When one thinks of classical music training, it is easy to become very serious very quickly, thinking about discipline, accuracy and high standards. These qualities are essential, of course. Yet they also raise an interesting question for teachers who want not only to encourage those things, but also to liberate their pupils to experience the creative and joyful world of music and performance.

Teachers spend a great deal of time telling students that they must practise, often that they must practise a great deal, and explaining what they should practise. Perhaps rather less time is spent thinking carefully about how students might practise, and more time could be devoted to talking about how the mind behaves when the moment comes to perform. Not every teacher has spent a great deal of time on the concert platform themselves, but that need not be a barrier. Teachers and students can explore these questions together. The more interesting question may not only be how students practise, but how they learn to think, to feel, to release, and to enjoy when the moment comes to perform.

Many musicians eventually encounter an uncomfortable paradox, whether they recognise it consciously or not. Often it appears first simply as a feeling rather than a clearly articulated thought. The harder one tries on stage, the more elusive good performance can become. The mind begins issuing instructions, the body tightens, and movements that have been learned through years of repetition suddenly feel uncertain. Instead of trusting what has already been absorbed, we begin trying to control it consciously.

Sport has understood this for quite some time. Elite athletes now routinely work with psychologists who help them manage attention, expectation and pressure. In music this sort of conversation is still relatively rare. Yet the challenge is remarkably similar. Musicians and athletes are both trying to do something highly refined, under pressure, in public.

Some of the clearest writing on this subject comes from outside music altogether. Timothy Gallwey’s The Inner Game of Tennis describes two aspects of the performer’s mind. One part judges, instructs and worries — Gallwey calls this Self 1. The other part, Self 2, is the body and subconscious that have already learned the skill through repetition. Trouble begins when the judging voice interferes with abilities the body already possesses.

Interestingly, many musicians find Gallwey’s tennis book easier to absorb than the later adaptations written specifically for music. There is a lovely irony here. Because the book is not about music at all, we read it with curiosity and freedom of mind, agreeing with all the ideas. It is all obvious. Only later do we realise that exactly the same ideas can apply directly to music and our own playing. Had those ideas been presented to us in a specifically musical context from the beginning, our instinct might well have been quite different. The pressure of our musical education may rear its ugly head, we might stiffen slightly, as though feeling the conversation were somehow a criticism of our playing.

In some ways that feels very close to the heart of good teaching. Sometimes a musical truth becomes clearer when it arrives through another doorway: through sport, through language, through anything that reveals the same human patterns. The student is free to recognise the principle for themselves rather than feeling that it has been imposed upon them.

The connection between sport and music appears quite naturally at Wells Cathedral School. One of our tennis coaches works with some of our senior musicians, not to teach tennis, but to help them think about performance. The conversations are not framed in musical terms. Instead, they draw on ideas from sports psychology: how attention works, how the body responds to pressure, and how performers can recognise and manage physical or mental tension. For some students this makes it easier to talk openly about performance anxiety or discomfort.

Without really planning it that way, we find ourselves supporting the same principles that run through both sport and music at the highest level. Elite performance requires not only skill and preparation, but also a healthy relationship with the mind under pressure.

Long before I encountered Gallwey’s writing, I had stumbled across something similar through sport myself. As a student I spent some time competing in high jump. I was good, but as the height increased to levels above my head things felt very scary. I remember an enlightened coach suggesting that instead of standing upright at the end of the runway and looking directly at the bar, I should crouch down and look up at it from a lower position, the bar now appearing miles high. When I stood up again, the bar suddenly appeared much more manageable. It helped me make a breakthrough to leap higher than my own height.

The obstacle itself had not changed. Only my perception of it had. It was a small piece of coaching, but a memorable one, and I have never forgotten it. The coach had clearly experienced something similar in his own field and was looking for ways to help his athletes approach the challenge differently. In retrospect it was a wonderful example of teaching in action.

Something similar happened when I competed in sprint races. Occasionally I found myself running in situations where there was very little pressure. Sometimes I was filling in for a relay team at short notice, or simply helping the team score points. Curiously, those races often produced some of my fastest times. With less expectation came greater freedom of movement, and the body simply did what it had been trained to do. Those experiences from sport began to illuminate something I had long sensed as a musician.

For many years I noticed a curious contradiction in my own violin playing. Performing a single piece lasting six minutes could feel strangely intimidating. Yet if I knew I was about to play for forty-five minutes I often felt noticeably more relaxed. The music itself was no easier. The difference was psychological. Over forty-five minutes I knew something would go well eventually. Over six minutes there seemed to be the frightening possibility that everything might go wrong.

This raises an interesting question for musicians. What exactly constitutes a mistake?

In my work with the Benedetti Foundation, young players are often reminded that mistakes are cool. It is a mantra that runs through much of the Foundation’s work, particularly in its large group sessions. At first hearing that phrase can sound slightly provocative in a musical culture that places such emphasis on accuracy. Yet it points towards something important. A mistake is often defined only by the performer’s expectations. An audience experiences something rather different:  the shape of the music, the colour of the sound and the sense of communication in the room. Their perception is rarely as microscopic as that of the performer.

Like many musicians, I have regularly left the stage feeling dissatisfied with aspects of my playing, only to receive thoughtful and enthusiastic responses from listeners whose musical judgement I respect deeply. I remember one performance of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time particularly clearly. The violin writing in that piece is extraordinarily demanding. After forty minutes of intense and sometimes muscular playing, the final movement requires something completely different. The violin line must float almost weightlessly above a series of piano chords. The music feels suspended in time. By the end of the movement, I felt completely exhausted. Under my ear it seemed that my bow was shaking uncontrollably. I left the stage convinced that the fragility I had felt physically must have been obvious to everyone in the hall. I felt exposed and inadequate, unable to produce the quality I knew I was capable of in the practice room.

Some time later (I was far too disappointed to do so soon after) I listened to a recording of the performance. The bow shakes that had seemed so alarming to me were completely inaudible. From the listener’s perspective the musical line simply continued. That experience stayed with me. It illustrates something musicians often find surprising: the physical sensations we experience while playing do not always — and in fact often do not — correspond to what the audience hears.

I was reminded of this very clearly when I once took a group of students to the Royal Academy of Music to attend a masterclass with Maxim Vengerov. Sitting only a couple of metres away from him at the front of Duke’s Hall, one could hear every detail under the bow: the grit of each bow change, the articulation of every attack. From there it sounded absolutely filthy, but also exhilarating.

Suspecting that the experience might be very different further away, I went upstairs to the very back of the hall. From there the sound was completely transformed. What reached the ear at the back of Duke’s Hall was unbelievable clarity, projection and quality. I am quite sure that Vengerov himself would have heard much the same grit and friction under his own ear as I had heard standing close to him. But great performers understand this. They know what the audience needs to hear, and they know the sacrifices they sometimes have to make under their own ear in order that the audience experience is thrilling.

When working with students I sometimes talk about developing three sets of ears.

The first set of ears is the sound we imagine, the ideal performance that exists in our musical imagination. Perhaps it is the beautiful, effortless sound of a great player we admire. For a violinist it might be the warmth and ease of Fritz Kreisler’s tone. That imagined sound becomes the model we are aiming for.

The second set of ears is the sound we actually hear while we are playing. This is the sound under our ear. It is loud, immediate and often rather unforgiving. Every imperfection seems magnified, and for some musicians that can be quite intimidating.

The third set of ears is the sound at the back of the hall. This is the sound the audience hears. It is also the sound we must eventually learn to trust, even though we cannot experience it directly while we are performing.

This is where teachers, recordings and listeners become so valuable. They help us understand how the sound under our ear translates into the sound in the hall. Over time the second set of ears begins to accept certain compromises. What feels slightly rough or exaggerated under the ear may be exactly what produces clarity, projection and beauty for the audience.

In that sense the second set of ears becomes the meeting point between the other two. The imagined ideal sound guides us from one direction, and the reality of the hall informs us from the other. Learning to balance those two perspectives is one of the quiet skills of performing.

Another perspective on performance has emerged through my own playing. I trained as a violinist and spent many years thinking of myself primarily in that role. In recent years, as my conducting work has increased, I have found myself playing the viola more frequently in chamber music. Some of the most rewarding chamber music experiences I have had recently have been on that instrument. The reason, I suspect, is largely psychological. When I play the viola I do not feel the same sense of scrutiny that sometimes accompanies the violin. Instead, I feel useful. My attention moves naturally towards listening, shaping phrases and supporting the musicians around me.

Freed from the need to judge myself constantly, the playing often takes care of itself. The experience also feeds back into my violin playing. The viola reminds me what it feels like to play in a relaxed mental state. When I return to the violin, I sometimes try to recreate that same sense of musical contribution rather than self-evaluation. More often than not, the playing improves as a result.

I remember a lesson many years ago with Gábor Takács-Nagy, the great quartet leader, that has stayed with me ever since. When I was struggling with a passage he said something rather disarming. Ask yourself whether the problem is in your left hand or your right hand. Then remember that it is always the right hand.

At first this sounded like a straightforward comment about bow control. Over time I realised that it was also a subtle psychological instruction. When the bow is organised and relaxed, the left hand often settles naturally. By shifting attention away from the place where we feel anxious and towards something stable, the body often solves the original problem on its own.

I notice something similar when working with students. When demonstrating a passage, I might ask them to watch my bow. Yet more often than not their eyes drift instinctively to my left hand. The fingers appear to contain the secret. Many pupils assume that the left hand holds all the answers. In reality the right hand is at least as important and often more so. The bow is where so much of the sound, control and musical character actually comes from.

As Pinchas Zukerman regularly says, holding the bow up to show his students and audiences, “the bow is your bank balance.” It is the side, the stick, that actually creates the sound. The left hand, important though it is, is really only altering the length of the string.

I often find myself thinking about tennis when working with string players. The majestic and beautifully balanced backhand of Roger Federer has always reminded me of a great bow stroke. There is the same sense of economy, balance and natural flow in the movement. The athlete is not forcing the action. The body simply releases the energy that has been trained over many thousands of repetitions.

(Tennis again. I should add that my own bowing is considerably better than any backhand I have ever hit.)

When people ask me who my most important teachers have been, I naturally think first of the wonderful violinists and musicians from whom I learned so much. But one teacher who influenced me profoundly was not a musician at all. When I was a young boy living in America, my karate teacher taught me lessons about balance, focus and freedom of movement that have stayed with me ever since. At the time I had no idea those lessons would later inform my musical life. Yet I suspect that some of what I learned on the dojo floor helped me become a freer musician.

In my own teaching I sometimes ask a simple question. What is practice?

My answer is that practice is really the process of learning to teach yourself. It is the ability to observe what you are doing, to experiment, to notice what works and what does not, and gradually refine your approach. Much of that work happens when the student is alone with their instrument. The teacher’s role is not simply to provide answers. It is to act as an experienced pair of ears and help illuminate the most productive path forward.

Part of that path involves learning to trust the work that has already been done.

Of course, some of these realisations may only settle with time. Like many musicians, I feel that I am still discovering them in my late forties and continuing to improve as a result. Part of me sometimes wonders whether I was told some of these things much earlier and simply was not ready to hear them. Even so, it seems worth opening the door to these ideas for students as early as possible. The journey towards confidence and freedom in performance will always involve experience. Teachers can help show the direction.

The aim of musical education is not simply to produce musicians who play accurately. It is to help develop musicians who trust themselves enough to play freely.

Sometimes that freedom begins with a quiet realisation. Trying slightly less hard often allows the music to speak more clearly than trying too hard ever could.