One of the curiosities of classical music is that a fear of being overheard should be so common in a profession so defined by listening. Many of us will have experienced this mindset taking hold when trying to practise in poorly soundproofed music rooms or shared accommodation. In our self-consciousness, we shy away from practising things that need work; we resort to playing passages where we sound assured, and spend time apparently working hard on problems that, in truth, we have already overcome. We feel anxious, not because our neighbours will complain about the disturbance, but because they will judge what they hear. Admittedly, this is more likely in a music school than in a block of flats, but even then the thought can nag away: ‘Is my practice really necessary?’
Practising in private feels safe: we can make our mistakes, experiment with interpretation and improve our technical expertise without revealing anything to the wider world. At some point, however, that is exactly what is going to happen. We perform not only in public but, we hope, to strangers; yet we practise alone, away even from friends, and assume that what we create in private will survive the transfer to the public domain. It is almost as if the ideal is to put our performances together in a sterile, hermetic workshop, tinkering away, out of sight from others, until such time as the finished product is ready to be revealed.
But, of course, when it comes to musical performance, the product is not finished when it leaves the practice room. The finishing touches happen on stage where conditions are different. That, and the consequent truism that no two performances can be the same, is one reason live music is special. Yet if our routine practice scarcely mimics live performance in omitting an audience, that raises the question: is secluded practice always the ideal preparation for playing in public? If music is undeniably an art of playing in order to be heard, shouldn’t being heard be normalised on a day-to-day level rather than becoming the source of fear?