JINAN, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- Don't be surprised at hearing lively tunes of electric guitars when you set foot in Tangwu, a small town in east China's Shandong Province that once relied on corn and wheat cultivation.

For almost three decades the sound of guitars has continued to reverberate in this town.

Advertising billboards of guitar manufacturers, posters of guitar concerts, and guitar-shaped sculptures...images of guitars virtually roar everywhere in Tangwu.

The township's bond with guitars can be traced back to the early 1970s. To embrace a more diversified economy, Changle County, which administers Tangwu, had set up a plant, mainly producing traditional Chinese musical instruments, said Zhou Bopeng, director of Tangwu's economic and trade office.

However, few customers could afford musical instruments at a time when people did not even have enough to eat, Zhou recalled.

A turnaround came in 1991 when a trade fair was held in the city of Qingdao, Shandong Province. Dealers from the Republic of Korea (ROK) were attracted by the plant's musical instruments, which paved the way for the establishment of a joint venture in the county to manufacture guitars. More than 30 local people applied for learning advanced guitar manufacturing skills in ROK.

"Farmers without any training in music have gradually grown into top guitar makers after they returned from ROK. Many even started their own businesses later, boosting the development of the local guitar industry," Zhou said.

Zhang Jianjun, general manager of Changyunda musical instrument company, is one such success story. His company produces about 10,000 electric guitars every month. It takes only a week to transform a piece of log into a guitar through joint efforts of machines and workers, he said.

Currently, Tangwu boasts nearly 100 manufacturers and suppliers of musical instruments, and produces around 800,000 electric guitars annually, with an output value of over 1 billion yuan (about 155 million U.S. dollars). Their products have been exported to more than 30 countries and regions including the United States and Australia.

With the penetration of the internet, more and more local businesses have begun to foray into the e-commerce sector.

There are more than 160 online stores in Tangwu selling musical instruments, generating annual sales of 200 million yuan, and the number of electric guitars exported through cross-border e-commerce accounts for one third of the country's total, said Li Huabo, deputy head of Changle County's e-commerce association.

The power of music has extended far beyond the economy and penetrated every corner of the town.

In the Tangwu Central Primary School, each class offers a guitar lesson every week, and the school's guitar room is open to students all throughout the year.

People who make guitars for a living have now taken to playing guitars. In the factory hall of Disheng musical instrument manufacturing company, its general manager Liu Di has set up a stage.

The 39-year-old offers free guitar lessons to the workers and their children. "In Tangwu, every guitar enthusiast has the opportunity to be the protagonist in our own stage," Liu said. Enditem

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