My friend hosted a soiree at his home recently, a musical evening featuring one of his idols. A household name in certain suburbs, a musician of renown, a living, breathing national monument.

My friend had been in awe of the old guitarist ever since he’d first seen him perform, decades ago. When he finally met him, he discovered a human needing help, the lockdowns and health challenges having taken their toll.

Boldly, he suggested a performance at his house, to which the elderly hero agreed, after a fee had been negotiated. A recent windfall would take care of it, my friend said. The guests would add to the pot. The stage was set.

It was a magical evening, in a house high on the slopes on Table Mountain. With the night lights behind him and a breeze in the trees, the old guitar player took us on a journey without words.

For the next hour or so, each of us in that room travelled through a soundscape of emotion, of love and pain, tragedy, hope, joy and exuberant life.

We journeyed to distant places, and somehow every facet of being a South African was expressed in the notes and syncopations that swirled around and through us.

While listening, I gazed into the jewelled darkness, grateful to be in this city and in this room.

The music was a balm and a guide. A lover’s breath, a caress before sleep, a shake of salt over the plate of life.

Some of the guests were filming the experience, staring at their phones throughout. I couldn’t help feeling this was wrong.

I wonder at this impulse to record something fleeting, something whose deeper value rests on the very impermanence of a live experience.

The shows I’ve seen, the parties I’ve danced at, all are quiet now, even if the joy I felt at them echoes in my bones.

I’ve had so many adventures in sound, my body washed and drenched in music. It’s a primal thing, akin to the beating of a heart, the life force, the rhythm of the spheres.

Without many regrets in life, I wish I’d found a way to persevere with learning an instrument. But they don’t adhere for long to the fingers of people in my family.

The lessons my mother took my younger self to, sitting by my side while I plonked my way around a miniature Yamaha organ set in a semi-circle, were borderline traumatic.

I could never find the right note, and maybe even mimed stroking the keys at some point. But the organ? Really?

My sister graduated to the piano and was nagged incessantly to practice. Eventually she gave it up. Maybe she just wasn’t that good at it, and maybe the pressure of having to learn something she didn’t enjoy eventually won out.

How does a child understand the future return on the musical investment they’re asked to make?

After the maestro finished his set, my friend, the host, produced his own bass guitar. We waited, unsure what to expect. How well could he play? Then the magic deepened.

As the two of them played on, we sat beaming, nodding, foot tapping, shouting in our joy.

My friend had persevered. He’d seen the hidden side of a far mountain and had made his way there. He’d practiced these tunes for many months, and now sat before us, playing them.

And then it was over. Our bodies had smiled. We’d been to the source again. Every hardship in life had evaporated.

Before I left, I saw my friend’s young son, sitting in the corner, cradling the old man’s beautiful guitar, feeling his way into a few tentative notes. The light shone on him. Perhaps he’ll play for us one day, and spread the love, just like his father had.