Most audiences don’t notice your mistakes unless you stop and point at them. Keep playing.

CREATIVITY

WHAT THIS MEANS

An audience hears a flow, not a score. They do not know what was supposed to happen, so a wrong note passes as a choice unless your face or your hands announce it, and the announcement is what turns a small slip into the thing everybody remembers. Performers are the only people in the room tracking accuracy. Everyone else is following the feeling.

Practise recovering rather than practising perfection: play through a mistake on purpose and carry on. Decide in advance that you will not wince, apologise or restart. Afterwards, ask one person what they noticed and let the answer recalibrate you.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

When did you draw attention to a slip nobody caught?

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