A few years ago I performed in a winter concert at the community centre in Chengdu, where I grew up. I was nineteen and played the guzheng, which is a traditional Chinese zither with twenty-one strings, as part of a small ensemble of five players. The audience was mostly parents and neighbours, perhaps two hundred people.
We played two pieces: a classical one called 'High Mountains and Flowing Water' and a modern arrangement of a pop song, which was our teacher's idea to keep the younger audience interested. Preparation took about three months. We rehearsed every Sunday afternoon in our teacher's flat, and I practised at home for an hour every evening, usually with my neighbours banging on the wall. The hardest part was a fast passage in the second piece where I had to play in perfect time with the flute, and for weeks I kept rushing it.
On stage, my hands were shaking for the first minute, and I was sure everyone could hear it. Then something changed: I stopped looking at the audience and started listening to the others, and suddenly it felt like rehearsal again. When we reached the difficult passage, I got it right for the first time in weeks, and I nearly laughed out loud with relief. The applause at the end was a bit of a blur. What I remember most is the feeling that we'd made something together that none of us could have done alone. That sense of being part of a group is why I still play, even though I'm now an accountant.