framework for my own teaching: what knowledge each stage covers and what students need to accomplish, then gradually revising it based on actual teaching.
Communication means understanding parents’ expectations and recognizing children’s difficulties. Has the child not understood, lost interest, or simply been given a task that is too difficult? A teacher cannot just say, “Do it again.” They also need to find the next step that will help the child get past the difficulty.
Yuanzhang: Are these abilities music teachers have tended to overlook in the past?
Liang Yingbiao: People who study instruments spend a great deal of time developing their specialist skills from childhood. Some perform very well but are unfamiliar with how to communicate their teaching to a wider audience, build relationships with parents, or plan a learning path for children.
During my years organizing activities and managing programs at the children’s palace, I encountered these things and learned to think from a child’s perspective: How do they understand something? What kinds of activities make them want to take part? Experiences that seemed like detours eventually found their way back into my classroom.
Before Creating Social Media Content, Decide What You Want to Preserve
Yuanzhang: Why did you first post your teaching videos on Xiaohongshu?
Liang Yingbiao: During online lessons in the pandemic, some students struggled to concentrate. I recorded some explanations and sent them to students to watch again. At first, I just wanted a convenient place to store and share videos.
Later, other instrument learners, besides my own students, came to watch and exchange ideas. So I kept recording. Whenever I taught a lesson, I recorded whatever content I could. Over time, it became my own library of teaching materials.
Yuanzhang: What advice would you give a music teacher who also wants to start creating social media content?
Liang Yingbiao: First, be clear about your goal.
What matters most to me in making these videos is preserving my lessons so students can prepare for class or review afterward.
If you start out thinking about how many new students a few videos will bring in, you may soon be disappointed.
Second, however much you think about it, you still have to start. I have seen teachers ask about many methods, then go home and never post anything, or post one video and stop. This takes sustained action.
Third, find an approach you can keep up over the long term. If every video requires complicated equipment, visuals, and editing, the result may look very good, but making the next one will also be costly. Simply recording a genuinely useful explanation from a lesson clearly is often easier for teachers to sustain.
One more thing: if you want parents to understand your teaching, posting only performance videos may not be enough.
Viewers will know you play well, but they will not necessarily know how you help children learn.
If AI Can Help Children Learn Music, Why Should They Still Play Themselves?
Yuanzhang: AI is increasingly able to answer questions and process information. How will it change music learning?
Liang Yingbiao: It can help in many ways. In the past, to learn about a composer, the background of a piece, or a term on a score, you had to find books and look things up. Now students can start by asking AI, then use those questions to guide further research.
Teachers can also use it to help prepare concert introductions and find clues to understanding a work. Of course, information from AI still needs checking. You cannot simply believe everything it tells you.
Yuanzhang: Since listening to music and looking things up are easier now, why should children still spend time practicing with their own hands?
Liang Yingbiao:
Because no one else can play for you.
You have to gradually learn to control your hands so they produce the sound you want. That process is difficult, but when you finally succeed, the joy is your own.
Listening to a good singer and singing yourself are two different experiences. You may not sing quite in tune, yet still feel happy because “I sang it myself.” Playing a string instrument is the same.
There is more than one answer to what makes a piece sound good.
AI can help us find more information and open up more questions. But how children listen, how they understand, and ultimately how they bring a sound out of their instruments are still things they must experience themselves.
Looking back at Liang Yingbiao’s journey, several important changes stand out: switching to cello when violin was not going smoothly; first choosing a regular secondary school when faced with football and music; and returning to teaching after many years in management.
Those changes did not erase what he had learned before. Six years of violin helped him take up cello. The organizational and communication skills he learned at the children’s palace later became part of his teaching. Memories of rehearsing with friends became the circle of musical friends he now hopes his students will have.
For children learning an instrument, perhaps there is no need to decide too early which path they must take in the future. First, find a teacher who can help them get past the difficulty in front of them, find companions to perform with, and give them opportunities to hear the sounds they gradually learn to produce themselves.
The joy of doing it with their own hands is what gives them a reason to keep going.
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