How does the selection begin? Describe the accompaniment pattern being played by the sanxian

What will be an ideal response?

• The performer (Zhang) speaks in a comic character while the audience responds to his witty description.
• The instrumental accompaniment is a repetitive pattern (based mainly on the tones do, mi, sol). The pattern "recurs in various transformations"—sometimes in three-beat units, sometimes in five-beat units, giving "a rhythmic syncopation to the flow of the music, which is in quadruple meter."