Flying high

Independent Chinese singer-songwriter Ma Tiao has become one of the most popular acts at outdoor music festivals and live-house venues in Beijing. [Photo/China Daily]

"My mother is a housewife, who has spent most of her life in my hometown. She had no idea about what I have been doing until she saw me on TV," says Ma. "I also want to leave a legacy to my son. When he grows up, I can share my experience of music with him, including participating in the show."

Ma believes that his distinctive music style has been shaped by his hometown, Karamay, the second-biggest city in China's the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. There was no television or other urban entertainment in his childhood, just folk songs and great expanses of desert.

"My hometown was the whole world to me, it has the most beautiful sunrise and sunsets. My voice was very loud and I sang every day. I didn't know how to protect my throat so my voice sounds coarse now," says Ma, who is now based in Beijing.

Most of the 390,000 residents of Karamay are oil workers and their families. Ma's family is no exception. However, Ma turned his back on the steady work and moved to Beijing in 1994, hoping to learn guitar, the sound of which, Ma says, is like a religion to him.

Ma arrived in Beijing with 5,000 yuan in his pocket and the first thing he did was to buy a guitar for 1,600 yuan.

Then he rented a small house, which cost 2,000 yuan a year. Although the house was an illegal construction and the roof leaked on rainy days, Ma was happy because he could finally learn guitar and write songs.