You hear every wrong note. The audience hears someone brave enough to play.

REFLECTION

WHAT THIS MEANS

A performer and an audience are listening to two different things. You are tracking the gap between what you intended and what came out, which means every wobble is enormous to you, while the room is hearing a piece of music and a person willing to stand up and make it. Nobody out there is holding your sheet music.

After the next time you play, sing or present, ask one person what they actually noticed. The answer is almost never the bit you have been replaying. Keep that answer, because it is the accurate account, and yours is a list of corrections that only you can hear.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Which performance of yours did only you hear the mistakes in?

MORE IN PERCEPTION & ATTENTION

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