The Violinist Qitong Cheng

Sometimes a musician will memorize all the music notes and will practice thousand of times, but she still can’t get the right feeling to perform it well. Even the audience tells her that the music is perfect. She is still not satisfied with it. She feels like she can never get

into the music and never get into the story. She keeps playing and playing until she is exhausted and frus-trated. Just like Mozart said: “I pay no attention

whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply fol-low my own feelings.” This special “feeling” is very

important to a musician and is why musicians isolate themselves from the outside world at times. That is the

only way to achieve their “own feelings.”