The Sound Of Music Comes From China

Brooklyn sixth-grader Haley Gillia is learning to make music. That's making a job for Li Xuemei, the daughter of a Chinese peasant farmer.

"I'm happy that my violins go around the world," Xuemei says.

She works in Xiqiao, China, a city that is to violin-making what Detroit is to cars, reports CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen.

From its 40-some factories, a violin rolls off human assembly lines on average of one a minute, every day, every week — more than 600,000 a year. Most violins once came from Europe; now, China is the world's biggest producer and biggest exporter.

It's not just violins. China also makes the most guitars, cellos and even pianos.

But handmade violins are the focus, selling for less than $200 in America. They are so cheap because the hands that make them belong to workers earning about 70 cents an hour.

"We work hard," says Li Shu, who owns the town's largest factory, "to make the best medium-priced violins in the world."

Knocking off the competition to become the world's No. 1 violin maker is not enough for China. From being the biggest, it has set its sights on being the best.

To do that, the government sent Professor Zheng Quan to study violin making at its 16th-century source in Italy.

Now he teaches students who will spend 10 years learning their craft. Here, it's not about production; it is about perfection.

"For Chinese people, I think we can make a really good work. We have very good hand," he said.

China is now winning the gold medals at world violin making competitions and praise from violin craftsman like American David Segal.

"For the manufacture of Chinese violins, they are fantastic," he says.

Music, it is said, takes up where words leave off. Chinese master craftsmen today are making violins that, like a Stradivarius, may sing to us for centuries to come.